People can be unthinking, Meghan – a guest at my son’s christening asked if he was the milkman’s

Amid the ongoing fallout from Omid Scobie’s new book, here’s an interesting aside. Endgame elaborates on an incident mentioned by Harry and Meghan during their interview with Oprah Winfrey in 2021, in which senior members of the household were reputed to have wondered aloud how dark their son Archie might be.

The story has been routinely described in reports as “explosive” and ”shocking”. As a mother of two mixed-heritage boys, I’m neither shocked nor surprised.

As soon as I began dating my husband, whose mum and dad were from Barbados, we knew that we wanted to be together and have a family. My dad was from Italy, so essentially we were true Londoners. Nobody batted an eyelid that we were in a mixed relationship. At least, not to our faces.

Our first son was born in 2002, and christened when he was around six months’ old. Unlike Harry and Meghan, nobody had ever voiced any concerns about the fact we had a mixed-race child. It never occurred to us that they would. Both sides of the family had got on from the start, and our group of friends were as blended as the city we lived in.

The day of the christening was an eclectic celebration of all our backgrounds. At the gathering afterwards, there was pasta arrabiata and flying fish and macaroni cheese. On the playlist was calypso music, Lauryn Hill and Dean Martin. All was well until the moment I caught a friend’s wife glancing at my son – who has very light skin – and, not realising I was in earshot, ask with a chuckle: “Are they sure he’s not the milkman’s?”

I understand that the reference is supposed to be a joke, that it is often said to couples whose kids don’t look like the parents, or don’t look alike. But as a mixed-race family, it’s hard to not also see the potential for unconscious racism.

People with dual heritage often have a keen sense of not belonging – that they’re “too white” to fit into Black communities, or “too Black” to be accepted into wider society. It can feel as though they must make a choice to be either solely Black or white, when in fact, of course, they are both.

TV presenter Miquita Oliver recently wrote about her experience in Mixed Messages, a newsletter exploring the duality of the mixed-heritage experience in the UK today. “The only time I felt empowered by being mixed-race was to figure out the white side of me as much as the other side that is visually important to people,” she said.

I’ve learnt over the years that the mixed-heritage experience is often about nuance and perception. To many white people, having non-white skin simply means they are Black, which negates a mixed-race person’s true identity. It’s only in recent years that the dreadful term “half-caste” has become unacceptable, but I remember flinching when older relatives casually used it to describe my oldest when he was a baby – and then having to explain how insulting it is.

My two sons, now both young men, have read John Agard’s poem “Half-Caste”, which uses the term ironically to cast a light on its ramifications: “An when the moon begin to glow, I half-caste a human being, cast half a shadow.” When they were young, we told both boys they were allowed to correct those who used the term, and to stop people from touching their hair – a weird and frequent occurrence. It was a small way to empower them and to guard against them being made to feel “othered”.

To my mind, the incident over Archie’s skin colour, and whether it was racist or “just” unconscious bias, doesn’t matter, for unconscious bias is still a form of racism, one that’s hidden in plain sight.

As parents, we are fiercely protective of the casual racism that can occur. Just the other day, at parents’ evening, my youngest son’s teacher remarked that he was surprised at how good he was at maths. “Why?” I asked after he repeated it several times. “Just because of the way he looks,” came the answer. (I later wrote to complain and explain the implications of this comment.)

While my boys have had some negative experiences, the positives of being mixed-race thankfully outweigh them. We’ve consciously tried to give them a clear pathway to tap into all of their heritage. They have loving relationships with their Black and white relatives. At home, we often talk about race and identity, which is not static but an evolving process.

We metaphorically raise a glass to celebrate their rich roots – and don’t mention the milkman.