Half-Caste: Decidedly Brown in a Black or White World

By Jerome Cranston

Part social commentary and very much a memoir, Half-Caste: Decidedly Brown in a Black or White World, describes and examines the contemporary pressures that many people from multiracial and mixed ethnicities face in developing their racialized social identity so that they and others may feel comfortable with who they are and how they identify themselves in their own skin. By exploring personal and sensitive topics, such as ethnic and racialized identity formation and drawing on the racism he faced, Jerome Cranston offers insight to the struggles of coming to terms with accepting and declaring his identity as being decidedly Brown.

Throughout Half-Caste: Decidedly Brown in a Black or White World, Cranston shares the challenges and ultimate discovery of his understanding and acceptance that his being Brown is more than just a statement of an identity, it is an understanding of who he is, how he will relate to others and how he will flourish in a world that is divided along ethnic and racialized lines.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tellwell Talent
• Release date: Jul 30, 2023
• ISBN: 9780228895237

Jerome Cranston

Jerome Cranston (he/him) is a critical race scholar whose life's work has focused on identifying societal inequities in order to find solutions that are more racially just for those often denied justice. Cranston holds a Ph.D. (Manitoba), M.Ed. (Lethbridge), B.Ed. & B.Sc. (Alberta), and is a much sought after presenter, consultant and educator/educational leader.

Book preview

Half-Caste

Decidedly Brown in a

Black or White World

Jerome Cranston

Half-Caste

Copyright © 2023 by Jerome Cranston

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Tellwell Talent

www.tellwell.ca

ISBN

978-0-2288-9522-0 (Hardcover)

978-0-2288-9521-3 (Paperback)

978-0-2288-9523-7 (eBook)

Contents

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Dedication

I spent too much time and expended too much mental and emotional energy trying to understand why my life existed in so many ways outside of a stifling social hierarchy that I believed was real. For much of my life I yearned to be average, and just like everyone else.

No matter how hard I tried, and I did try, I couldn’t fit in through the sifting and sorting process through which other people got to decide where I belonged. And, they mostly decided my place was on the outside looking in.

Many times I came close to accepting the seat on the bus they had assigned to me. The one near the rear of it.

But, I just couldn’t and wouldn’t.

As a form of linguistic reclamation, I accept that I am half-caste. It hasn’t always been easy and will not always be, but in deciding to be comfortable in my own skin - consummately Brown - I have chosen a life that has been and still is an exception to many unchallenged social norms.

And, so this book is dedicated to each and every person who has been and might still be considered or labelled as somehow less than or less worthy.

In a world built on an architecture of systemic racism and steeped in inequities - a social order weighed down by out-dated biases based on misguided concepts of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and ability-level - regrettably the value of a human being is still being weighed and judged by others. Even though by now we all know it shouldn’t be.

I hope by the end of this book you begin to accept that you most certainly are not anything less.

You are simply an exception to a flawed system that was designed to keep you on the outside peering in.

But, being an exception is precisely what makes you exceptional.

It isn’t always easy to be an exception, but learn to lean into and on your exceptionality.

Trust me, more than ever before the world needs exceptional people just like you, and me.

Chapter 1

And here it was. Again.

It was not the first time I had fielded this question or faced a self-appointed inquisitor. It happened so often, in fact, I’d lost track of the number and places. A taxi driver from the airport to my hotel. Parents at my kids’ sporting events. Colleagues after a meeting. This time, a grey-haired woman in an achingly long coffee shop queue. Unable to exit politely from this recurring scene of my life, I prepared, yet again, to endure the uncomfortable, inevitable awkwardness of it all.

Well, I grew up just north of Montreal. In a small town. It had maybe ten or twelve thousand people back then. When I was nineteen, I left. I just felt like I needed a change.

I hoped my brief and undetailed explanation was enough.

I knew it wouldn’t be.

My inquisitor had drawn an imaginary line that I had yet to cross over. I had not satisfied her need to know. I had not assuaged her uncertainties about me.

The woman hung on my last word, change, waiting for something to come next. I was sure she was familiar with small-talk mores—avoid politics, religion, health history, and, of course, sexuality—and would adhere to them in this first encounter. She’d know it’s poor form to mention body type, visible disabilities, how someone has done their make-up, or the cut of their clothing. Asking me, however, a racialized person, about my race or ethnicity or nationality seemed fair game.

I shifted my weight from one foot to the other and imagined the questions running through her mind.

Is he Black?

Indigenous?

Latino?

Indian?

Something else?

That quandary over something else often pushes my inquisitors to demand an expanded explanation. If I presented more clearly as Black, Indigenous, Latino, or Indian would they press so hard? Would they ask the question at all?

As the person at the front of the line stepped away from the cashier, the frosty-haired woman and I moved up in tandem, and I took my cue.

It’s kind of complicated, I said. I came out west to Edmonton to go to university. To get away. Things at home weren’t good. And I guess I just sort of decided to remain on the Prairies.

She offered a demure smile, raised an eyebrow, dipped her chin at a subtle angle. Then she uttered the phrase I’d heard so many times.

No, I mean where are you from? Before that? You know, before north of Montreal.

My spirit sank. I felt the tension building in the muscles between my eyebrows, the ones that tread a fine line between conveying polite interest and alarm. I hoped my face expressed the former but worried that the somewhat prominent vein running down the centre of my forehead was bulging. A giveaway. I tried not to look self-conscious.

Take a full and complete breath in and out before responding, I consciously thought.

"Well, I was born in Hull. You know, Hull, England. It was, maybe still is, a dreary coal-shipping port city. It’s up on the northeast coast. We came to Canada when I was four, in 1967. On a small steamer. You know, a boat. The Empress of Ireland. At least I think that was the ship’s name."

Her vague smile never quivered as she listened.

Do White people ask each other this question? I wondered. I tried to imagine it. Maybe it happens, I thought, but around here or down the road would likely be comforting enough to move on. Maybe an unusual surname would spark the question.

That’s an interesting last name. Where does it come from?

But then, It’s Irish or It’s Dutch, would almost certainly suffice, perhaps even elicit excited responses.

"I love Irish dance! I especially loved The Lord of the Dance show. I saw it twice! Oh, and Guinness beer!"

Maybe if I was Dutch, they would mention the sound of wooden clogs on a hardwood floor.

Never would Whiteness alone provide the impetus for a random person to inquire, Where are you from? And if the question arose for other reasons, the origin story offered would be enough. I wanted to stop talking about this, but there were still two people ahead of us in the coffee line, and I had yet to satisfy her curiosity.

There are few certainties in life. For me, this is one. Until I offer up a version of my origin story that goes back far enough to explain my racialized existence, this conversation will not end.

No, the woman said, "I mean where are you really from?"

I knew it was coming, but still I winced as she emphasized the qualifier. Really. Born of suspicion. Delivered with entitlement. I took another cleansing breath and reminded myself she was probably not trying to be hurtful. She probably thought she was being friendly. She probably considered her question innocuous. Is there such a thing as innocent racialized curiosity? I exhaled, an effort to relieve the heaviness in my chest, and asked, How far back do you want me to go?

The conversation stayed with me through the day, as it always does. Though an encounter with someone I don’t know, or barely know, it is, nonetheless, a damaging dialogic experience. It is exhausting. Some days, I cling to the belief that the people who ask this question possess a clueless innocence or an entitled curiosity that allows them to believe they have a right to inquire about something so deeply personal. Other times, I try to see this intrusive icebreaker as nothing more than a socially awkward attempt to start a conversation, and then I try to forgive.

But its prevalence in my social interactions challenges the excuses I make for others. The impact of being repeatedly asked, "… but where are you really from?" renders me a perpetual foreigner in a country where I have lived for over fifty years. It leaves me in the outer boundary of a mainstream White society and forces me to provide reasons for how I actually belong to it.

During more than five decades in Canada, I have resided in four of its thirteen provinces and territories. I was formally educated in Canada over a period of more than twenty years and hold four university degrees from three Canadian universities. I am fluent in the country’s two official languages, English and French. My friends in the US and Mexico refer to me as their Canadian colleague. I have represented Canadian institutions in multiple countries. In my academic writing, publishers have asked me to make my manuscripts less Canadian, to replace Canadian writing conventions like colour and centre and the doubling of consonants in words with suffixes.

While the colour of my skin and the complexity of my more prominent physical features owe their origins to a lengthy and unclear history of interracial unions, I enjoy the food and music that most Canadians enjoy. I can ski, downhill and cross-country. I can skate and used to play hockey—yes, on ice—though I didn’t play it particularly well. I like to hike and camp. I love to spend time in the mountains and have swum in two of the three oceans that surround Canada. I have even slept in a quinzhee on nights when