Mixed Feelings: The Complex Lives of Mixed-Race Britons

By Yasmin Alibhai-Brown.
A Women’s Press
£11.99
ISBN 0 7043 4706 7

This
book explores attitudes to mixed relationships (mixed relationships here
essentially means black and white relationships) from early civilisation to the
present day.

Statistics,
qualitative research carried out for this book, as well as other research, are
used to describe present day experiences.

How
useful is this book for social care workers and their agencies, and will it
help them think more clearly about the placement needs of mixed-race children
in their care?

While
the book provides very useful background reading for the subject it is not
likely to move the debate on. On the contrary, it follows the path of other
authors on this subject and reiterates the view that, in relation to the
placement of such children, social workers and their agencies operate so that
"blackness" is privileged above all other identities.

I
do not think it is either fair or helpful to quote bad practice examples as
evidence to push a particular opinion (in this case, the view that it is
political correctness that informs placement practice of mixed-race children),
and would have liked to see a more objective view on this matter.

Ratna
Dutt is director of independent race equality body REU.