Melanie Janine Brown
a.k.a"Scary Spice"
Birthname:
Nicknames: 
Birthdate:
Melanie Janine Brown
Scary Spice, Blazin' Bad Zula, Mel-Odd, Mel B
May 29, 1975
Star Sign:
Height:
HomeTown:
Apple Tree:
Gemini
5'5
Leeds, England
Mum-Andrea, Dad-Martin,
Sister-Danielle, Daughter-Phoenix Chi
Food:
Color: 
Music:
Designer: 
Fish'n'chips
Yellow
Rap, Hip-Hop, Reggae, Jungle
Jean-Paul Gaultier, Boylondon
My mum's white and my dad's black and they used to get a lot of stick about being together, so they knew that I might have problems when they brought me into the world. Even when I was born, somebody asked my mum: "If the world was split in two parts, strictly black or strictly white, where would your daughter be?" I was lucky that my mum and dad were so cool when I was growing up. They respected each other's cultures and mixed them and were happy about it, which is rare. You find that a lot of mixed race kids feel quite lost if their parents sway one way or the other and are prejudiced against white or black. That's where the confusion starts - you get mixed race kids hating black or white people, or just not knowing whether to turn to their mum or to their dad for an answer to any questions. I think people blend either to the black side or to the white side because they have a real fear of standing strong and saying: "This is me. I'm mixed race." I didn't see colour for a long time because it wasn't an issue at home.

Then, as I started growing up, I sometimes saw a difference in the way people acted towards me. When I was in primary school, I used to get called 'Paki', because they didn't know what else to call me. It was like, "Well, what is she, then?" The teachers didn't seem to know how to deal with the mixed race thing, either. Sometimes I'd go to my parents and say: "I'm being called this or that-and why am I this colour?" They'd just say: "Because you are." They didn't give me any intense explanations or advice. They just let me get on with it. So I worked on myself and made myself happy. I used to write a lot if I had a problem, and that helped. I realised that you have to create your own thing. You have to realise that you're in the middle, and respect both sides. In a way, it's a fairer outlook on life because you can't have a problem with colour if you're in the middle! But then you find people who will create a problem because they just can't accept that they're two colours blended.

It's difficult because it often seems like there isn't a place for mixed race people to fit in. You get your black communities and your white communities. You get your black churches, your white churches, your mixed churches, your Indian and your Muslim places of worship, but you don't get anything for mixed race people. I'm not saying being mixed race is a defined culture and has a history - It hasn't because society has always been so separate. But, now in the 1990s we're more mixed than ever. You get people who are a half this, a quarter that and a quarter of something else, which is great. the only problem is that there are a lot of kids growing up who don't feel they belong anywhere.
 

I'd say to them that you have to listen to yourself and not take sides with any colour. When you're mixed race, you're living proof that society has changed, that barriers have broken down and people are coming together a lot more, so you should be standing proud and saying: "Yes, I'm mixed race."

But a lot of kids don't see it that way-they see it as not really fitting in anywhere. I think you don't have to fit in. You create your own thing.

But when I was younger, I did have problems knowing where I fitted in. I had black friends and I also had white friends and some of my black friends would be completely on the black side dissing the whites, while some of my white friends were completely on the white side and didn't quite understand what was going on on the black side. They would ask: "What's the big problem about it all?" They didn't know about the history of black culture, all the suffering and everything.

I was different to my mixed race friends at school because I respected both black and white and I didn't hang around with any one specific colour. I didn't speak the black ghetto language, but then again I wasn't stuffy and snobby and so-called white. I got on with everyone, so I got called 'Bounty', meaning someone who's black on the outside and white on the inside. I used to think: "Why are they calling me that?" I couldn't understand it.

A lot of mixed race people have different features to black and white people and sometimes it's hard for them to  know if someone's being racist to them because of their colour or because they're jealous of their complexion, looks or hair. White girls always used to say to me: "I've had so many perms to get my hair like yours." And black girls would ask: "How can I get my hair like yours?" and I'd say, "Well, I don't know. This is just how it is."

I've come across racism from white and black people, but I never let it affect me. The way I see it, well, it's their problem, not mine. I know who I am. At one time I had a black boyfriend and went to a lot of black gospel churches with him and his parents, but a lot of the black girls didn't like me at all. I used to get spat at on my way into college, in the black area of Leeds. I just got used to it. It was like the norm-oh , a black girl's being funny with me, that's fair enough. But, I think it's changed now. I really saw a difference when I went out clubbing in Leeds over Christmas and I got black girls coming up to me and saying: "Well done!"

Maybe that's because I've done a couple of interviews-one for Pride magazine and one for 'Black Britain' on TV. I'd always wanted to be on 'Black Britain' and it was really, really good to get the chance to talk about mixed race issues. Times are really
changing-all the stereotypes are breaking down. for instance, I spoke to Tricky in New York and he told me that people thought he was weird at school because he wasn't into the so-called black music. But, now he's broken down barriers in a brilliant way by making his own kind of  left-field music. Although there are always going to be problems with colour, mixing up the races diffuses the situation. I think that once people see that you're alright with yourself, it breaks down the barriers and there isn't a problem. The answer is to be yourself. "Be proud of who you are and where you come from. Whoever you are."

This was taken from an article written by Melanie Brown