Growing up in a White Community as a Biracial Teen - with Michelle Perry - a podcast by Helen Wills

I got goosebumps listening back to the clips in the introduction for this podcast – Michelle has such a fantastic outlook on life – I promise this one is a must listen!

Michelle Perry’s father was black, but he left the family home when she was 3, and she grew up in her mother’s white Jewish community. As a child she had no black influences in her life at all.

Michelle talks about how until she was 12 years old she thought she was white – it took meeting her first black people at school for her to realise she was black. We talked about how shocking that felt to her, how she processed the realisation, and the troubled times she went through before coming to terms with her biracial identity.

We touched on current conversations about anti-racism efforts, and how white people can help by getting past their lack of knowledge and understanding, and by speaking out without fear.

We also talked about how much language matters when white people refer to black and biracial people – Michelle clarified a few things for me there too. She has a very robust attitude to conversations about race that I found really refreshing and useful.

Having used her experiences to support other young people in social work, and then taking on advisory roles in her corporate career, Michelle is now a life coach and teacher at successfuldiligence.com. She also has an amazing podcast full of useful tips and interviews to empower listeners to live a more empowered life. I’ve absolutely loved this free resource so do give it a listen at The Successful Diligence Podcast. 

There are lots more episodes of the Teenage Kicks podcast – do have a browse and see if I’ve covered anything else you might find useful. And if you have a suggestion of something you’d like to see talked about on the podcast please do email me on teenagekickspodcast@gmail.com I have loads more fabulous guests coming up to help families navigate some of the most complicated – but wonderful – teenage parenting years. I’ve also got some posts on the blog that might help parents with other teenage parenting dilemmas, so do pop over to Actually Mummy if you fancy a read.

Thank you so much for listening! Subscribe now to the Teenage Kicks podcast to hear all my new episodes. I'll be talking to some fabulous guests about difficult things that happened to them as teenagers - including losing a parent, becoming a young carer, and being hospitalised with mental health problems - and how they overcame things to move on with their lives.

I'd love it if you'd rate and review the podcast on iTunes too - it would really help other people to find it. You can also find more from me on parenting teenagers on my blog Actually Mummy, and on Instagram and Twitter @iamhelenwills.

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Please note that I am not a medical expert, and nothing in the podcast should be taken as medical advice.

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