Hello, my name is Bradley Lincoln and I am the founder of the Multiple Heritage Project. I want to share with you what I have learnt from our work across the country. This is my contribution to the ongoing discussion about mix-d indentity...let me tell you where this all began.

My Father is Black Jamaican and my mother is White British. When I was young I had an experience that went something like this...

My parents split up when I was about four and I would visit my Dad at weekends and go on holidays with him and his second family. During one holiday I was called names and got into a fight with some boys. After the fight my Dad asked what all the fuss was about. I told him the boys had called me a "nigger" and "blackie". He responded by saying: "...Well, you are not Black, so what are you worrying about?"

This statement left me feeling slightly confused but I soon pushed the incident to the back of my mind. A similar thing happened a few months later when I was back at my mother's. I got into another argument with some boys at school and they made similar remarks. This time it was my Mum I told and she said: “Tell them you're Black and proud.”

Despite her obvious efforts to offer comfort, it only added to my growing sense (I was about nine when this happened) that there was something not quite adding up for me personally. It was the first feeling I had of the tug of loyalties which later grew into the 'mix-d' concept.

Again, later, I came to recognise that monoheritage perspectives, Black or White, were very different to the daily living of my own mix-d identity.

On reflection, I can see this moment in my life representing a sense of 'nowhereness' – a feeling of not completely fitting in or belonging. So, I looked in many places to demystify some of what troubled me and tried to find a place of 'somewhereness' a place where I belonged and was represented – only to discover that the mix-d concept didn't exist.

We were invisible within the curriculum local and national policy, or negatively stereotyped.

Eventually, I decided that it was important to give myself permission to create my own sense of 'groundedness', which I feel is about having confidence in my identity and pride in being mix-d. I have met and spoken with many people across the country who have had very similar experiences to me. But whether the story is the much the same or actually quite different, it doesn't really matter. The important thing is that the experience of mix-d young people is heard, listened to and understood.

With an older head on my shoulders, I am now able to see my confusion during childhood was not mine alone - but a condition that I had to unlearn.

Bradley continues to work closely with social theorist Malcolm Evans in the development of the Mix-d concept. Their joint interest is in refining and evolving a methodology to accelerate the historic conflict away from Mix-d wherever it occurs, replacing brittle and contested identities with solidity and celebration. Malcolm's own social enterprise work can be seen at weightfoundation.com and his organisational and socio-political ideas at cultureship.com