Old American, light skinned, holding British to be useless (9)
I believe the answer is:
incapable
'be useless' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'old american light skinned holding british' is the wordplay.
'old american' becomes 'Inca' (the Inca were a South American people).
'light skinned' becomes 'pale' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should believe this answer much more).
'holding' is an insertion indicator.
'british' becomes 'b' (abbreviation e.g. in BBC).
'pale' placed around 'b' is 'pable'.
'inca'+'pable'='INCAPABLE'
'to' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for incapable that I've seen before include "Hopelessly drunk; incompetent" , "Possibly hammered" , "Extremely drunk" , "lacking ability" , "helpless" .)