Migrants in dinghies aren’t our enemies
Emily Jones,
UK
People in the UK can have the most horrendous attitude to migrants and refugees fleeing problems OUR COUNTRY CREATED in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. People phone the police and coastguard whenever they see a non-white person in a dinghy. “I think they might be a migrant.” Why do you think that? Are POC only allowed to exist in inland cities? “Why can’t migrants seek refuge in other countries?” They do, in their hundreds of thousands. The people that come here are just the tip of the iceberg. The ones that come here usually have family or friends here, or speak the language that we forced on half the world. Just let them in. Let them in and make them safe.
I’m white. How can I help?
Anonymous,
UK
I feel that as a white American I have the ability to help and I want to help. I also feel that there are many bad ways to help that don’t improve anything. I want to make a positive change, I don’t want to put my mind into something and have it be negative. This is why I ask, How can I help? I want to help make a positive impact, I need to know how to do it.
I have an Indian accent, so?
Batul Roowala,
United Kingdom
Born and brought up in Mumbai.. I migrated to the U.K., working as a pharmacist, 18yrs ago. Still at times I get mocked at for my Indian accent and usually it’s by the people of my ‘own’ race!
Black teenage hoodie carried my case
Sylvia Potter,
Uk
The sort of appearance that you are supposed to be wary of. Politely offered to help, carried my case up the stairs.
Double standards and mutual racial fragility
Lily,
UK
I don’t understand why people on all sides of the racial debate, despite wanting equality, suddenly splutter and get defensive when people criticize another race, even when it is valid. I see white people replying “all lives matter”, because they feel that “black lives matter” is somehow diminishing them. I also see black people in online spaces who get defensive whenever a negative aspect of black culture is highlighted and blame white supremacy as if that negates responsibility and makes expectations of personal agency unreasonable.
Surely, if our goal is to ensure that race – which cannot be changed (yet, waiting on science to make it a choice) – no longer matters, and pursue equality, I think we need to be open about it. I see white people saying that racism doesn’t exist and that black people are “the real racists”, and black people saying that all whites are racist and share sole responsibility for helping black people.
It doesn’t make sense to keep passing the buck back and forth when we already agree on the solution: stop discriminating. I am not advocating for complete “color-blindness”, but rather that we acknowledge what has happened and opt to not perpetuate it. We acknowledge that discrimination exists, and choose consciously to refuse to continue the cycle.
I am a white (MtF) woman, and I wouldn’t want to be called “white trash”, “cracker”, or “white devil”, just as a black person wouldn’t want to be called the N-word, or the C-word, or J-a-B.
The way the media buries white hate crime victims (unless they’re too huge to ignore, like that one disabled guy who got tortured by four racist black girls), makes me feel that my efforts to reject and challenge racism are going unreciprocated. I feel like the onus is always on me when we should be lifting each other up and bonding over the common acknowledgment that being victimized is a horrible experience for any human to experience.
How did we get the idea that understanding that white people can be victims too become an attack against the black community, or somehow implicitly racist? It may not happen as bad, or as often, but I doubt that matters to the actual victim of a hate crime. If I’m being beaten, or robbed, or murdered, am I really going to care that other people are getting it more often?
The buzzword “white fragility” is thrown around a lot, but every time I mention that we can also be victims, people freak out as if I’m trying to steal their thunder or something. There is nothing wrong with adding nuance to a conversation, in my opinion.
The reparations will never end now
John,
England
Before I had any sense of nuance, I looked at race relations across the pond and here in the UK, the way the media had intended for me to see it. Whites are the aggressors, blacks are the victims. Granted it wasn’t always so – I’m old enough to recall various newspapers getting away with snide to blatant racism a couple of decades ago. But today is a very different world – where despite the obvious advances in equality, 1 incident too many derails everything. A black man is killed in police custody in America, by a white man. Yet another horrific statistic, and yet the numbers don’t point to a racist society at all. It’s easy to say that nobody should be dying in police custody, it’s not so easy to proclaim that white people are worse off in this area – for fear of being labelled a racist. Have nuance, play devil’s advocate – it doesn’t matter, if you’re in a discussion with the current political mindset, you are a bigot, you are a white supremacist.
Suddenly, my entire country is racist, our statues of well know philanthropists are torn down because they owned a slave or ‘had racist thoughts’ centuries ago, our memorials of war are desecrated, flags burned and previous leaders through the country’s toughest moments, are vandalized – all in the angry name of the race. Every day, our publicly funded-via a television tax- ‘independent’ broadcaster, the BBC has several more stories race-baiting, articles about how we are all racist towards black people, regardless of any circumstance or counterclaim – you have ‘unconscious bias’.
Yesterday, the BBC claimed that football commentators had a racial bias in that they were 3-6 times more likely to praise a black players ‘speed or power’ but 60% of comments about ‘intelligence and work ethic’ were towards white players. Today, black players have been ‘urged to form a coalition’. Race relations are dead according to the media. The most privileged, extortionately well paid black men in the UK, need to protect themselves from such a vile country apparently.
Forget what percentages mean. Forget the fact that the country is majority white. Forget that ‘speed and power’ are positives in the game. Forget the definition of Racism. The new one? ‘Privilege + Power = Racism.’ This of course means, black people cannot be racist. It’s a phrase that is trotted out in colleges and universities all over the west – Something I’m sure, the rest of the world looks on in bemusement. It feels like a war is coming, one that’ll be fabricated by the media, only making things worse. One moron will commit some heinous crime and it will be seen as ‘proof’ that the whole country is awash in racist sentiment. May the silent majority, black and white, stay sane.
I’m so scared of being racist
Willow H.,
UK
Since I can remember, I’ve been taught that a bigot was one of the worst things a person can be and I have always agreed. I still do. I think that hating someone for something like race or gender or sexuality is a horrible thing and all my friends and family agree.
Almost two years ago now, when I was thirteen years old, I was writing for a project I am still working on to this day. I won’t go into details, but my vision for this world was a dystopia in which the chaos has turned all countries into groups much like criminal gangs, so all people are born neutral with a number for a name and then join a country when they get older, rather than being born somewhere. The main gangs the storyline focuses on are France and Japan, as well as America and a few other places (but less so).
This resulted in white characters with Japanese names, which I didn’t even think about until my friend’s boyfriend (who has always been really kind to me) told me that this was “racism and cultural appropriation” and that if I showed my project to the public they may view it as such. I was shocked and I completely freaked out.
After much crying, hyperventilating and obsessively researching the subject for hours on end, I came to the conclusion that things may or may not be fine. I’m still not entirely sure. It took me months to be able to look a person of colour in the eyes without fearing that I would say something out of line and offend them. The slightest suggestion that I might be racist now, even just a petty joke, can send me spiralling. I don’t know why or if anything is wrong with me, but I can’t even hear the word “race” without feelings of dread and fear rising within me.
Here’s a couple of examples of things that set off my fear now:
-The fact that I am white and I like anime and cosplay. And yes, roll your eyes all you want, but I really do like the Japanese language and hope to learn it sometime in the future. This only made matters worse, however, as I often see people saying that white people enjoying anime is cultural appropriation.
-I once watched a video that said that white people using non-white emojis is cultural appropriation. If I happen to remember this while scrolling through my emojis, I tend to get upset all over again.
-The fact that “people of colour” and “coloured people” are such similar phrases with such different connotations. I’m always terrified that I’ll accidentally say the wrong one and everyone will hate me.
-White guilt stuff. Makes me feel like not hating myself makes me racist.
Anyways, this got super vent-y, but I’ve kept this bottled up for years with nowhere to talk about it, so I just had to finally let out all my feelings on the matter. Hope this doesn’t offend anyone who reads it.
Fight the stereotype don’t blame others
Geri,
UK
If you want to be respected and if you want your skin colour to be respected – fight the stereotype, don’t pull the ‘you are racist!’ card, don’t make white people feel guilty for something someone else did – not all white people are rich or with a central European ancestry, dress with style, not as cheap prostitutes/wanna be gangsters, be educated, help educate your community, your friends, mentor young black teens, tell them it’s wrong to have their hand in their tracksuit and hold their privates in public…tell young black women it’s wrong to value themselves only as hip measurements. Prove people wrong. Prove people that you are not black, poor, rough and stupid, but are great and amazing, just also black ( in case anyone is interested ).
In all honestly, this whining is alienating me from my black friends and acquaintances.
Call Me Irish, Not Just White
Rowen,
San Francisco, CA.
I was always close to my grandmother, although she died when I was pretty young -she made a big impression on me. She was a strong woman and that came through.She had come to the US when she was 21, just her and her sister. They left Belfast Northern Ireland after a childhood of being raided on a regular basis by the British. They landed in New York Ellis Island. The first years were tough but they went on to better lives. They were the youngest of 11 children, and the only ones who came to the US, so I ended up having more relatives spread throughout the UK then I do here.When I got old enough I saved and traveled to the UK, in search of the people I identified with. I think everyone should take this trip, whether you can find your relatives or not-just seeing the country you came from is a learning experience. I learned more about my family history- but also about American History while there. In the UK white people are not just white- but White-English, White Irish, White Scottish, as well as British African, Carribean African, etc. I liked my etnicity being acknowledged, because I am proud of my backround, and that is the side of my family that I identify with. Not only because my dna is over 60% Irish, but because of my grandmother, and my mother. I know even though after that trip it was clear that I was culturally an American, my roots and characteristics passed down, the things we have in all of us that make us different- and add to our American culture, we should respect in everyone. There are racial and ethnic differences everywhere, but nowhere are there so many conversations, or focus on it as here, everyone is fighting to be recognised in their own right- maybe because we are so big, with so many cultures. All of that said -you can’t move forward if you’re always looking back. So take what you know and keep going.
My friend says I’m messed up
Hemma Jari,
UK.
There are less mixed race kids in the UK than in America. Although I live in Manchester, which is (outside of London) probably the most multi-ethnic city in the UK, I’m still one of the few mixed race kids in my year. People here have a tendency to ‘stick to what they know’ when it comes to race, culture etc. I’m half Indian, a quarter Welsh and a quarter English so I don’t feel like I fit fully into one category, instead being an outsider in several. I find the best way to deal with this is with humour, so I often joke with my friends that I’m ‘messed up’ (or something more explicit!)
Education will bring “justice for all”!
Ann Altman
New York City, NY
“Liberty and justice for all”? Not until every child receives a good education.
Ask me about the cricket test
Michael Simpson
UK
If you want to hear that most quintessential of English race conundrums, then look no further than Norman Tebbit’s ‘cricket test’, A member of former UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s Government, Tebbit was known for his disarmingly blunt manner and a tendency to bash disloyal heads together on behalf of his boss. There was a sense that immigrants in the UK – the Caribbeans, Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis but not, curiously, the South Africans and Australians – weren’t patriotic enough in their fervour for the England cricket team, preferring instead to support the national team of their birth country or that of their parents or grandparents. So Tebbit came up with a test – only those who supported England could be considered appropriately integrated, the rest were just chancers and scoundrels here to take – deep in the throes of it’s post war imperial decline – advantage of modern, rainy Britain and all its dreary delights.
Of course, my Jamaican family took great delight in a West Indian team that utterly terrorized England for the first nine or ten years of my life, before falling into steep decline just as my grand parents’ generation entered their latter years. I’m more fluid, cherishing those sweat and whiskey scented years in Grandma’s roaring, heaving front room – Jesus looking down from the mantle piece as Saint Viv smashed the ball around on the TV, but feeling in my 20s the pull of England as they ascended those heights the West Indies had so drastically fallen from. Mixed race Michael. English and Jamaican. I’ve proudly supported both. Do I get a pass?
Best friend seventh grade was black.
John Fisher-Smith
Ashland, OR
.
I immigrated from UK in 1939 when I was 12 1/2 years old and entered 7th grade in Huntington Long Island. I was afraid walking miles to school. I was teased a lot and bullied for being different. Sammy, the only black boy in town, was my true friend in the class. I felt safe with him; I was drawn to his warm loving nature, his decency and gentle sense of humor.
