I AM BROWN SO NO DETENTION
Alessandro Lucci,
United Kingdom (England).
I’m brown mate
Asian and colonial pride and shame
Rena Brown,
United Kingdom
I’m a quarter Dutch burger born to a British father. My mother is half Scottish Highlander and half Dutch burger. The latter comes from various Europeans having children with the local Sri Lankan girls. The next Europeans preferred to have children with the mixed race girls because of their lighter skin and so on. I am a small part French, Dutch and Portuguese as well as the Sri Lankan. My mother’s mitochondrial DNA could not be identified. This brings home how much I am still connected to my Sri Lankan side. My mitochondrial DNA is from there and that of all my children as it only passes from mother to child.
The link to Asia is still recent as my grandmother was born in Malaysia and my mother in Singapore (where she was born a prisoner of war). With this intriguing history I was drawn to Asia and spent two years living in Hong Kong and learning the Cantonese language to satisfy my thirst, having met many Hong Kong students at university.
I don’t think a colonial past is something to be proud of, but I can be proud of my Sri Lankan DNA which forever links me too Asia even if only by a tiny bit.
Do I look white to you?
Rose Jackson,
United Kingdom
My dad is white British and my mum is mixed white and black. So I have lighter skin and have a tanned complexion all year round. Because of this people at school have always assumed I am white and not mixed. They often don’t believe me until they see who my mum is.
My Skin Doesn’t Define Who I Am
Fiza Nadeem,
United Kingdom
Everyone, should accept you for who you are and if your different skin coloured, white, black or brown no one should label you or discriminate you. Everyone should have the rights to do what they want and go where they wont being a different colour shouldn’t prevent them. For example police and other forces / people should be fair if a group of people were sitting in a car and they were black they would do stop and search checks but if it was white they wouldn’t even have to look. It becomes unfair it privileges white people as they’re ‘ let off’ while black people suffer r and this isn’t fair.
I chose these six words as they are important to me as people should have the rights and opportunities t do what they want to do and they should be allowed to fight back and they should be given the same opportunities in life as anyone else not just be judged cause of the way they look or the skin colour. Society, doesn’t understand everyone is made different everyone is unique In their own way , shape an form.
Everyone should be treated equal. Everyone should be proud of what colour they are and not feel uncomfortable or scared of what people would think of them. they should accept themselves because colour doesn’t define who you are your personality doe the way you go about things does. All race matter and judgeing people for being lighter shouldn’t be privileged. You don’t chose your skin colour at birth or chose what family you belong to so this should stop.
There is only one Human Race.
Jason Argent,
United Kingdom
As a white male, living in a predominantly white neighbourhood, working in a predominantly white workplace and profession, it is easy for me to say that everyone is the same. But it is also hard to think of ways to increase diversity while treating everyone truly equally.
As a biologist, I know that we are one species. For some of our early evolutionary history we could perhaps have been regarded as distinct races, but that term does not seem valid for the last few centuries, perhaps even millennia.
Rather than brush our differences under the carpet, I prefer to celebrate them. But that’s just an outlook on life and humanity, I fear it won’t do much to heal the divisions in society.
Rich white straight man who tries
Bill Thomas,
United Kingdom
I don’t know if it’s even ok to say this, but I am so tired about feeling embarrassed for the race I am part of.
I am doing everything I can to change and encourage others to change. I try to remember to refer to my colleague Maria as they rather than she, as they used to be known. I push myself to react no differently whether it’s a black man or white woman walking towards me down a London side street. I’ve stopped using “guys” as a non-gender-specific collective noun. And I push myself to find ways to raise the game for women at work who might otherwise get stuck a paygrade below me due to historic precedent.
But through all of that, I’m tired. I know that no-one ever accuses “all white men” of being the problem, but that’s how I subconsciously interpret things. When my wife highlights that the man will get the job instead of her (despite his lack of planning, and due to his over confidence), I can help but feel there’s something in there aimed at me. When white cops kill a black man and it makes the national news, I question whether the problem is with white people – would a black cop have done the same thing?!
I will keep trying, and keep pushing for change. I come from privilege, and I know that my worries are nothing compared to those in other races. But it’s not 100% plain sailing either.
Not black enough, not white enough
Gemma Jackson,
United Kingdom
I am mixed and British. My mother is white British my father is black Jamaican. For as long as I can remember I have always felt the odd one out. Different. Because of the texture of my hair or the colour of my skin or even the way I talk is not considered black enough to some people. But at the same time my hair texture, my skin colour or the way I talk isnt considered white enough either. Until recently I have struggled with my identity and sense of belonging. Now that we are talking more about race I feel I don’t have to be black or white because I am both. And proud!
Only recently have my eyes opened
Fay Gilder,
United Kingdom
We never had conversations about race in my family. I grew up in a multiracial environment but each other’s experiences were not questioned or asked for. Then I met an activist, a race champion, who showed me my blindness. I read as much as I can. I use curiosity to ask others about their lived experience and I talk about white privilege with my own family so they will not be as blind as I was. I use my new insights to champion anti-racism and allyship in all my environments- work and home, friends and colleagues. I recognize I have but scratched the surface but hope that in some way I can make a difference.
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!
What are you? A human being.
Youssef Shakespeare,
United Kingdom
My African Curls, Scottish White Skin
William (Bill) Roderick Wilson,
United Kingdom
Where did I get my curls ?
Growing up in Scotland in the 1950’s I was one of 5 kids in a happy rural home in Perthshire. My father was Dr William Wilson, a hospital Consultant in Perth, my mother a nurse. His father John had been a Minister in the Church of Scotland, a complete shift from what was socially expected as all previous generations had been coal miners. This was only possible because his mother, the formidable Euphemia McCulloch, determined that none of her 7 sons would go down the pits. She put them all through university with her sewing machine. My grandfather said he never went to sleep other than to the sound of his mother’s sewing machine.
We would sometimes speculate where the curls that were scattered through our family might have come from. My father’s curls were even tighter than mine. At school I was called Willy the Wog which embarrassed me as I didn’t know what a Wog was.
I had no interest in my family history, and it was only when my cousin (another John) began researching it that he came up with the fact that one ancestor, James Wilson had emigrated to the US in 1766, fought against the British in the War of Independence and signed the Declaration of Independence, becoming one of the founding fathers of the US.
John’s research also gave him an interesting idea. He was able to trace the mining Wilson’s all the way back to 1489 (several called William) because until 1833 miners in Scotland were the property of the mine owners. That made them valuable serfs or slaves, so good records were kept. If a mine owner did not own enough miners he would sometimes import slaves from Africa – so John asked ‘might this have been where our family curls came from?’
I took a DNA test and was astonished and delighted to find that my ethnicity estimate included 3.4% African (2.4% North Africa and 1.1% Nigerian). Both these are slave areas and this would be consistent with ancestors being brought across in the early 1700s.
Suddenly as a proud Scot I have even more to be proud of and if I am honest I am still trying to get my head around all that it means. However, I am glad to have the chance to give my story to The Race Card Project.
Bill Wilson June 2021
Perth, Scotland
I’m tired of the blame game
Darren Joyce,
United Kingdom
Racism exists. Privilege exists. there are people out to get you. I’m not racist. I’m not privileged. I’m not your enemy.
Just because a white [insert position of authority here] is a shameful human being that will target you more than me. Just because this generates a justifiable fear and different life experience for you. Just because they are usually white. That doesn’t make me, or the vast majority of white people, your enemy. In fact, I am of a subset of ‘white’ that has been equally abused. My ‘people’ were enslaved. My ‘people’ were pushed to the fringe of society. My ‘people’ were refused the right to vote. My ‘people’ were systematically persecuted and discriminated against. The signs would say “no blacks, no dogs, no Irish’. We came AFTER dogs.
But. Don’t tell me white privilege exists. It doesn’t. White racism does. White people are racist to non-white people. Non-white people are racist to white people. Non-white people are racist to non-white people. That doesn’t mean non-white people don’t experience systematic discrimination in the form of racism. They do. But that does not make me privileged. That makes me angry.
The true problem really is what’s in your pocket. You got money? Yes. Then you’re fucking privileged. The fact is if you’re wealthy, you’re privileged. White or not. And the worst part; if you come from nothing and become wealthy, you’re very likely to turn around and look down on where you came from.
Wealth, or more precisely, the lack of it, is the only form of discrimination you can get away from. By becoming richer. And humanity shows us that when we shed our burden of peasantry we simply become the problem.
White people in Jamaica no tourist
Rubani Streete-Hamilton,
United Kingdom
I remember one of the first times I went to Jamaica for holiday and to see my family. I’m British born but both my parents are Jamaican. We were out in the bush when these two white people with dreads came through cutting down the bush with a mustache. They greeted us and had a full blown conversation in a thick Jamaican accent and using patois perfectly (something I, being of 2 Jamaican parents, had yet to master) which had me thinking, at 7/8 years old, are they taking the piss?
So i asked one of the adults, why did those white people sound Jamaican and he just straight face say ” because they’re Jamaican, how else would anyone sound Jamaican if they not born here”
That’s when i realized colour doesn’t matter and realised how easy it is to have a racist idea but also how easy it is debunked. People who are too scared to challenge their racist thoughts either have an ignorance they refuse to address or haven’t been given the chance to. I try to remember this when dealing with people with racist ideas and stereotypes.
Do not judge race by appearance
Stefano Pavone,
United Kingdom
I am of mixed Euro-Mediterranean descent – primarily Italian, with some Greek and Spanish as well. Given that the Mediterranean region of Europe has a story of conquest by external peoples (Moors, Ottomans, Romans, etc.), it is difficult to exactly pinpoint the ethnic genesis of its people, as it not consistent like with other nations and cultures. Another issue I have encountered is that the American and European definitions of a “Latin person” differ, so while I may be on a technical level half-white, half-Latino in Europe, in America I would be considered white only. I wish to put forward that ANYONE can be racist regardless of skin colour, heritage or philosophy. If true equality is to be achieved, then we must all be held accountable for our prejudices and learn to overcome them. If someone tells you they are of a certain ethnic group, then please try to respect them and try not to judge by their looks – to do so and to actively mock or deride them based on their appearance is in itself racial profiling.
Racereview, what’s it mean to you?
Christopher Lucas,
United Kingdom
How complex has the world become?
Please review the thoughts and information below and after, I invite you to comment with the word “Agree” and submit your race/ethnicity – if you do agree.
Questions:
Culture, Ethnicity and Race can often be unnecessarily used in today’s world to a very negative effect. Are people who believe they are part of the problem actually just exasperating a problem that we allow to exist through our interpretations of “Racism” in today’s world?
Is it time for society to re-evaluate the issues that we take with one another?
Is Racism just part of being “human” for all people of all Races? and what defines or makes a person a Racist?
A conversation I recently had with someone caused me to deeply think about the real issues that exist in society with Race and Racism.
Racism for them, was where someone specifically and only forms stereotypes, negative opinions or has a precursor against a specific race in isolation and for no other reason than a person is “of a specific race”.
That is to say, they only pick on a specific race/races or people of specific cultural ethnicity which is outside of their own and in doing so – this makes them a “Racist”.
We define this person as Person 1 – a racist.
But, where:
A person take an issues against all races and may create racial stereotypes or subgroup commentary equally across the board to people of any race, including their own, branding them collectively in a negative manner (at times) perhaps for something that is more associated as a character trait of a particular race or ethnicity, then regardless of whether that opinion is negative, considered derogatory or is a generalised statement, then that does not make them a racist.
This person may be outspoken, flippant or unconsidered, but not a racist.
This is Person 2 – Not a racist.
Situation
Any comment in isolation can be perceived at the time it’s said and you being either Person 1 or Person 2, because you hold no knowledge of how that person actually views society or race. But if – you make an assumption that because of a specific comment, that person is Person 1, and you label them publicly or personally as a Racist, then are you not just being Judgemental? and no better than person 1 yourself?
This person went on to explain… that:
Person 1 – A Racist example is –
A black man that hates all white men, just because they have white skin or a white man that hates all black men, purely because they have black skin. (This example could be anything else specific and between any person of a single race in attack on another)
Person 2 – Not a Racist – is:
A Black man, who says ‘All white men have small dicks”
or a white man, who says “Black men are drug dealers”
Let’s expand and further that thought:
A Chinese man says… European white men are “fat”.
An Indian man says… Pakistani men are “crooks”
An African Caribbean Black man says… “white men are paedophiles”
These statements are collectively taken as statements that assume you are person 1, rather than person 2, but in fact they are said by person 2, who does not actually discriminate against any individual person of the race they are commenting on.
Are any of those statements, when made by person 2 – racist?
Are they all racist?
Are they all true when said of any race or ethnicity outside of the race being degraded?
His conclusion, was that actually – none of them were racist people.
This was because, regardless of which race you are, each race including the race being talked about, could look in isolation and state that despite being entirely stereotypical, and knowingly not being the case for every person of that race, they are seen as prevalent characteristics of groups of people within that race more-so than another.
The statements are all equally negative and can be said by each person of each race.
The issues in today’s society is that “what is being said” or “why” it is being said is not relevant. The very fact you’ve said “something” makes you a racist but the real issue lies in groups of people taking the actions of everyday “Person 2’s” and labelling them in ways they do not need to because of a comment or statement.
This issue happens for and against all of the races to and from each other.
Ethnic minorities in more developed countries and history where real racism and Person 1’s existed in larger numbers in previous centuries have inadvertently allowed a perpetual expectation of all people of all races to “call out” things that don’t need to be – in today’s world, they are just part of the evolutionary world we live in.
Each and every race that has a problem or negative connotation against people of a specific ethnicity within its communities can become like another at any given time and the opposite of all commonly recognised racially discriminating statements can be transferable across races.
Conclusion
People – should even where ill-considered in their choice of words to make statements even when flippant and generalised about an issue predominantly or more likely found or mainly attributable within a particular race or ethnicity.
They should be able to do that without people of that race or another person of their own race making assumptions that this means they have an entire racial issue against a specific race, or other races based on nothing other than their “race” or “skin colour”.
This isn’t to say, they don’t have the right to be offended, because they feel grouped themselves, but they need to acknowledge that a comment linked to race or ethnicity the same as theirs, isn’t directly about them.
If positive assertions are acceptable – then so should negative ones be.
Take peoples comments in isolation, don’t be unnecessarily offended by them, because their opinion or bias or viewpoint even if derogatory may not be depicting of their views of others as individuals.
There is nothing wrong with saying it as you see it.
Yours sincerely
A non-racist person, not offended by any comments that negatively depict people of my race.
Regardless of whether any comment means because of my race, I could be viewed as part of that group of people – or not.
Not much different from Northern Ireland
Madeleine Birchenough,
United Kingdom
I was born in Derry, raised Irish Catholic, now studying at Queen’s in Belfast.
Up here in Northern Ireland, the divides are not racial in the biological sense, but ethno-religious, one that pits Irish Catholics against Scots-descended Ulster Protestants, one that dates back to the Plantations of Ireland established by King James II of Scotland and England. And I see many parallels between what is going on here locally and what is going on in the United States at this moment and throughout history.
The British in the first decade of the 1600s gained control over Ulster and sought to colonise Ireland. They brought in Scottish and English settlers into Ulster and attempted to convert the native Irish population to Protestantism and make them culturally British; while their efforts to take away the Irish people’s culture failed, they did succeed in changing the demographic composition of Ulster from majority Irish in the late 1500s to majority Ulster-Scots in the early 1700s. Many of the things the British did at the time in Ireland and in Ulster especially were later to be implemented at a wider and a more successful scale across the ocean in the United States – compare Oliver Cromwell’s mass confiscation of lands from Irish Catholics to be lent to members of his New Model Army and other settlers from England and Scotland with how the British colonists and later the Americans treated their original native population. There were even British politicians suggesting that they should deport all the Irish to Connacht. The end result is a lot of anger and resentment between the two groups, the British Protestants and the Irish Catholics, one that lasts up to this day in Ulster. The British forced the Irish into a lower-class status, and discriminated against them by and large for the next 300 years.
In 1919, Ireland declared independence from Britain and for the next two years the British fought to keep Ireland in the union. This war directly lead to the creation of Northern Ireland as a separate entity from the rest of Ireland, because the British-identified Ulster Protestants were utterly terrified of losing political, economic, social, and cultural power to the Irish Catholics. So, by the end of the war when it was clear that they weren’t able to keep all of Ireland, they sought to section not all of Ulster, as by the 1910s the demographics of Ulster were trending majority Irish Catholic, but enough of it so that the British-identified Protestants had a majority population and still was large enough to support itself economically. Hence the six-county partition into Northern Ireland.
In the mid-late 1960s, we had a civil rights movement that was hugely influenced by the African American civil rights movement in the United States, where Irish Catholics, largely marginalised by the British and the Ulster Protestants, fought for equal rights in Northern Ireland and to end discrimination against Irish Catholics and segregation. However, unlike in the United States, efforts largely failed, as the RUC tried to suppress the movement in Ireland and Ulster loyalists began attacking members involved in the movement. As a result of this, the IRA, which was largely a spent force by this time, gained new vigour and retaliated back, leading to a 30 years-long insurgency between the RUC (former British police force in Northern Ireland), the IRA, and Ulster unionist paramilitaries such as the UVF, where innocent people in both communities were killed only because they were Catholic or Protestant, Irish or Ulster unionist. This ended in the late 1990s due to the Good Friday Agreement, thank goodness.
However, the two sides are still as divided today as they are back in the 1960s and 1970s. While discrimination against Irish Catholics have largely subsided in the past 20 years and Irish Catholics have a lot more opportunities in today’s Northern Ireland, segregation of the two communities still remains extremely strong. Ulster unionist communities still remain largely Ulster unionist, Irish communities largely remain Irish and Catholic, and in the border regions the British have put up peace walls dividing the communities so that the two sides do not try to fight against each other. The Irish Catholic population is increasing at a faster rate than the Ulster Protestant population and set to become majority Irish Catholic in 20 years, and the traditional jobs for Ulster Protestants in manufacturing and industry have been largely sent elsewhere due to globalisation, integration into the European Union have brought more Irish from Ireland itself and immigrants from elsewhere in Europe into Northern Ireland, and the culture as a whole have largely shifted in a more liberal direction since the 1990s, and the Protestant Ulster unionist community is feeling very threatened by all these economic, social, political, and cultural changes, and by their loss of status relative to the Irish Catholics. There are still huge tensions surrounding the British government’s treatment of the Irish Catholic community during the Troubles especially with its tacit alliance at times with the UVF/UDA and its framing of innocent victims.
Recently the two major parties agreed to reestablish the regional government in Northern Ireland; we haven’t a government full stop since 2016, due to the RHI scandal and since both the DUP and Sinn Fein were deadlocked in a giant culture war (abortion, homosexuality, Irish language act, etc) to compromise. Before, there was a general election, where the Unionist parties lost Belfast North, a seat they have held on since the beginning of Northern Ireland’s existence and formally a hotbed of Unionism hosting Edward Carson’s old seat. During the campaign, various loyalist paramilitaries threatened violence if the election didn’t go their way, and I’m seriously worried that the Troubles are going to start again soon and I would be killed by some unionist partisan simply because I am Irish or Catholic.
RESPECT! Skin colour labelling IS offensive
Liam,
United Kingdom
MOVING AWAY FROM THE WHITE SUPREMACIST’S RULEBOOK
Referring to people by skin colour is based on white “supremacy” – which is an ideology that formed over the centuries of enslavement of African people in the Americas.
A skin colour hierarchy was created by white “supremacists” to “justify” the brutalisation and subjugation of enslaved Africans – with “white” at the top, and “black” at the bottom, and several gradations (yellow, red, brown) etc. between the two extremes (master and slave).
Essentially, the less white (or further away from white your skin was), the more akin you were to a slave.
It is time this nefarious colour chart was disbanded, as it is what has led to the modern day problems, of racism and colorism (and even colonial mentality).
These colour labels were not chosen randomly. No one has white skin, and I’m yet to meet anyone who has black skin either – so why were these labels chosen as proxies for human skin colour?
The white “supremacists” knew the power and significance of labels and symbolism.
The colour “white” in many cultures around the world, signifies cleanliness and holiness. (“white lie”, “whitewash” etc.) and they adopted that colour to represent themselves (even though no one has white skin).
The colour black on the other hand signifies the direct opposite – all that is unclean and unholy (“black looks”, black secret”, “blackmail”, “blacklist etc.) and that colour, they assigned to their enslaved Africans.
Calling someone by their skin colour is playing from the playbook/rule book of White supremacy. Out of respect, Chinese people are no longer referred to as “Yellow”, Native people are no longer referred to as “Red” etc. Instead, they are respectively referred to by either the country (or geographic region) that their phenotype seems to visually suggest – NOT BY SKIN colour.
However, the colour “black” which happens to be the lowliest on the white “supremacist’s” nomenclature, is a term that is still widely used – without blinking.
It is worth pointing out however, that as a result of the ranking of the colour “white” in the supremacist’s skin colour “chart”, calling someone “white” does not come with any negative connotation – because of the word’s positive connotations in various cultures. The word “black” however, has many negative connotations in many cultures and in everyday language.
The correct AND respectful way to start referring to fellow humans who are currently labelled “black” is to refer to them as having “African heritage” or “African ancestory”. This will be in keeping with the convention of how other peoples are referred to – which has moved away from skin colour.
So instead of saying “the black guy” say: “he has African ancestory”, or “is of African extraction”. Every single person currently labelled “black” (including Carribeans etc.) can be traced back to Africa (that’s why they look like Africans – DNA doesn’t lie).
The only dark skinned people this rule does not apply to are Australian aborigines, and they are visually different from people currently labelled “black” (look at images of Australian Aborigines on Google if you’re not sure).
For the Australian Aborigines, just call them that (or Indigenous Australians).
That way, we move away from the racist legacy of using a skin colour hierarchical system created by white supremacists to justify their enslavement of tens of millions of Africans over several centuries.
