I’ve had a fire in my belly these last few days, really flip flopping between rage and despair. Really aware of the silence of people who I thought might speak up, and also those with (in my opinion) used faux rage to further their influencer aspirations.
With each video, each injustice, each person unable to read the room of the world some of us have to live in, it just raises things that I have suppressed over the years, but now, I’m going to let them out, because some people that know me will see a version that will think I’m over it now. I’m not, and everyday social media is making me feel worse and angrier.
So, I thought I'd do a list, so you can see very quickly how I’ve been constantly affected by racism.
1. Aged 7 – David year 3 comes up to me and tells me “Mrs Fowler doesn’t like you as much as me because your skin is brown”. I loved Mrs Fowler, so I asked her outright, David blamed it on Kayla, another black girl in my class who was ALWAYS in trouble. Mrs Fowler got upset (I didn’t understand at the time) and told us she loved her whole class equally, I believed it then and I believe it now.
2. Aged 9- “You can't be sporty spice, you have to be scary” ”But I'm sporty, so I can be sporty” “No sporty is pretty you’re brown so you have to be scary”
3. Aged 16 - David again, year 12 (I think, because we were in the 6th for common room) we both played brass at primary school and played for Wolverhampton youth Orchestra, my parents had given him lifts numerous times when his parents couldn’t pick him up. David is talking about how he believes in the BNP and how everyone would have to go back to the originally country, I tell him that my Dad, who he has known since he was 4 would also be sent back because he was born in Jamaica, his response “He’s alright, he can stay, it’s the others” I had to explain to him it wasn’t going to work that if you could vouch for them they could stay.. Realised the argument was pointless very quickly and left the common room as there were a few others that seemed to agree. I unfollowed David off Facebook a few years ago because he posted Britain First things all the time.
4. Aged 16 – Getting my invitation for the “Black Excellence Awards” because I’d done well in my GCSE’s, people arguing at me about why there isn't a White Excellence award. I didn’t have an answer. I didn’t go to the ceremony to get my award.
5. Aged 17 – Decided to wear my hair natual in an afro, timing wasn’t great, R Kelly had come out with ignition, spent that summer with random people “running their hands through my fro”, it hurt because their fingers would get stuck their hands were usually sticky from holding drinks. Friends and people I didn’t know did it. If I complained I got called a “stuck up bitch” Plaited my hair for the rest of the summer.
6. Aged 19 – Walking into the student union, a rugby lad proclaiming that he had slept with me to the 4 rugby teams of lads waiting for our coaches to go to our Wednesday games. He told everyone (whilst I was there and could hear) that we looked like a zebra crossing. I hadn’t slept with him, but said nothing, just had a little cry and played like shit that afternoon at my basketball game that afternoon.
7. 20ish - In the toilet on a Wednesday night a cheerleader comes up to me “Can I use your foundation, it looks better on me than you because of my tan.” (She was white and drunk, I felt ugly and paranoid for the rest of the night)
8. 31 - Husband retuning from a shop after having an argument with a random local about his wife being pregnant. It was the other black lady in town, but this local was having none of it. Like my husband wouldn't know if I was pregnant!
I’ve eased you in, lets get to the gritty ones.
9. Aged (around) 22 – Nottingham - Walking home from the pub on a summer eve, its light still about 9pm, two skin heads pull over the car, throw a brick at me, shout “Nigger Bastard” and speed off. I go back in to the pub crying to tell my colleagues, no one bats an eyelid, I walk home on my own and don’t walk anywhere and catch the bus.
10. Around 23 Nottingham – A parent comes up to me and tells me I only got the job because his son is mixed race and I’m black. He was also black, I was so angry because now I realised I was fighting it both ways, he assumed I had the job because of positive discrimination, not because I was the best candidate or my education. he told me that all the other parents were saying it too (it was a predominately white school in the suburbs)
11. Around 26 –Swindon walking down Manchester Road, eggs thrown at me from a car “Nigger” shouted at me
12. Around 26 Swindon, months later, a full cup of fizzy drink from burger king thrown at me from a car, “Nigger” shouted. Soaked from head to toe and sticky on my way to catch the bus to play basketball. Went back home and stayed in
13. 29 – Working in the Forest of Dean, working as a SENCO, a parent says to me “My son calls you a Nigger, I don’t but he does”. Me and the Ed Pysch were completely astounded, it came out when we were discussing the boundaries that he needs to have at home.
14. 31 – Assistant head in Forest of Dean. A new pupil turns up, openly calls me a Nigger and gets other pupils to too, by this stage I’m older and wiser and exhausted by working hard and being verbally assaulted like this, I tell my staff, they are incredible, I tell my head, and she tells me “It comes with the territory ”. I actually used my courage for once and sent her a lengthy email telling her that “The second you excuse racism by saying its apart of the job, you become a part of the problem” The policy on racist incidents has improved since
15. 33 – return from maternity, I have been called a Nigger by the same child on 6 separate occasions. If he doesn’t get his way, he calls it me. And yet I still go to meetings, do home visits (to his house!) and try and get him the best outcomes. But I am still expected to work with him
I haven't even included the numerous micro aggressions, times I’ve been called aggressive rather than passionate, angry rather than frustrated, I have never been in a fight in my life so I don’t know how I get all of these terms attributed to me. I cant tell you how many times I’ve been called a black bitch, even on the netball courts (quietly under someone’s breath).
And ask me how many times I’ve shared these stories or reported them. Racist Bert who lives near us, he's 86 and i haven't the energy to go through all the dated crap he's pulled.
Of those 15, I've reported one and none to the police. Because I felt that no one really listens, or they try and justify it, and also because I don’t feel strong enough or want to be seen as a troublemaker. I’m worried about the reputation it will get me.
The BBC ran a piece on me after appearing on Victoria Derbyshire, they interviewed me for half an hour and then took story number 12, an article appeared with my face saying I had said there was racism is in schools, I panicked and asked them to take it down because I fear future employment. They didn’t but they changed the title, I’m kind of glad it’s still there now. I’m older and wiser and if I don’t get a job because of it, it really isn’t the right place for me.
Anyway, this was just as much for me as it was for anyone else. So if sometimes I comment and sometimes I don’t. It’s probably because I've pointed something out once, and you’ve ignored it, (remember when I pointed out the racist Mommy blogger, I had more people defend her and her “mental health” than acknowledge the bullying and racism towards the other blogger! so I know it falls on deaf ears.
These are my experiences; it does change that my husband and best friends are white. My love for them hasn’t changed because we’re been having these conversations for years, and they know that as long as I’m in their life, this won’t be an elephant in the room, it’ll be discussed head on, even more so now I have my daughter and she is growing up in this world.
I'm just kinda weary right now with it all.