I was at a do the other day when my husband whispered to me,” Watch it, the man on my left is a racist”. Apparently he had been going on about all these immigrants coming in on boats. I immediately brought up racism and the same man said that there wasn’t any racism in Wales. I put him right by informing him that there was a great deal of racism in Wales and I gave him 3 examples, not accusing him , of course. Obviously, he thought moaning about all these immigrants coming in on boats was not racist.
The three examples I gave him were as follows:
I had to have hearing tests for my deafness as I am extremely deaf, a hidden disability. My audiologist came with big bags for his machinery and as he unpacked the car, he was Asian by the way, a neighbour rushed up to him and said,” you’re not moving in, are you?”
When he said that he was not, the neighbour walked away with the words, “Oh, OK”.
My husband was working on a property and a neighbour started talking to him about immigrants coming over and being swamped by them. He actually was making racist comments.
The third example was linked to the Brexit vote in Wales which voted for Brexit. A woman was being interviewed in Cardiff and the interviewer pointed out that the building she was standing in front of was built with European money. Wales was considered a poor country so Europe sent millions to Wales to help us. His reply was ”I don’t care, just send them all back where they came from.” There is no doubt that for many people here that the Brexit vote was a racist vote.
I was reading an article with Lenny Henry in the Guardian, covering Black History Month and basically it was asking the opinions of various black celebrities and academics on what they would like to see done to improve black equality and as Lenny Henry put it to “make black equality a reality”
In 1968, an inspirational teacher in the USA,Jane Elliott was asked by a young student why one of the heroes on the poster on the wall, Martin Luther King, was assassinated? She realised that the students needed to learn about racism. The native Americans used to say that if you want to understand me you have to walk in my moccasins. She decided to make her children walk in the moccasins of racism. She divided the class into halves, one called blue eyes and the other called brown eyes. This was very courageous of her as she could have got into trouble putting children through this stress. The blue-eyed children had all the perks that week and the brown eyed were segregated and had no perks. The brown eyed half were very very upset , became timid and their grades suffered.
Even in that short space of time, the blue eyes became bossy and they thought of themselves as superior. Their grades improved. The next week she swapped them over. They had all walked in the moccasins of racism and had learnt a massive lesson. They were interviewed as adults years later and they all expressed their gratitude to Jane Elliott who made them look racism in the face and learned from it.
We are no way near that today. In fact due to Brexit, it has got worse as the shame of expressing racist views has gone. People feel they can say what they like with impunity.
Reading these opinions in the Guardian was a real eye opener and I have set out a few quotes.
Kojo Koram, a senior lecturer at London University, said that we must decriminalise drug possession. Drugs are the most common reason for the police to stop and search. Black people are stopped and searched 8 times more than white people.
Annabel Sowemimo – founder of Decolonising Contraception – we have to get rid of the myth that our skin colour makes us intellectually inferior.
Franklin Addo – artist and youth worker – Black people in Britain continue to endure negative outcomes across health, education and criminal justice
Gus John – academic and equality and human rights campaigner – we live in a hostile environment and the school-to-prison pipeline. No matter how many black faces there are in the Cabinet, white Britain’s image of itself will not change without proper action.
The very fact that Rule Britannia is still played at the last night of the Proms is an absolute disgrace. I think the worst example of that , many years ago, was when Willard White, a black opera singer, had to sing it. “Britons never never shall be slaves”. We ran the slavery industry. Bristol’s wealth today comes from slavery. Nobody noticed the incongruity of such an evening.
Proud to live under a Welsh Government – mentioned in dispatches by :
Lola Okolosie – English teacher and writer – England needs to follow the lead of Wales, and mandate that its curriculum be diversified to reflect and incorporate the experiences of black and minority communities.
Finally,to finish with the words of Diane Abbott – MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington
Rishi Sunak’s ascent to the top position in British politics is noteworthy but he has never demonstrated even a flicker of interest in race or equality. And the austerity he desires will impact black and brown Britons harder than anyone else.
