Utterly disagreeable
people
“This is England.”, I
have heard that before, the righteous indignation of a person who believes we
do not have a right to live here. The effrontery we must have to dare hold a
job or the sheer audacity to share the hallowed space they exist in, how we
must offend them because we are not on the paler shade of the Pantone scale of
skin pigmentation.
I just watched two
videos on Twitter, of first, a taxi driver being racially abused by a passenger,
then of a black adolescent who we are informed is autistic being physically
attacked and commanded by a teenaged couple to fall to the ground and kiss the shoes
of the white guy. This all happened in England within the last couple of days, those videos are very unpleasant. [BBC
News - Taxi] [The
Sun – Shoe-kissing]
We are all affected
I am thankful that the
evidence of the crimes was recorded and posted online, they both went viral on
social media. The West Midlands Police have arrested the perpetrator of the
first offence and apparently the parents of the male demanding a shoe-kissing
handed him in themselves, I would not speculate on why, apart from commending them
on doing the right thing. The police have since asked that the videos be taken
down as they also identify innocent parties. [Twitter:
WMPolice]
There are no innocent
parties when racism happens, the victim and the perpetrator are deeply involved,
the witnesses are scandalised, everyone who gets to view the videos comes into
the awareness of a malignant cancer that is probably not the lived experience of
the majority. It calls on our common and diverse humanity to take a stand, to
acquiesce, to condemn, or to be indifferent.
Our conscience is
asked to incontrovertibly denounce or find excuses, whether people matter more
than symbols and memorials, or our sense of history has pre-eminence over the present
day injustices that we cannot ignore when we are faced with stark reality. It
is to our societal and communal shame that these things still happen.
Bubbles do burst
I have to be aware of
another thing, the taxi driver was abused at his place of work in the West
Midlands, the adolescent was abused in a public park in Yorkshire, in broad
daylight. I have not left my apartment since Sunday, and this is Friday, apart
from going to check my mailbox. I have the ease and accoutrements of being able
to work from home and the comforts of my home along with the state of my mind
grant me a hermit situation I mostly enjoy.
It means, whether by
privilege or by circumstance, I am excluded by fate or fortune from vile and
threatening encounters. I cannot live in this bubble for too long, I do need to
interact, socialise, and face the world eventually. What I must not do is allow
my particular setting and experience to become the narrative of everyone else
with my background, my heritage, or my minority status.
Representing humanity
counts more
I say this because
many make that mistake and it is laid out in an article that I read yesterday
in the Guardian, that I would liberally excerpt and I hope when you read it,
you can make up your own mind about things.
The government’s response has been to appoint
Kemi Badenoch,
the minister for equalities, and a black woman, to “get
to the bottom” of the problem. What do we know about Badenoch’s approach to
racism in Britain? On “institutional racism” – a phenomenon that affects
minorities in Britain – she has been reported as saying that she
doesn’t recognise it. On former mayoral candidate Zac Goldsmith’s
Islamophobic campaign? She
helped run it. On the black community? She doesn’t
believe that it really exists.
On American racism? “We don’t have all the
horrible stuff that’s happened in America here,” Badenoch
said in 2017. [Guardian:
The racism that killed George Floyd was built in Britain – Afua Hirsch] [BBC News: Coronavirus:
Minister Kemi Badenoch rejects 'systemic' racism claims]
Obviously, I would
love to have members in Parliament who not only represent me but can advocate
for the broadest spectrum of interests that affect my life and wellbeing. I
have to say, having lived here and in the Netherlands, sharing the same race is
hardly the best determinant or qualification for the job.
There might be a primordial
and a primal sense of fellow feeling in seeing an ethnic minority in a position
of power, authority, and influence, but other virtues of character, principle,
integrity, consideration, and empathy, matter more.
To wheel and deal or
not
How we conveniently
settle into the abrasion of identity with the view that our positions should
not be burdened by causes that question the status quo, provoke the established
order, or upset the applecart of long-held traditions is a subjective test of
our core values.
Sometimes, to
whatever extent, we are in a battle of assimilation and adaptation to gain
acceptance and maintain relevance. A minority person doing well in a host
society has to navigate with deftness the balance of bargaining with and
challenging the system to get ahead, and this is not to castigate anyone, but some
of us have played to tokenism.
Blog - Bargainers
and Challengers
Survival comes long
before self-actualisation on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. However, you don’t
make allies by banging on about what is wrong with things, even if things are
manifestly wrong.
As we all live in
England, we should have all the rights, the privileges, and the freedoms to
exist, and to express ourselves in every free, wholesome and life-enhancing way
without the fear of even passive dislike that informs reprehensible actions and
definitely not overt racism. We should be bold to be our best human selves
regardless of who or what we are, treating the other with respect, courtesy,
dignity and if we have the capacity, love.
This is England, it
is our home and we all want it to be a better place for all.
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