Growing up in aĀ predominantlyĀ white area was,Ā and still is, hellish for me.
Growing up in a mainly white area was, and still is, hellish for me.
At the age of 5 I moved from a place where there were lots of boys and girls like me but then i moved school to the south west of England. People were mainly from England, and itās very difficult because in my old school people came from all over the world! Some people donāt make me feel comfortable where I am now, and this makes me feel really very sad. When I think about it, maybe they just donāt know much about different people, cultures and communities! My old home was quite different.
From the age of 5 onward my friends call me racist names and made hurtful comments towards me. I have just moved to an all-white, farmer-dominated primary school, and the hateful mindset that some of them live in causes me to feel unwanted. I am compared to animal feces, told to go back to my own country, and that I should be pleased that at least some of me is white. I do not think that all of them meant to say the things they did, to deliberately make me feel isolated and afraid, but their lack of experience with talking to, and being with, people even remotely different from themselves really makes an impact when it comes to talking to someone from a Mixed Race background like myself. Iām receiving comments like āyouāre an outsiderā ā The coloured oneā āyouāre kind of pretty for a brown girlā āyouāre the same colour as shit.ā All of these types of comments from an early age all through to the age of 11, made me feel like less of a person than I really am; it was my racial background that made me feel like this.
At the age of 10 Iām waiting on a fairy godmother to come down and cast a spell so I can be white, so I can be the same as everyone else. My peers and my predominantly white surroundings make me feel unbelievably uncomfortable. I started to become aware that it was my appearance that attracted unwanted attention with other people, but itās my complex heritage that is my monster to fight. I feel like I donāt know my own heritage and this has always made me feel disconnected to where I could possibly belong. Ā I am not BiRacial or anything as easy to explain as that. I am a true mix of hundreds of different nationalities and my family before me are also like this. Somehow, I still canāt get over the confusion I feel every day about it and if I canāt understand it, how can I expect other people to understand and respect me? I donāt think it is seen as a good thing right now, it just makes me different.
Ā Ā At the age of 11 Iāve just moved up to a senior school in Dorset. Iām afraid and different to the rest of my year. Everyone is white. I feel like loneliness is eating me alive, swallowing every ounce of hope I have yet to spare. It feasts upon any confidence and self love I have left, leaving behind this empty carcass; Iām full of so much despair and self-loathing that I canāt seem to hold onto anything positive anymore. The people I share my education with take my heart into their claws, squeezing out all the life I can muster that morning. I have somehow created a monster within my mind and it only ever wants me to feel cold and useless. I have no power over it. I feel like I shouldnāt be the colour I am and I feel like I shouldnāt be accepted into their society because Iām not like them.
At the age of 14 Iāve moved again, this time to Cornwall. The very end of England. I think that as Iāve moved around, Iāve had to fight the same battles each time. Meeting new people and each time having to explain my genetic makeup, something I, myself, donāt even fully understand yet.
Whilst being down here, not only have I, personally, been the receiver of discriminatory comments and the punch line to jokes because of my skin colour, but I have played witness to countless islamophobic jokes and Donald Trump-like views being openly preached.
Being told that āracism doesnāt exist anymoreā will never fail to make me re-evaluate what I should and shouldnāt be offended at. Ā The fact that these people, some of which are racist to me and to other people, think that it it is okay to say that infuriates me.I canāt help but think āthey donāt know a damn thing!ā and then this in turn makes me question āDo I know a damn thing?ā. Sometimes itāll be for five minutes. Ā An hour. A day. A week. But looking back on it now I understand that I am allowed to feel however I want to about discriminative comments said to me or that affect me.
āThereās no such thing as white privilegeā says the white man. Having people deny the product of their history because they donāt like it will always seem ridiculous to me; being told this in the aggressive way that it was,just makes me angry and upset. I remember thinking āHow dare he? How dare he deny something that will forever affect me and vast amount of people in the world?ā I think that part of me is jealous because it will never affect his life in a negative way, and this infuriates me. It infuriates me that I have no control over how such a medieval concept as white privilege can tragically still be a major issue today!
And to top it all off: ā Mixed race people are just products of a dirty love.ā Ā To those of you that are reading this and are mixed race, do I really need to explain why this was one of the most devastatingly catastrophic few seconds of my life? My life, my family, and other people in the mixed race community were just being insulted and shunned. I remember receiving the comment and I felt like my heart skipped a beat. The feelings that rushed through me where unearthly and tortuous, and if I was to explain how I feel about it, it would take me millenia.
At the age of 15 I frequently think about what culture and what background suits me the most. I come from a multi cultural background that holds a phenomenal mix of races. Am I Indian? Am I Irish? Iāve never really felt like I fit in with the communities that I have roots in because of how frail each root is. I can find myself thinking that I havenāt ever got anyone to talk about this kind of mixed race exclusive issue.
However, when I am with other people who feel the same as I do about this kind of situation, I feel like I am accepted and that I do matter. When feeling down about all this, the best thing is to talk to someone that might understand and be able to relate about this situation as it provides a sense of comfort and community.
To those of you that have just read what I have had to say:
If you are in the lucky position to not be in the situation that I am in, I beg of you to learn from the mistakes that I have spoke of. Donāt be that person that is clueless about what they are saying.
If you are in a similar position to myself then just remember that you are never alone.
tangentwithtanner
jbbartram-illu
jacobvanloon
annaxmalina
theartofmadeline
