On suddenly feeling brown

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Forgive this post, it’s sleep deprived.

So, those of you who know me personally know that I’ve always perceived myself as very English. I’ve often been accused of being the most English person some of my friends (who are also English) know. I’m painfully middle-class. I’m all about fairness, I listen to Radio 4, I ‘potter’ in the garden. I drive a Morris Minor. I am impossible to give a compliment to, because I’m quite self-effacing when that happens. I have had a real sense of pride for Britain’s place in the world*.

I grew up in the 1980s, in suburban England, and whilst there was definitely racism in my youth it wasn’t a huge issue. Bullying of a more general form caused me far more pain than racism. Perhaps because despite my mum’s Sri Lankan heritage, and my Buddhist upbringing the rest of my life was entirely British – and even the Buddhism seemed more to bubble from my eccentric (Welsh) father than my mother. My mum’s only concession to Sri Lanka was to try (and fail) to teach me Sri Lankan (I wish I’d learnt now, it’s a really interesting language). And to teach me some bits and bobs about Sri Lankan history. The occasional shouts of “Paki go home” were infrequent enough to not really be meaningful – and usually ended with me returning shouts about how they should get their insult right, ‘cos I’m not Pakistani. Or a comment about not wanting to go to Watford (where I was born – and still my standard response to that one).

I loved the fact that Britain really did seem to be fairly properly multicultural, and that whilst it was no-where near perfect, it definitely seemed to be moving in the right direction. That the mixing of genetic and social heritage was making Britain a fantastically diverse society. A society who’s strength seemed to me to be massively enhanced by its eclectic heritage – and its magpie like theft from the many countries where Britain has had it’s dirty little mitts.

And so, until now I’d never really considered myself Brown. I’d felt English and that was the be-all and end-all of it. I was well aware that I fit into many minority pigeon-holes (whilst simultaneously fitting into none). Indeed, I’d often joked that I was an diversity and equality dream – I tick so many boxes in employment law it’s worth just employing me to balance the figures…

And I’d certainly, over the past few years, moved from pride to a substantial degree of shame as the political landscape moved to persecute those who have a disability, and those who for whatever reason are living with assistance from the state. I’d complained vociferously about policies that suggested that there were ‘skivers’ and ‘strivers’ – what utter bullshit that is. The divisive and unpleasant policies designed to split society seemed to me the very lowest ebb of political manoeuvring and quite frankly the purview of the BNP and UKIP, rather than something than something mainstream political parties should be involved in.

And then this happened.

And I started reading tales of people being stop-and-questioned by UK Border Patrols. And rounding up people who don’t have ID. And I started to think ‘I don’t want to visit London’. Because whilst I am British I don’t always bother to carry ID because in this damn country you don’t have to. Because I don’t really want to deal with the hassle of defending my right to be in the damn country I was born in. The country that invited my mother here**.

And I got really angry, thinking how fucking dare they. How dare they assume just because someone’s not white, or doesn’t speak with RP that they’re not English.

And then I started thinking about

First they came for the communists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist.

Then they came for the socialists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist.

Then they came for me,
and there was no one left to speak for me.

And this

And now I need to work out what the hell I’m going to do about it. Because scared and angry aren’t enough. This has to stop. This has to stop. It has gone far enough.

What to do about it, that I don’t know. But something.

(Although mostly what I want to do is leave. But that’s just an amplification of an already extant desire. But I am seriously starting to consider that perhaps it’s time to rapidly earn some money and make like a tree).

* Albeit one tempered by a really thorough understanding of the thing’s Britain has done that are wrong, and at times evil. Whilst I was proud of Britain – really proud of our engineering heritage – I’m well aware that socially we’ve been an atrocious country.

** That invaded my mother’s country, really fucked it up and then left.

KateWE

Kate's a human mostly built out of spite and overcoming transphobia-racism-and-other-bullshit. Although increasingly right-wing bigots would say otherwise. So she's either a human or a lizard in disguise sent to destroy all of humanity. Either way, it's all good.