So, for those of you who don’t know, I’m kinda brown. I’m a mixed race person. Asian-British. My dad was Welsh, just about (by which I mean, he was born in Wales, but frankly a less nationalistic person you could not find). My Mum’s from Sri-Lanka, but long ago ceded her Sri-Lankan citizenship because despite the racism she’s endured over the many years she’s been here*, she decided this is her home, not Sri-Lanka.
So anyhow, whilst I’ve always thought of myself as British**, I’ve also more or less always been aware that I’m not white***. Most of the time it’s one of those background things, something which barely impinges on my consciousness. I’m one of very few non-white nurses in the ED, although nursing in general is a pretty non-white occupation in the UK****. But despite my relative rarity, I don’t often think of it as an issue. Bristol is so mixed that I don’t even think I’ve had the ‘Were are you from’ question more than a few times (in the sense of ‘So what non-British land have you come from you foreigner, and how dare you sully our land’, which I used to get fairly regularly in Reading and Bath; I’ve had the ‘Where are you from?’ in the sense of friendly-polite-you’re clearly from Britain somewhere, but obviously not Bristolian quite a few times). But watching the news media and paying attention to the EU elections I’ve ended up with this hideous feeling in the pit of my stomach.
It’s sort of a nervousness. I’ve had it before, I had it when the home office ran around with their ‘immigrants go home’ vans. A feeling of being wary and worried. Frankly, it’s fucking uncomfortable. I love France, but the NF have just come top in the European elections. It’s added to my I don’t want to go there list. And it’s not just France. Lots of countries have elected far-right or neo-nazi’s to the EU parliament. It makes me want to hurl.
I keep trying to apply logic. Very few people bother to vote in the EU elections. Those who do are more than likely to be nutcase ideologues (like me, the Green voter ;) ). UKIP actually dropped their vote share, but got more people in; perhaps by being more targeted? Tediously, the BBC have turned into UKIP’s PR firm; and I had to endure hours of “I’m not racist, but…*****” from UKIP voters.
I’m trying to apply logic, but still, it’s scary.
What has happened to my country?
* She was a Sister in neonatal intensive care; the most experienced in her department, the person that the doctors requested would look after the sickest babies. She spent weeks caring for a very, very sick baby, at times pulling 24 hour shifts. At the end, the racist parents brought by chocolates and a thank you card for everyone in the department except her. Shit like that never stopped her doing her job to the best of her ability and training more nurses to come after her.
** British, not English. Let’s make that clear.
*** Some of the kids in my primary school made damn sure of that.
**** Thieving trained medical people from the rest of the world has long kept the NHS afloat. Our pay may be pretty crap, but compared to some less well off countries…
***** ‘all these immigrants are taking are jobs/women/money/children/services’. And incidentally, any statement that requires “I’m not racist but” is a racist statement. Coming from a racist.
