It’s been in the news a lot recently hasn’t it? 

From the rapid-fire momentum of the protests and corporate squirming springing from the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor (and countless others), to the occasional mention by the mainstream media of genocide and oppression in places like China and Myanmar,  it feels like suddenly everybody is talking about race, doesn’t it? I am afraid I have news for you. If you agree that race has suddenly been thrown unceremoniously to the forefront again, then I very much doubt that you are a person of colour living in Europe in 2020. For those of us considered ethnic minorities, there has not been a week (likely a day) that we haven’t thought about race in some way or another since childhood.

I am a mixed race woman living in Cumbria, perceived publically as black-ish. My father is white and European. My biological mother, black and African. I was born in East Africa, but I have a British passport and have lived in the UK since the age of 2. Mixed race. Black African. Hints of Jewish. AND a woman? At the grand old age of 30, I take pride in being an amalgamation of what many people sought to destroy and oppress. I am also proud of my British heritage too, and can still recall the swell of inspiration I felt when learning about the refining of the Welfare State following the Beveridge Report in 1942.  But, I am not always allowed to be quietly British, quietly ethnically ambiguous in peace.

What are you?
Where are you really from?
No, where are you really, really from?
Can I touch your hair?
Can you burn?
Does she speak English?
You don’t sound black.
You don’t act black.
You don’t look white.
Why are you so white?
Can I say half-caste?
Can I say coloured?
Can you say the N word?
Was your mother poor?
I love mixed race babies!
You’re so exotic!
Jungle Fever!

You should grow an Afro!
You should straighten your hair?
Why is your bum not bigger?
I bet you breed like rabbits.
Is your partner black or white?
Did you live in a hut in Africa?
I don’t like foreigners but you’re OK.
There’s too many immigrants but you’re OK.
You look like [insert any high profile light-skinned black actress here]

These are questions/statements that have been said to me. Most often, by people I don’t know very well. As a child, it was simple explorative probing. Then suddenly I was 15, and a bus conductor had me cornered, wanting to know my ethnicity because my lips were ‘not Caucasian’ and he ‘had a thing for girls like me’. (Worth noting I was in school uniform at the time, surrounded by other adults).

Whilst I accept that I look different from many – especially in rural Cumbria – I do not appreciate the entitlement to question my skin, my nationality, my culture, and my life history.          

The truth was that I did not exist as white, black, or mixed, until it was made clear to me by strangers that I should make this very clear to them as soon as possible, for reasons unknown.

If it is like this for me, with my light-brown skin, my education, my strong English accent and my middle-class background (all protective factors, allowing me to exist largely in liberal bubbles where until recently, the topic of my experience as a woman of colour was gently avoided)then what is it like for those who cannot pass for southern European or anything apparently less provocative than black or brown?

I had a brief flirtation with colour-blindness in my teens. I joined the ranks of those who claimed that they did not “see colour” (presumably alarming ophthalmologists everywhere) because “we all bleed the same”. What a cosy sentiment. A beautiful one in fact. And convenient. Convenient because it is used as an avoidant tactic that denies the fact that racism is systemic and insidiously affects the way members of the BAME community are treated, not only our communities, but in healthcare, law courts, police cells, prisons, social services and education systems. After all, racism is not just slurs and lynching.

Being “colour-blind” does not change society. It also did not stop the barrage of banal questions aimed at my existence. It didn’t mean that I could walk into a hairdresser in Cumbria and not have people avoid eye contact with me because (despite black hair care being extremely lucrative globally) hairdressers in the UK are rarely taught to look after hair like mine. Nor do most shops stock appropriate products for our hair.

It did not prevent my sister having to pay for expensive make-up as a teenager because (until fairly recently) there was very little available in her skin tone.

“Seeing” colour was unavoidable for me and others like me. To be colour-blind is a privilege that was not bestowed to me, although I tried to claim it.