Experiences of an Immigrant Black Girl in a British Society: A Diary

IN MY VIEW FRAGMENTS SHORT STORY CLUB POET’S CORNER XTRA XTRA

Initially I was going to write a critical essay labelled ‘Breaking Down British Racism’, using points from the following article and expanding on the them as well as exploring the notions that the author failed to grasp: blackyouthproject.com/what-black-brits-want-african-americans-to-know-about-race-and-racism-in-the-u-k/?fbclid=IwAR1jRakZWDSq2SnrFS3gKJx8AH9S-7frn69t2MZybcS5HF03P7CHoAciwXg

However, after reading Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race and felt that a reflective essay would be best for me to write and express how I have felt and how it has affected me.

As I mentioned, I recently read Reni Eddo-Lodge’s Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race. As a book is was eye-opening and educational to me. I am someone who considers themselves an academic after experiencing university and participating in a course that challenged my critical thinking and had me explore topics such as race, gender, sexuality, age, class and all the other things we consider when it comes to breaking down humans, assigning labels and observing identities.
Additionally, my social interactions and engagement with racial or feminist discourse, particularly with other academic friends or online had me assign myself the label of ‘woke'.

However, upon reading Miss Eddo-Lodge’s work I realised I was in fact dormant and her book was just the beginning of awakening me from slumber. So, out of inspiration and a desire to write, I have returned to essay ideas I had but was not able to write in my time at university.

Racism within British structures is a topic that has been discussed by women and men I admire, and it may seem like we are all saying the same thing but in different ways. My aim is not to just breakdown my experiences of racism – overt or micro aggressive – but it is also to highlight how they have influenced my understanding of race within this country and the conflicts that remain within me.

I am by no means suggesting that my viewpoint is the same as all black immigrant women who have grown up here, because we each experience this world differently and what offends one black immigrant woman, might not offend another.

My aim is to explore the roots and causes of the racism I have experienced and how it fits into the bigger picture. Hopefully after this exploration I will be able to move on to topics concerning issues within the black community and my own culture concerning feminism and colourism, and also diving deeper and more personally, explore why at one stage of my life I was too ashamed to call myself a feminist and how race and identity played a part in that. As I have said those are topics I hope to explore after, so I must begin to unpack the however many years of baggage I have been carrying with me.

ORIGins

I have been navigating British institutional spaces since I moved here and the tender age of 5, but in all honesty having been born in a former British colony – Zimbabwe – I guess I have navigated British spaces longer than that.

My parents were born in southern Rhodesia and their childhood consisted of civil war then independence before they reached their teens. Based on my father’s accounts, they experienced segregated schools, racism and discrimination because of their colonisers, the British. Zimbabwe was the apartheid that you did not here of, the reasons why are those I would have to investigate further, but that is not the purpose of this particular essay.

To continue, once Zimbabwe had gained independence, the country that was left behind still had remnants of the racist regime that had been run for years before. Black inferiority had been woven into the fabric of Zimbabwean society and even as the ruling people, the blacks of Zimbabwe were still poor and conditions slightly improved before they got worse. The white Zimbabweans who remained still lived in the comfort of their suburbs and I remember having a fascination with going into those areas, but I didn’t quite understand why we could not.

Anyway, fast forward to life in Britain and the spaces I began to encounter whiteness.

The Early Years

The first primary school I attended was St Michaels in Handsworth, Birmingham. I was new to the school, so of course they gave me a buddy. From what I remember she was the last new kid, an Asian girl who barely spoke English. She wasn’t the nicest girl, but I managed to make other friends and fit in, so I wasn’t burdened with her too much.

Now, let’s talk institutional racism. Picture this, I was an immigrant child, who has recently moved to England, so naturally I was put with a teaching assistant who worked with a special needs white boy called Gary – who became my best friend at that school for the three months I was there. I only mention Gary’s race to show that his need for the TA wasn’t his race, but the sheer fact that he had dyslexia.

When I was enrolled for this particular school, my parents had informed the school that I was fluent in English, after all I was born in a British colony, a child of two teachers, my grandmother on my father’s side had been an English teacher and whilst her husband, my grandfather had been a headmaster of several schools. I had grown up bilingual, learning Shona and English simultaneously and because of my fatigue with nursery in Zimbabwe, my parents had managed to get me enrolled into school a year early in Zimbabwe, therefore, I was advanced for my age – at the time, these days I feel like an average academic.

With all these advantages on my side, the school ignored my parent’s knowledge and assumed that I need more English lessons, therefore, during certain activities I would be taken away by the TA with Gary and the Asian girl and we would have extra English lessons together, even though I didn’t need them.

Their assumptions about me were wrong as I aced the exercises set out for me, eventually they realised they had made a mistake and I was put into a higher group in class once they realised that my English as just as fine as any other student and in some cases better – remember this notion, I’ll revisit it later.

So, a month wasted on extra lessons, because the institution made an assumption and refused to listen to the parents of a child simply because we were immigrants and they most likely held beliefs that didn’t associate blackness with intellect.

I was just five when this happened, so I couldn’t articulate my frustrations, but I knew I had been judged unfairly and I didn’t understand why.

After three months at St Michaels, we said goodbye to the area of Handsworth and moved to Stechford, Birmingham. Audley Primary School welcomed me and my brother with open arms.

Here I was in luck, the school recognised my potential and straight away I was in the top group and my buddy wasn’t the last foreign kid that had joined, but instead a nice lanky boy who knew the school well as he’d been there since nursery.

My experience at Audley was one that was chiefly positive, but it does not mean that racism stayed away. I made observations whilst and this school and I first noticed racial bias within the classroom and experienced social situations that made me sometimes feel alienated by my peers. The majority population of the school was White, then followed by Asian and then a very minute Black population, in fact I was the only one in my class until my cousin joined the school towards the end of the year.

Audley is situated in an area that has a low socioeconomic background. As an immigrant family with two parents going to university again in order to make career changes that better supported the family, our financial status fit in with the status quo.

My parents worked hard and a lot; with my mother on night shifts and my father working during the day so there would be some form of childcare available and sometimes with help from friends and family to make sure we were looked after.

Due to the sacrifices my parents had made, we were instructed to work hard and be good in school, there was a lot riding on our cooperation, and so that is what we did in order to make sure the lives of our parents would be easier.

As for other children within my school, it seems that the same message wasn’t in place. As I said the socioeconomic background of the area was poor, therefore, a number of children came from households where parents did not show much discipline or care for the education of their children, this led to several troublemakers in the classroom and most certainly children who had neglected needs as there was not much cooperation between the school and parents – let it be known I am not criticising the school as I know it did work with supporting children that had extra requirements, but it is more so the lack of interest with some parents to get involved with the educational needs of their children in that area.

Whilst in my early years at the school, I knew who the ‘naughty’ kids were – a lot of them who I believe weren’t actually naughty, but most likely had neglected needs – and it was clear who the ‘brilliant’ kids were and then, those who didn’t stand out.

It was amongst those who didn’t stand out where I first noticed racial bias. By around year 3, there were a few more black children in my year and the majority were amongst the children that didn’t stand out for being ‘naughty’ or ‘brilliant’, so occasionally they would be praised or get into trouble, as expected. However, the level of punishment amongst the children would vary and to be honest, the difference tended to be the colour of the child’s skin.

I remember in a maths lesson with a white male teacher. During the lesson there was disruption from one of the ‘naughty’ kids, who was swearing with hand gestures at the kid opposite him on his table (discretely, he thought) and giggling as the teacher was going through our times tables. The teacher was oblivious initially but when he noticed, he told the boy not to do it again – it was an informal warning. The boy did it again, so this time he got a formal warning which meant his name went on the naughty side on the board.

In the same class, we were then going through some problems on the smart board where if you knew the answer you would put up your hand and answer. One of the black boys shouted out the answer instead of putting his hand up, he quickly said sorry and put his hand up, but that was not enough for the teacher. Immediately the boy was put on the naughty side for shouting out, there was no informal warning, just straight to the formal one, for a simple mistake, not a deliberate offence of the ‘naughty’ boy who happened to be white.

It was baffling to think, one child is being overtly disobedient and is known to cause trouble, and he is given an extra chance, whereas, the other child is relatively under the radar and makes an easy mistake which he is quick to apologise for but is reprimanded at the same level…I know to some it may seem like a weak example of racial bias, but there was in difference in how the two children were disciplined and colour definitely seemed like a factor to me.

Fast forward a bit more and I can tell you about a different white male teacher who basically gaslighted the same black male student for a year in maths. This pupil was bright, amongst the ‘brilliant’ lot, he was kind and hearty, and loved to make others laugh. He was one of the few kids in my maths class I competed with, we were in the top 3 together. It was me, him and a white boy, constantly competing at mental maths and tests for the highest score.

Amongst the three, I was the best behaved, I knew when to talk so I would go unpunished, when to joke appropriately and not to have ‘sass’ as I had been trained from a young age not to do so. The boys on the other hand were a bit different. My black peer was not able to distinguish when it is appropriate to make jokes, whilst my white peer would talk back because he was stubborn at times. From this description you would think they would be disciplined similarly and face the consequences of their actions, right?

Well, sometimes that was the case, but with my black peer, something more sinister would occur throughout the year, I noticed the teacher would berate him in front of the entire class and embarrass him more often than not. The teacher would constantly tease the pupil even when he was doing nothing wrong. If there was laughing when there shouldn’t be then the teacher would call out his name and if it wasn’t him, he’d call out that it wasn’t him and he would be met with a “Don’t talk back to me!”.

The pupil would undoubtedly get wound up and say it’s not fair, and once in a while he would use our other competitor as an example and state that when he does something similar, he goes unpunished. This is when the teacher would retaliate and say that he was lying and making up fibs wouldn’t make him smarter than the other boy. This was a clear display of unprofessionalism and at the time as we were only 10/11, none of us knew how to stand up for our peer. It was very clear that the teacher antagonised him and would do things to provoke him.

Now, I know people might think, it might have been personal, not racial considering how the teacher treated me well and I had a good relationship with him. However, I did notice how the teacher’s attitude towards black boys in the school would be a lot more aggressive than towards any other kind of pupil, it seems to me now that he did not view as children between 5-11, but instead older, hence his aggression toward them.

And this is not a new attitude, black males are treated differently in their youth than other groups. They are assumed to be aggressive and are treated with aggression, even if they are the most kind hearted souls you’ll meet.

A list of brief encounters of racism (overt or microaggressions) or racial bias observed or experienced in educational institutions before university and some rebuttals I have now:

Primary School

A boy once told me I was ugly because I was black. – Your Eurocentric beauty standards are showing kid.
A supply teacher hit my cousin in class because he was being naughty. Note she verbally told off the other children displaying the same levels of behaviour, but when it came to him, she thought physical abuse was ‘appropriate’. She was dealt with by the school at least. – I’m glad her ass got fired, you don’t hit kids that aren’t yours.
I was told I was smart for a black girl when I won a primary school writing competition. – I’m just smart.

Secondary School And Sixth Form

“You’re smart for a black girl.” – Are black girls meant to be dumb?
Constantly having people wanting to or touching your hair just because its different, and the dumb comments like ‘it feels like carpet’ that come with it. – Alexa, play Don’t Touch My Hair by Solange.
“When I first met you, I thought you looked quite aggressive, but you’re actually really nice!” – Tall, black and tubby doesn’t equal aggressive, plus my resting face is bored not angry, so miss me with that aggressive shit.
“You’re pretty for a black girl.” – I didn’t know that pretty was assigned to a specific race.
“I just don’t think black girls are pretty.” – Like I said earlier, your Eurocentric beauty standards are showing.
*Gets a tan* “I’m almost as dark as you.”- No, just no!
“You don’t have an African accent.” – Please define an African accent.
“What’s Africa like?” – It’s a very big continent and I’ve only experienced two of the countries, so I can’t speak for all of it.
*From a boy who was trying to sleep with me* “I watch ebony porn.” – *crickets*
* From a boy who was trying to sleep with me* “Show me that chocolate ass of yours” – I can assure you I don’t taste like chocolate and my ass is alright, nothing wild…
“You’re being quite aggressive.” – You mean I’m speaking my mind and challenging you and you don’t like it.

UNIVERSITY

The university experience is hard to sum up with brief bullet points, that’s something for a different essay. Instead I will provide a list of incidents with boys in clubs or on dating apps during this time what the actual f**k guys:

“I heard black girls are freaks.” – You’ve watched one too many rap videos.
“You’re my first ever black girl.” – With that attitude, hopefully your last.
“You’re so exotic” – Yeah, Birmingham is mad exotic I hear.
“So where are you really from?” – Birmingham wasn’t the answer you were looking for was it?
“You look like Lauryn Hill.” – You might be blind.
*sends banana emojis* then uses the n word - I blocked and reported this racist fuck as soon as
“I only date black girls.” – Seems like a compliment but is definitely a red flag.
*only talks exclusively about black women in a sexual manner* - We’re not your sexual objects, we’re people with feelings too.
“I like black girls because they dominate more.” – One size doesn’t fit all; sex is personal and unique for each person.
“Can you cook jollof?” – Not every African girl is Ghanaian or Nigerian.
“Are you sure you’re not Jamaican? You seem Jamaican.” – I didn’t even respond to this guy, because he didn’t deserve a response.

That is just what I can recall at this moment in time, but I assure you there’s more.

I’m not one for a lengthy conclusion, so I’ll keep it brief. My experiences detailed or brief say a lot about the environment I have grown up in. Unfortunately, many aspects of this society are still volatile for your friendly black girl and it’s hard to find where one can fit in and doesn’t have to explain their presence somewhere. I hope these tales are insightful or resonate with a few.

Short Story Club

In My View

Fragments