Saturday 12 March 2011

Where I come from

I just blurted this out over on the F word in response to Amelia's blog about ethnic identity. I don't know anything about blog etiquette, so sorry if this is bad form:

Firstly, I'd like to say how much I liked your post on "Where are you from?" it really spoke to my experience.

Obviously, we are coming from quite different angles, as I am dual heritage - Black Caribbean and White English.

I have to pull you up on the use of the term "Afro-Caribbean". Black people, in your terms, come from more places than Africa or the Caribbean and using "Afro" invalidates the African experience and the African heritage of a large majority of Caribbean people. A lot of Caribbean I know are proud to have an African heritage and choose to describe themselves as African Caribbean.

The term "Black" with a capital B is seen as a political statement used by those of us who have experienced oppression due to the colour of our skin. My trade union has a Black members section which is an umbrella term used in preference to Black and Minority Ethnic or any other term to show our solidarity with each other and the stand we make against racism.

I'm curious to know how you know that the colour of your skin has not affected your life chances or opportunities, I'd be really interested to know how you have reached that conclusion. Of course, class and money come it into it, and I expect we may have similar backgrounds, yet I know I have been disadvantaged and treated differently due to the colour of my skin in the workplace, socially and in day-to-day life. Being followed round shops, turned away from restaurants and treated as if I am uneducated are not new experiences.

Finally, I choose not to use the term "race". My nationality is English, my ethnicity is dual heritage, as I mentioned above, and I am happy to identify as Black. Being dual heritage has been a long hard road for me to walk, and ethnically, I do identify more as White English than Black Caribbean due to how I was brought up. But there's no way to "show" that to the people who ask "where are you from?" and I have chosen to stand with my Black brothers and sisters as that is where the world places me, and there's nothing I can do about that.