Imagine walking down the street and someone grabs your clothing because they don't like it. Imagine they throw things at you because of how you are dressed, or simply because you were born with a skin colour other than white. Call you racist names because they think you are foreign. Call out racist insults from moving cars as you walk on the streets of your hometown, minding your own business. I've now learned not to look at people who honk from cars, insults inevitably follow. I've even watched a man in the corner of my eye on a bus furiously giving me both his middle fingers. I hope the fact that I didn't look straight at him just made him appear like some mad man. That's pretty much how I deal with racism these days, I don't even look at the person who said the insult. I keep walking like nothing happened. I hope that makes them mad that I didn't acknowledge them, it's exactly my aim!
The Transporter Bridge, Middlesbrough
Let's start this properly by looking back at my school days. I remember never really thinking much about my parents being from two different countries. It was normal to me and it surprised me when one day my dad came to pick me up, and some of my classmates noticed him. Now my dad has brown skin, he's several shades darker than me as I'm more of a beige colour (as I see myself anyway!). Anyway these kids were like, "that's your dad?! really?" I explained he was Arab, then after that I always had kids saying I was 'Arabic'. I was constantly correcting them, it's Arab, Arabic is a language! Things weren't too bad at this school, except when one girl called me a 'mudblood'. I was like "what's that?" I remember never hearing it again until Harry Potter was released. I always thought it was racist and was surprised to hear it being used, albeit with a different meaning. I then moved onto a different primary school as my parents wanted me to be around more kids like me. It was a great idea and worked well, except because of the diversity at this new school, there was also a bit more racism/religious hate. I was actually called a 'nigger' by one child here. I'm not even dark skinned, but because of the comments about my colour, I then started to see myself as a coloured person. I was surprised when much later I went to get my shade for foundation matched at Boots, and I'm either a medium or between fair and medium. I wasn't dark at all. Those kids were just plain nasty and picked on anything that stood out I guess.
I do still see myself as coloured, because I'm mixed. I'm different to other people culturally too. Yes I'm half English and I can hang out with English people and it works, but then I also fit in with mixed people like me, and Arabs. It's always hard to describe being mixed. It basically means you fit into a lot of boxes, instead of one. You embrace different foods and languages, but they also belong to you. It's not foreign. With my Libyan side, there's even bits of Italian influence in there. This is because the Italians invaded Libya in 1911. As a result of this we have some Italian words in the Libyan dialect. We also eat pasta, although it's usually called 'macarona' in Libya. Some Libyans even claim pizza was invented there, but I'm not so sure!
Tripoli - my dad's home city
I'm kind of a keyboard warrior these days. If I see any racist comments going on local pages, I'm usually there to try and change how people see ethnic minorities. Emphasis on the 'try'. The ignorant people in Middlesbrough aren't going to change any time soon, which is really sad. We have a problem with people supporting the far right in this town, and its driving people away. I'd like to see a mayoral candidate tackle that, but I highly doubt they will. Being a white male running for mayor, you're probably not thinking of the minorities, sadly. The problem is though, these minorities helped make this town what it is. Looking a bit further away, but still in the North East, my own family were working class. My granddad worked for British Rail. My grandma worked as a cleaner most of her life. But people don't know this about me, because they write me off as a foreigner. That's the problem, you distance yourself from people, you don't try to get to know about them, and you miss out. Don't be ignorant. Don't tell people to integrate when you have no desire to integrate with them. The world is a global village, take advantage of it!
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