Sisterly bonds through Macro and Micro-aggressions spanning 40 years

Introduction

This blog is written by me and my half-sister who share the same Indian father. My sister Karina has Indian heritage from both of her parents whilst my mother is white British. We grew up in different generations (me in the 1970s and 80s and Karina in the 1990s) and in different parts of the UK and had no idea each other existed at the time. Since meeting we have talked a lot about our experiences growing up and racism against us is something we have both experienced all our lives. We write this blog to share these experiences which now span nearly four decades in the hope of bringing awareness to the long fight ahead that we all have as anti-racists.  

Heather and Karina

Heather

Recent events in the US following the murder of George Floyd have prompted me to write about my own experiences. There are three reasons for me doing this. One is for my own therapy as I have been finding it really difficult to watch and listen to what happened and other people’s stories, two is to show people how being racist can affect people for their whole lives, and three is to also show how the anger and trauma gained from racist abuse can help to make change if the energy from it is directed in the right way and if you fight for it.   

I never knew my Indian dad because quite frankly, he wasn’t a very nice man, so my mum left him when I was a baby in 1971. Following this we lived at my grandparents’ in a decent area of Birmingham until I was 10. During this time, I had absolutely no idea that I was ‘different’ as nobody ever mentioned my mixed race. As I was to find out, this was an early lucky escape due to the heavy presence of groups with racist ideologies such as The Anti-Paki League and The National Front who had sprung up in Thatcher’s Britain where she declared that Britain was ‘swamped by people from other countries’.

When I was 10 my mum moved out of my grandparents’ house and took my brother and I with her. She had managed to get a council property on an estate in Birmingham. The first day I was at our new house I decided to go and play outside at the bottom of our grove. Whilst playing a much older lad came up to me, called me a Paki and kicked me down in the middle of the road. He kicked me a few more times when I was on the floor and told me to go back to where I came from. I was 10. Years. Old. Shocked and traumatised, I ran back to my house crying. I had no idea why he did that to me. Why did he target me in particular? What did he mean go back to where you came from? This was to become a regular occurrence in my life.

Following this event, I made some friends locally through my new school (mostly other oppressed children in different ways). I started to go out in my local area to meet up with these friends. When I was on my own, I was often spotted by other children who called me a Paki. Eventually many of the local children knew about my existence so would wait for me to give me both verbal and physical abuse. In particular a gang of three girls would beat me up every single time they saw me. Then an older girl started to join in. One day I was walking on another estate and I got singled out by a kid with an air rifle who shot me in the head. By this time, I was 11 years old and had suffered one year of constant abuse for having slightly different coloured skin to them and black hair. The children got to know where we lived and one day they sprayed ‘Pakis’ go home’ on the front of our house. There were also threats made to burn us in our beds so I couldn’t sleep at night. 

I began to tell lies about who I was – telling everyone I was Italian to try to stop the abuse. I put talcum powder on my face to try to whiten my skin. I was so angry with my dad for being Indian. I hated him. My self-esteem bottomed out and I was further abused as a result. I felt depressed and suicidal most of the time. My anxiety shot through the roof and I eventually started to run away from home because I couldn’t cope. I felt like I was in a constant state of shock. After running away on and off and sleeping rough for about a year, I was put into care for my own safety. I stayed in care until I was old enough to leave home.

Throughout this time, I never had boyfriends because white kids would not go out with me. This changed as I got older, but the stigma has stayed with me for years. The thing about growing up mixed race in the 1980s is that I didn’t feel like I belonged anywhere. This issue has stayed with me throughout my life and I find it difficult to accept society as I feel that it failed me. I also have found it difficult to settle anywhere, join groups, stay in a career etc. 

Lately, following a hard slog through education, I have gained a degree, a PGCE, two master’s degrees which focused on inclusive education and I am currently doing a PhD. What has kept me going through this is the thirst for social justice fed by my own abuse. I have recently begun to research post-colonial education where I finally feel I belong. It makes me feel like I have the power to make change. With the energy directed towards protests and more of society wanting change it has stoked my fire even more. It has made me sit up and take action. I am hoping that this blog is part of that action. 

Karina

I grew up in Greater London in the 1990s with a single mother and a brother. During this era, I never experienced overt forms of racism such as that suffered by Heather in the 1970s and 80s. However, it was the period where Stephen Lawrence was murdered just because of the colour of his skin. Obviously as a child I wasn’t aware of institutional racism and the impact it could have for people like me. Nor was I aware of micro-aggressions related to race faced in everyday conversations. To be clear; a micro-aggression is subtle and often in the guise of a compliment; for example when I reached university, often people asked me if I were ‘mixed race’ as I appeared more ‘liberal’ than Indians and well spoken. 

My mother moved to the UK from north India in the early 1980’s. She met my father (who had moved with his family to Birmingham in the 60s). They had a failed marriage and in order to protect us from him she moved out of Birmingham and came to live in London. We kept in touch with our paternal grandparents and my grandfather often told us stories about how he was invited to this country to rebuild it after the war. He was a carpenter and proudly retold stories about his handywork. He juxtaposed his proud British identity with feelings of being unwanted and not belonging; as he often told us stories about signs outside pubs that said ‘No Blacks, No Irish, No Indians, No Dogs’. Now that I am older, I can’t imagine how he navigated such a world so openly opposed to him, whilst also so desperately requiring his services. 

I recall being younger and mainstream media had no representations of Indian women. It seemed that blonde hair and blue eyes were symbols of beauty, whilst my dark features were not conventional. If Indian people did feature on media, they were often highly stereotyped and almost caricatured. During this time, I battled with dual identities; of being Indian and different and also of my British culture and wanting to ‘fit in’ with my peers. I recall feeling embarrassed if my mother even spoke to me in Punjabi in public or feeling worried that I smelt of Indian food if she had been cooking whilst I was leaving the house. This is ironic now as I love Indian cuisine and am proud to be bilingual.

In my adult life, the thing I find most frustrating is the question by strangers or acquaintances of ‘where are you from… no I mean REALLY ‘where are you from?’ The question they are asking is not my geographical location in the UK but of my cultural and ancestral home. It always confuses me why people choose this wording; it tells me they think I simply could not be from the UK based solely on the colour of my skin. It always makes me wonder how educated they are about Britain and in fact all of Europe’s colonial history. Our curriculum in history never taught me about the thousands of Indian soldiers who enlisted and supported the war efforts. Our history books never taught me that grains of rice were sent from India to feed the UK population whilst there was a famine in India during the Second World War. If perhaps this was taught more clearly perhaps people would not ‘other’ me so quickly by asking me where I am really from.

Things changed in particular towards our communities after September 11^th. The first person to be killed in the US as a result of hate crime was a Sikh man who was mistaken for being Muslim as he wore a turban; similar to the turbans worn by Bin Laden. This deeply affected me, as both my grandads proudly wore turbans, this is when I realised the attack of hate on the Muslim community is also an attack on me.    

I hope this blog helps to shed light on our experiences of non-white British people and help you to understand that we are more alike than different.

Our Joint thoughts

During the 1980s racism reared itself as a macro-aggression to me due to racist ideologies being widespread and accepted in the area I grew up in. Karina’s micro-aggressions were equally as damaging. We both continue to suffer micro-aggressions in social and professional situations. The world today worries us both with the rise of far-right rhetoric following Brexit in our country. We are fearful of another rise of macro-aggressions that may affect people we love. We both didn’t see Brexit coming due to the echo-chambers that social media produces meaning that we only heard from like-minded people. Therefore, we know that the fight to understand each other as humans will begin by us having difficult conversations. We hope that this blog will help people to understand that racism needs addressing at different levels and as a constant fight. When we were apart growing up, we were bewildered by the abuse we suffered but we both later moved towards professions which were dominated by the fight for social justice. After meeting Karina in 2007 my identity has strengthened, and I feel more of a belonging to my Indian side. I also feel a lot stronger to fight against racism with my little sister’s wisdom and own experiences by my side. After all, this is both of our country too.