Racism Has No Place Around Here

I was trimming a section of the extraordinarily long hedge that bounds our garden from Black Path, an alley that runs from our street up to a well-to-do area of housing called The Meadows. As I cut one end, it revealed “Niggers Out” written on our adjoining fence, probably written by some deluded teenage kid, but there are no excuses, and there is zero tolerance here for shit like that. The same vile expression has been seen in a few places around town in the few years we’ve lived here in Berwick upon Tweed.

It got me thinking. Why in a world so deeply interconnected has racism raised its ugly head once more? Back in my Blackpool teenage, one of my sisters would babysit for Carl and Craig, who were mixed race twins and she’d drop in with them from time to time before school. Her then husband had a Rasta friend called Lincoln, and he would also occasionally drop round. There was never any thought of difference, because Mum and Dad raised us to be nice to all human beings. It shaped my life.

In my student days, I would frequently attend anti racist events in Norwich and in London, with the largest and most inspiring being in Victoria Park, London in 1978. The punk movement had empowered teenagers just like me to resist the vile scourge of racism with the National Front and later the British National Party constantly promoting their warped and poisonous views. The media obsessed about it of course, and often portrayed it as something that happened in poorer neighbourhoods. That wasn’t the case then, and it isn’t the case now. My Mum and Dad had nine children and we all lived in a three bedroom semi-detached house, with my Dad having two jobs to keep the family afloat. Not exactly rolling in cash, but there wasn’t a racist bone in our bodies.

Through a series of happy accidents and a little determination on my part, I ended up with a 35 year working life in international trade, 20 of them running my own consultancy and 7 tutoring for the Institute of Export. I travelled widely and made friends across the world, but get this: the only place I had trouble getting paid, or getting my clients paid, was here in the UK. I’ve enjoyed hospitality in other countries that I’ve almost never seen in this country. This insular island can learn a huge amount from other cultures, but teenagers writing shit like that on a fence is another reminder that the poison of the far right is never far from the surface.

It would seem I will have to spend the rest of my days expending yet more energy on fighting a battle that should have been won decades ago. There is no place for racism around here, on or offline. There is no place for it in the world. Please join me in speaking out against racism wherever and whenever you can, and in making this world a more inclusive, safer and happier place to be.

Peace.

John