English | Sudanese
My Dad is from Sudan, my Mum is from England. My Mum used to travel to Egypt quite a lot and met my Dad. He came over to the UK in 1993 and contacted my Mum. They were in a relationship after a few months.
My Dad tried to bring his culture to the table with television shows, food, and music but ultimately he was never around for the majority of my life. My Mum unfortunately never educated herself on that side of culture so I grew up in a stereotypical British household. The challenge I face is with my identity. I’ve acknowledged why I have always felt like a Black sheep and never fitted in. I feel like this is a common issue with people of mixed heritage.
I feel ashamed to say it now but on reflection I think my identity has always been hidden. And when I say hidden I mean internally, because externally it’s hard to deny. It was more out of an act of survival than anything else. I grew up in a small town that’s predominately White. I always felt like I never belonged.
I first experienced racism when I was 8 when another kid told me I look dirty and I don’t wash. I didn’t really know what racism was but that comment has stuck with me ever since. That was the first time I felt out of place. No one said anything, they all just stood silently and to be honest that’s been a common theme. It amped up in high school. I’d be called derogatory words on the bus to school every morning. I never stuck up for myself. That can be seen as weak but honestly it’s because no one around me acted like it was an issue and that I was maybe overreacting. There was one occasion where the older kids chucked an apple at me in the school yard and told me to go back to my own country. I was one year 8 girl against a crowd of year 11 boys, and no one batted an eye lid. When I went to the deputy head of my school she told me it would be dealt with and sent me back to class. Nothing was ever done.
The attacks progressed outside of school where on two occasions my window was smashed simply because of the colour of my skin. One of the bricks nearly hit my Mum, yet nothing was ever done. I read somewhere a comment from someone who was mixed-race who said that if you’re Black, you experience racism outside but back at home is your safe space. It’s different for mixed-race because a lot of the time you experience racism within your family. It was never overtly but my Mum would make comments such as ‘you’re not one of those’. As if being ‘one of those’ was a bad thing. It’s purely ignorance at the end of the day but I hold a lot of anger towards my Mum. If she had educated herself, like she should have when entering a relationship with someone of a different culture, she could have educated me on my mixed heritage and maybe then I’d have felt less like an outsider. I remember filling out my yearly form for school updating details. It had me down as White British… that is only half of me.
When I speak to others sometimes they say ‘did you never question it? Did you never go and seek that part of you?’. Honestly, no. I shut down completely and it was merely survival. Keep my head down until I was older, to just survive. I had a lot of other things going on so if I’m honest it was the last thing on my mind. Don’t get me wrong, I also hold a lot of anger towards my Dad. He expected me to uphold his cultural values and expressed disappointment in me for not doing so. Yet he was never around to teach me about it. It is only now that I moved to London that I finally feel it’s a safe space to do so. Never have I ever felt so much at home. But I’m still struggling. I feel like I don’t have any connection to my roots and that’s my aim now is to explore the culture, the music, the food. Just to feel a sense of belonging. I have found it really hard to find others who are like me. Perhaps it’s because I’m still early in my journey.
Since moving to London I have felt welcomed, included and not an outsider. It’s a really beautiful feeling to not feel on edge that you’re getting stared at or judged or worried someone is going to hurl racial abuse at you. I no longer feel I’m in survival mode. I feel like I am now in a safe space with a great network of people around me so I can really learn about my identity and it will only go from strength to strength from here on out.
I don’t think I have a role model. But I do have a best friend from back in that small town we grew up in. We’re both of mixed heritage so we get the trials and tribulations. And we’re now both living in London and we finally feel comfortable and that we fit in. It’s beautiful to be going on this journey together. I’ve also started to cook traditional foods from Sudan with the help of my housemate.
In schools the syllabus is pretty much White washed. If you’re going to keep teaching the same old stuff, how do you expect change to happen? And no, just because you teach us about Ancient Egypt does not make you ‘inclusive’. It’s not just racism that needs to be addressed. It’s homophobia, transphobia, ableism.