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According to the 2011 census just over 3% of the UK’s population consisted of minority ethnic groups, with the large majority living in London. The leftover percentage is therefore split across the rest of the UK, resulting in a lack of diversity across the country. These minorities who live outside of London are almost forgotten, as they are divided in such small numbers; but how does it feel to be one of the few who make up this small population who live outside of London?

For me, growing up in the small county of Bedfordshire seemed normal as a youngster. The majority of my mother’s big family live here, so from that perspective I was always surrounded by black people. However, a large part of my life was school, and being one out of about six other black pupils in my year (and the teachers called me by another black girl’s name) it was strange to see – I would get called other black girl’s name and vice versa. However, when it came to the white pupils in the class, who made up the large majority of people, the teacher would have no problem in getting all of their names right. It’s that typical stereotype of “they all look the same”, but when there’s so few of you and the teacher continuously makes this so called mistake, it made me think that the teacher’s had little respect for us. They are not even trying to learn who we are, and something so simple as what our names are.

Although, at such a young age I didn’t think about it too much, but in the back of my head I always thought of myself as an outsider.  Especially, experiencing teacher’s surprised faces when I would speak in a formal manner, rather than what is stereotyped for black people. When the white pupils would speak in the same way I was speaking it was treated normally. These differences in how we were treated made me especially feel marginalised at school. There was also a gifted and talented scheme at school, and I wasn’t on it, but I thought I was just as smart as some of the other students who were on the scheme (the majority of people on this scheme were white). It made me feel stupid, even though I knew I wasn’t. It also made me unmotivated with my studies; why must I try if I wasn’t going to be recognised for my achievements?

Things that may seem minor to some, like not getting my name right, are ones that shaped the way in which I grew up. This made me see myself in a negative way, often questioning if I was in the wrong. I often thought I should be acting differently or like these stereotypes, but I realised that I would have been playing into how people would want me to act, to reinforce this negative image. This was worsened by being told from a young age that I need to work 10 times as hard to achieve the same as a white person, from parents or other family members. This I found to be true, but learning this from a young age made me question if I really was inferior to white people, before I had even entered the classroom. If I wasn’t told this, it could have helped me to be more confident within the education system, and not set my biases based on this. These are lessons in life that white students do not have to learn. They can instead just focus on their studies, whereas many minority children had to think about how they were viewed within society.

Thankfully, I wasn’t completely shut off from how people lived outside of Bedfordshire. Growing up, I spent a lot of my time in London, West Ham to be exact; a large number of ethnic minorities lived here. I would spend this time visiting my grandparents; looking back on that time the differences between London life and life in Bedfordshire was and still is significant. I remember dropping my younger cousin off to school, and seeing the number of minorities that filled the streets on their way to school. I remember the diversity in the markets that my grandma would go to, to buy yam and plantain. The same markets in Bedfordshire would be full of white men selling apples and pears. After my grandparents passed away I no longer had this connection with London. I could no longer see the local black corner shop owners, who I’d known since I can remember. I was back to being locked away in the “countryside”. This insight benefitted me in ways that I could not even imagine at the time, as it allowed me to gain some knowledge from outside of my small hometown. Other minorities in my same position may not have experienced life from outside of their small town.

Having this insight made me realise that people are treated differently everywhere; even though there is racism all over, different parts of the UK react differently. For example, as there are more minorities in London, it shows in the people that you see around and the cultures that they celebrate (Notting Hill Carnival). Whereas, in smaller towns, the variety of cultures aren’t celebrated a lot, and are often ignored. This celebration of cultures allows for individuals from minority backgrounds to look at themselves in a more positive light. This has improved in my local area, with the creation of the Reggae festival that was scheduled to take place before coronavirus happened in Milton Keynes. However, these are the sorts of things that would’ve helped to make me and other minorities to feel more included in their hometowns. Hopefully the younger generations benefit from these small changes and feel more comfortable in their hometown, and themselves.

 Commentary by Niccole Wilson

IDENTITY SERIES – PART TWO

As I entered my 20s I began to realise how much of an influence my surroundings had on me, and the lack of ethnic faces that I saw in my everyday life, especially in comparison to London. Everything that had once seemed normal in my childhood, had now become apparently shocking in my adulthood. The main bulk of what I had learnt had come from my school days, where all that was taught was the World Wars and that white people (especially men) were our saviours, by supposedly setting us free after they had enslaved us.

Obviously, back in school you only learnt what was planned out in the ethnocentric curriculum, which is why it is extremely important to continue campaigning for a multicultural curriculum. We learnt these topics, as this was what we apparently needed to succeed in life. At the time however, I soaked all of this knowledge in and looked no further. I was taught to think that this was the only history I needed to learn in my life.

As soon as I grew older and looked beyond those history books, the information I finally unlocked was shocking. I didn’t even know that black soldiers fought in the war, and still think about how I never saw even one black soldier in the numerous photos passed around in class. As I continue learning these hidden facts, it becomes more obvious how that would have made me feel marginalised. Especially when we would briefly learn anything about black culture the whole class would have to turn in their seats to look at any black pupil in the class. Thinking about this now it would make any black child feel targeted; no one does the same when we learn about white history, and that’s because everyone is used to learning about this white history, as well as white pupils making up the majority of class.

Learning more than just slavery after I’d left school opened up my eyes to more positive aspects of history. For example, as I’ve grown up I’ve realised how much black people have contributed to society, things that are not taught to us. The traffic light which is used worldwide was invented by a black man (Garrett Morgan). This also put into perspective how disrespected we are in society, yet we are big contributors to the necessities used everyday that aren’t even thought about in the world. It does cause a sense of resentment I think, but to move on from that, I had to put that behind me and focus on just learning more.

This doesn’t just have a negative impact on minority cultures, who were never given the opportunity to learn about their ancestors during school. For white students, learning about their fellow black students in a negative way, often consisting of slavery, they would only see us in the perspective of slaves and carry on with their lives still believing what they were taught during school and are less likely to broaden their horizons as this has nothing to do with their personal culture. Learning more about different cultures from a young age could potentially lead to a better understanding of others, and a higher rate of acceptance. The ethnocentric curriculum is the biggest hindrance to children, as this is usually the first learning step for them, outside of their homes. Every pupil is then institutionalised to believe what they see, and youngsters are extremely easy to influence. Once you leave that mindset behind, it becomes easier to branch away from the taught curriculum and learning this has been an eye opener to what feels like the outside world.

I know I was personally easily influenced at school. I think to myself I wish I wasn’t so naive, but being a child that wasn’t my fault. Even when I look back on school, I think I blocked a lot of my experiences out, just because they weren’t the most positive experiences. I think because we learnt the same thing over and over again, like the World War from different perspectives, it didn’t keep me interested, so a lot of it I just wasn’t interested in. School thought they were doing us a favour when they taught us about women in the war (suffragettes/suffragists) but they completely missed out ethnic minorities. We learnt that women were becoming valid, but for ethnic minorities they didn’t even matter; in ways making me feel like I didn’t matter, as I didn’t learn about people who looked like me. The main positive from this situation is that I’m still young.

Commentary by Niccole Wilson