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| I knew I wasn’t white. Realising I was working-class hurt more | I knew I wasn’t white. Realising I was working-class hurt more |
| (4 months later) | |
| I have known I’m not white since I was very young. But I didn’t always know I was working-class. My earliest memory of racism was when I was six. My cousin and I stood silently in the front garden as the kids from a white family down the road strode past calling us “Pakis”. As they continued to walk away, we started conferring about what to call white people. When they reached their house, we shouted out “Engees!” – because English and white were interchangeable – while being ready to run inside should they decide this was a real insult. It was at that moment I understood “Paki” to be a derogatory word for my skin colour. Up until then, I just looked different. But at that moment, I knew I wasn’t white. | I have known I’m not white since I was very young. But I didn’t always know I was working-class. My earliest memory of racism was when I was six. My cousin and I stood silently in the front garden as the kids from a white family down the road strode past calling us “Pakis”. As they continued to walk away, we started conferring about what to call white people. When they reached their house, we shouted out “Engees!” – because English and white were interchangeable – while being ready to run inside should they decide this was a real insult. It was at that moment I understood “Paki” to be a derogatory word for my skin colour. Up until then, I just looked different. But at that moment, I knew I wasn’t white. |
| Realising I was working-class came much later. I’ve always been a Londoner, but London to me has always been a vast estate, where those like me live in outhouses surrounding the extravagant mansion at the centre of it. The white, middle-class world within it was never visible to us from Newham, east London. Being a second-generation British Pakistani was the identity I attached to myself. | Realising I was working-class came much later. I’ve always been a Londoner, but London to me has always been a vast estate, where those like me live in outhouses surrounding the extravagant mansion at the centre of it. The white, middle-class world within it was never visible to us from Newham, east London. Being a second-generation British Pakistani was the identity I attached to myself. |
| Newham is where immigrant communities have created a home away from home. Most people I knew growing up shared the same background and experiences as me: fathers working in factories, free school dinners, and the majority of white faces around us being our school teachers. It’s this shared experience that superficially sheltered many of us from what it means to be working class. Even when I went to sixth form in the slightly wealthier borough of Redbridge, sharing the same culture with the large south Asian population meant I still never thought of myself in terms of class. It also meant I didn’t always recognise racism either. It wouldn’t be until I was much older that I’d realise the egg thrown at me by a white man in a white van was not a random act. | Newham is where immigrant communities have created a home away from home. Most people I knew growing up shared the same background and experiences as me: fathers working in factories, free school dinners, and the majority of white faces around us being our school teachers. It’s this shared experience that superficially sheltered many of us from what it means to be working class. Even when I went to sixth form in the slightly wealthier borough of Redbridge, sharing the same culture with the large south Asian population meant I still never thought of myself in terms of class. It also meant I didn’t always recognise racism either. It wouldn’t be until I was much older that I’d realise the egg thrown at me by a white man in a white van was not a random act. |
| Stepping outside of east London, I started to see myself in relation to wider social structures. At university I saw myself standing within the vast estate that is London, and in direct view of the mansion that was always inaccessible to me. Getting through university by doing admin roles in small offices felt like I had walked close enough to the iron gates of the mansion to be able to look through them. | Stepping outside of east London, I started to see myself in relation to wider social structures. At university I saw myself standing within the vast estate that is London, and in direct view of the mansion that was always inaccessible to me. Getting through university by doing admin roles in small offices felt like I had walked close enough to the iron gates of the mansion to be able to look through them. |
| Getting off the tube at St James’s Park and walking to the office, my entire world would change. I was standing in the mansion, scared to sit or touch the furniture. When you first enter this space, you feel invisible. Being in a queue anywhere you are ignored as the white person behind you is served first. You are talked over. But all eyes are on you when there’s a terrorist attack anywhere in the world. And you shrink, partly because you feel invisible and partly because you stand out. In this mansion the cleaners, post room and canteen staff were mainly black, brown or eastern European, while the majority of faces sitting at the computers were white. And I felt guilty for sitting among them. There were other people of colour who seemed to be comfortable, so what was wrong with me? | Getting off the tube at St James’s Park and walking to the office, my entire world would change. I was standing in the mansion, scared to sit or touch the furniture. When you first enter this space, you feel invisible. Being in a queue anywhere you are ignored as the white person behind you is served first. You are talked over. But all eyes are on you when there’s a terrorist attack anywhere in the world. And you shrink, partly because you feel invisible and partly because you stand out. In this mansion the cleaners, post room and canteen staff were mainly black, brown or eastern European, while the majority of faces sitting at the computers were white. And I felt guilty for sitting among them. There were other people of colour who seemed to be comfortable, so what was wrong with me? |
| When an MP made headlines for criticising the “positive discrimination” of Oxford’s quota system for allowing too many minority and working-class students, I listened to the general debate among my colleagues. And the words of my boss are ones that I’ve never forgotten. “I agree. I don’t pay thousands of pounds for my kids to go to private school just so some smelly oik can take their place.” | When an MP made headlines for criticising the “positive discrimination” of Oxford’s quota system for allowing too many minority and working-class students, I listened to the general debate among my colleagues. And the words of my boss are ones that I’ve never forgotten. “I agree. I don’t pay thousands of pounds for my kids to go to private school just so some smelly oik can take their place.” |
| The silence from others was indicative of what they felt about this comment. But the fact was, no one there was from a working-class background. I was that “smelly oik” in the room. It suddenly dawned on me that I was working class. The casual use of such language from those in more privileged positions ignores the violence it can cause. Words don’t always land on your body and fall off. They hit you like artillery fire. They seep into your bones. Words can shatter you. Even while writing this, I can feel those wounds. | The silence from others was indicative of what they felt about this comment. But the fact was, no one there was from a working-class background. I was that “smelly oik” in the room. It suddenly dawned on me that I was working class. The casual use of such language from those in more privileged positions ignores the violence it can cause. Words don’t always land on your body and fall off. They hit you like artillery fire. They seep into your bones. Words can shatter you. Even while writing this, I can feel those wounds. |
| It’s in order to heal these wounds that many of us try to shed what we can of our identities. People can see race, but if you try hard enough, your class can be hidden. You can change the way you speak, how you carry yourself, your viewpoints, all in the hope you’ll neither be invisible nor too conspicuous. With this you try to adopt traits that are more white and middle-class. You start to call the mansion home. | It’s in order to heal these wounds that many of us try to shed what we can of our identities. People can see race, but if you try hard enough, your class can be hidden. You can change the way you speak, how you carry yourself, your viewpoints, all in the hope you’ll neither be invisible nor too conspicuous. With this you try to adopt traits that are more white and middle-class. You start to call the mansion home. |
| But identity is not so easy to erase. You can pack away parts of who you are, but this space was never made for you and the people in it will always see you in a certain way. Words continue to land on you, breaking your bones. “Are you going to have an arranged marriage?”; “Where are you really from?”; “You’re really different.” | But identity is not so easy to erase. You can pack away parts of who you are, but this space was never made for you and the people in it will always see you in a certain way. Words continue to land on you, breaking your bones. “Are you going to have an arranged marriage?”; “Where are you really from?”; “You’re really different.” |
| Words can change your sense of self. When I tried desperately to wash and dry the only coat I owned when that egg was thrown at me, I didn’t feel working-class. But when the words “smelly oik” were used, it took me years to recover. That is the reality of words. Micro-aggressions are delivered with a smile by those you normally consider “nice people”, so it is difficult to know how respond to them, despite the rupture they cause internally. It’s a reminder of the confidence of whiteness. | Words can change your sense of self. When I tried desperately to wash and dry the only coat I owned when that egg was thrown at me, I didn’t feel working-class. But when the words “smelly oik” were used, it took me years to recover. That is the reality of words. Micro-aggressions are delivered with a smile by those you normally consider “nice people”, so it is difficult to know how respond to them, despite the rupture they cause internally. It’s a reminder of the confidence of whiteness. |
| • Spun, by Rabiah Hussain, is at Arcola theatre until 28 July | • Spun, by Rabiah Hussain, is at Arcola theatre until 28 July |
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