A tale of Oxford: When it’s racist, it pours
At the age of 17, I was confirmed as a member of a rare subsection of society— that species that comes along once in a blue moon like the well-nourished “African” child on television or the “strong woman” who has defied the usual weak ways of her kind. I became one of those “intelligent” black people.
I thought it was a bad joke when my mediocre, 112 year old South London state school announced I’d become their first black student to get into Oxbridge. But then the accolades came one by one—exultations and declarations of my being the role model minority student, a performer of an academic miracle. Why was it so epic to be of this skin and go to Oxford University? It wasn’t, I told myself, plus I had a great teacher supporting me through the entrance process that made it seem inconsequential. “Go to Oxford.” She said. “You’ll blend right in.” She said.
I liked to think I didn’t stick out at Oxford, but in a land of permitted prejudices the unsolicited politically incorrect observations kept coming. Students and tutors alike reminded me, lest I forget from week to week, that it was not normal for me to be there. Once when I was about to enter my room—hand holding key, key inside lock–another student decided she had no other choice than to accost me.
“You’re not allowed to be in here” she said, emboldened by a genetic cocktail of privilege and sloppy ignorance. She continued with a threat to report me for breaking in to my own Oxford College, Lady Margaret Hall (LMH), ignoring the obvious truth right in front of her.
“Go ahead”, I said with a tired shrug, entering my room and closing the door on her very red face.
‘You need to work harder because you’re black.’ my Roman Law tutor concluded one afternoon, in case by then I hadn’t realised this was the first and most important thing everyone else seemed to see about me. She was unblinking in her determination to set me right. Really, there was quite a lot of intense staring, and in fact she was just telling the truth. You couldn’t mess about in Oxford looking like this. So, while the boys in my tutorials stared at her breasts to pass the time, I listened in with the force of ten white men. But it’s hard trying to be what you’re not. Actually, it’s impossible.
I had enough self-assurance to keep me from feeling uneasy. I was more jaded than anything else and a little preoccupied with trying to keep another minority group label off my growing tally. The Law course felt anachronistic, imaginative students were in scarce supply, and I’d managed to land perhaps the only woman tutor in College who, I was told by another tutor, disliked “pretty women, women and black people”— yet another unnecessary thorn in my already thorny side. My entire Oxford experience might have been a disaster had I not joined the University women’s football team and found a fit there. With the football team giving me such a strong sense of community, I started to feel at home and this feeling eventually spread over my entire experience. By the time I was halfway through my time there, Oxford became the lifeblood of my existence.
How fitting it was then when I fell ill with an underlying blood condition. It was autoimmune—harmless to anyone else, not a trace of it on my skin, breath or saliva—but I may as well have contracted Ebola as far as my thorn was concerned. She would give me wide berths in hallways if not execute a complete change in direction upon seeing me coming towards her. Door handles were given a second thought immediately after my direct contact with them when there was no escape in a different direction. My condition persisted and I fell behind with work for a few weeks. No big deal, I thought. People are usually empathetic and compassionate when someone is ill, aren’t they?
My thorn, patron tutor of repatriation, saw things differently and used my falling behind with work as a springboard to get me out of the University, at least temporarily in the first instance. With the assistance of an unreasonably dour Senior Tutor, my College decided to force an ultimatum on me. I had a choice of suspension or expulsion. Empathy didn’t even make the horizon.
Outside of my Oxford safety net, chaos ensued. My family fell into financial difficulties and my mother’s mental health declined until she finally ran away from home — all bad things, all at once. Studying for my conditional re-entry to College became near impossible. But people are nice when you’ve got no money and you’re dealing with a near suicidal mother, aren’t they? Reaching out to LMH for help turned out to be a futile endeavour. The official message?
“If you look after your mother and she commits suicide anyway, you’ll both be in a bad position. It’s better to concentrate on your studies. If she’s still alive when you’re finished, at least you’ll have a Law degree to help her with.”
Finally I understood why the suicide rate at Oxford was so high, if this was the level of pastoral care on offer. I decided to ignore the advice, scored a 2:2 instead of the conditional 2:1 I needed to get back in and was invited to leave both the University and the town of Oxford itself with immediate effect, an invisible perimeter suddenly erected around the University to keep the threat of me out. I politely declined, knowing leaving the city would make certain tutors ecstatic and me devastated. Why would I leave one of the best universities in the world when I worked so hard and had the intelligence to get there, despite certain opinions to the contrary?
I spent the next two years outside of the University, trying desperately to get back in. So many things were off about my dismissal, but I couldn’t make my case a concern to such a prominent, traditional institution. Continued misfortune had started to wear me down, but a lifeline came just in time — a respected Law Tutor offering to help me mount a fresh appeal to my College. He was going to help me craft a letter about my case—a ray of hope at last, I thought. At least, until he attempted to touch me. Several times.
“I like black women. Actually you didn’t need to come here for us to do this, but I wanted to see your pretty face.”
Sigh. I was on crutches at the time too, so I couldn’t make any sudden moves to shake of his advances.
First he tried shoving me into his bedroom and closing the door behind us under the ruse of helping him pick out some new curtains from the book of swatches laying suspiciously on top of his pristine made bed. I said it would be easier if he brought the swatch book to me and luckily, I was still agile enough to make it back through the door before he could go all in. Grumbling he settled for a few gropes instead, inner thigh, buttocks, my breasts mashed against his chest, the air around him dense with spirits.
Eventually I reported it via an appropriate channel. Naturally, nobody cared. In the aftermath, I fell into a state of depression I’d been on the brink of for a while.
It seemed almost farcical many weeks later when I happened upon the leverage that got me back into Oxford — a drunken readmitted student, opposite sexed, opposite skinned, whose family’s sizeable donations had allowed him, though he had failed his exams, not a 2:2 in sight — to be let back in amongst a few others. With no money to begin brokering deals for my education I corresponded instead about the discrepancy I’d found with that student and indeed many who had far worse results and less pressing issues than me being let back into the College. I threatened a lawsuit. Lo and behold a true miracle occurred this time; within a few weeks I was informed that I could start back the next term unconditionally, no exams, nothing. Apparently all it takes is five years of the thickest fucking skin to get through Oxford from school to finish if you’re anything like me.







