4 Harsh Truths of Being Brown in a White World
They’re not just going to let you be who you are.
My mother has always described going through life as a black woman as “playing the game on hard”. Although I’ve had many more privileges than she had, I can’t help but agree with this observation. I’ve had the unfortunate experience of being surrounded by racists for my entire life. But, then again, so has everyone. That’s just how the world is. One of my earliest memories of my schooling is someone asking me why I was “that colour” (emphasis very much not added). Living as a normal person whom the world is seemingly trying to convince is not normal, has its benefits. So — especially for those of you who do fit in — here are some lessons from a consummate outsider, hard won.
1. People Are Just Going to Hate You. It Doesn’t Make them Right
“It’s because they’re jealous” is the go-to explanation for any unjustified slight. We’ve all heard it. Some other child was mean to us on the playground; a colleague leaves us out at work; a boss bullies us. All jealousy; the ultimate catch-all. Maybe there is some jealousy in there. You can never truly know the contents of another person’s character. But a life steeped in racist micro and macro aggressions has taught me that sometimes people just hate you.
That’s not true, of course. They don’t hate you per se. They probably couldn’t find a single true thing about you with a gun to their head. But for whatever reason, they hate what you represent. Whether it’s your people, your background, your skin, your education level; whatever it is, they are struck by something their own life has led them to dislike. So they dislike without question. It’s not about you, so it can’t actually be a reflection of you. No matter how it feels. And it’s likely to feel terrible. Hollywood films will lead you to believe, dear reader, that there is likely to be some buddy cop-esque change of dynamic between you and your hater. This is unlikely.
2. Some People Really Are Just Jealous
Be honest. I fooled you. You were completely convinced with my “they’re just jealous” debunking. The thing about people is that even the most introverted ones want to feel special now and again. The easiest way to do this is often just by standing out. Children know this. They feel unseen so they shout and scream and make scenes in supermarkets. It’s not good attention, but it’s attention. People rarely grow out of that.
When you’re not white and you live somewhere that is; when you’re not a man and you work somewhere that’s mostly men, you stick out. It’s not that you’ve done anything particularly. I’m not special. But people have tended to treat me like I am throughout my life. Because I stick out. Because I look different. It’s very shallow and dull and anti-intellectual but there it is. People want to feel special and most people don’t. And there I am, sticking out like a sore thumb, with my brown skin and my curves. It’s almost… like I’m asking for it…?
Like I said, shallow and dull, but fully explicable and most certainly not a reflection on me.
3. We’re Not All as Bad as Each Other
Look, I’m a millennial who grew up watching the Muppet Show, so I loved Avenue Q as much as the next nerd. But “everyone’s a little bit racist sometimes” really does miss the point. It’s easy to think of racism as some awful disease which inflicts itself on unsuspecting people, turning them into monsters. As though racists were like vampires or zombies, knee-capping the progress of the human race with their vicious contagion. But that’s not the case. Firstly, there’s a much less obvious delineation between “enemy” (aka racists) and “friends” (aka, I don’t know, people?) than there are in those fantasy scenarios. And, secondly, not all racism is created equal. I would much rather my elderly neighbour keep accidentally calling me racial slurs as she struggles to find the vocabulary to compliment my hair, than be kicked to death by skinheads. But that’s just me.
These two truths really have kept me on my toes. I’ve been very close to people who, years into the friendship have casually told me that they “could never marry a black man” — despite almost exclusively fancying black men (also problematic) — “because, well, you know.” Do I know?! I do. It’s racism. Racism is the reason. Each of these people saw their friendship with me as some proof that they weren’t as terrible as they really were. They let themselves believe that they were the walking dead and not the zombies (because, get this, in that show the walking dead are the people! Get it? Do. You. Get. It?). If you’re not constantly examining yourself, you run the risk of fully turning (this metaphor is getting as tired as I am).
We all have people who make us uncomfortable, whether we admit it or not. But if you just lean into that and try and justify it, instead of really reckoning with yourself, you’re the problem. No amount of justification will change that.
4. The World is a Dangerous Place
A theme that seems to run through the lives of my non-minority pals is a loss of innocence; a point in their lives at which they realised that the world was less Disney and more Grimm. This used to confuse me. It confused me because I was never under this (frankly weird) impression that Earth, our Earth, was perfect. Her?
In Earth’s defence, she does seem to have things locked down when left to her own devices but she has that whole thing going on with the humans.
My mother was raised in London during the tail-end of the “no blacks, no dogs, no Irish” time of its cultural life. When she was a school child, old white ladies used to try and bar her from getting on the bus with them. My mother is now a therapist and spends her days helping people, sometimes at great cost to her personal peace. Since Brexit, people in my hometown have taken to screaming at her to go back where she came from. As I mentioned, she came from London and she would love to go back, but I can’t imagine that’s what they mean. I wasn’t raised to be vulnerable. I was told from birth that there was a strong chance that the world (or, rather, its people) would be out to get me. On the whole, I’d say so far it’s been a 50/50 situation.
It may be somewhat depressing, but it’s an extremely useful lesson. I’ve avoided a lot of extremely dodgy situations because of it.
So there we have it. Lessons I didn’t have a choice but to learn due to the world being racist. A collection of home truths which made me a tougher, if a little less hopeful, person. Thank you for reading.
Kathryn Finch is a lawyer, writer, coach and EDI Consultant from the UK.
