Yeah, I've got white privilege

I keep hearing denials of ‘white privilege’ and how black people are angry for no reason. But I know the reasons, and they’re not just about George Floyd. People who have been told to work elsewhere because of their ‘smell’, racially abused as a six-year old at a birthday party, had their faces in photos defaced in their workplace and  held by the police until a crime could be found to fit them, yet they won’t, or can’t speak up. I talked to some black friends, yeah, I’ve got black friends, about what had happened to them and how we can all work towards a better understanding of each other.

I grew up until I was 11 in west London. My earliest memory of black people was at school when James, who was a bit of a handful, was given a place on the school football team in an effort to divert his anger, it was my place. I was bloody angry but I used to walk home with James, he was a mate, and I forgot he was black, so I never resorted to blaming his colour on not getting a place in the team, just his personality disorder.

I’m not a saint, it just happens, when you have black friends you forget their colour. And this is why I wasn’t a saint: I didn’t want our milk delivered by a black milk-man, none of my friends were black milk-men, and I had been conditioned by 11 years of my parents banging on about ‘blacking-up’ to claim benefits, and all the other tropes about black people.

I moved to Anglesey when I was 11, which was very remote and monocultural compared with London. However, there was one black family living nearly. But they were all killed in a car crash one night and north-east Anglesey’s claim to multiculturalism was cruelly wiped out in a moment. The families had been ‘celebrities’ in the area, ‘exotics’, but I know now that if another family had joined them, things would have changed very quickly.

When I arrived back in London, after realising my parents’ opinions on so many subjects were similar to those of the Nazis my dad was so proud of fighting against, and whose bombs had fallen on my mum’s street, I was back in a multicultural world. I hadn’t given much thought to race but I was surprised when I realised my feelings about the Brixton riots were fuzzy and warm when I saw black and white people throwing petrol bombs and building barricades together. It looked like a spirit of co-operation that had sadly been missing.

As work progressed from one job to another in the 80s and 90s I came into contact with people from many backgrounds: Irish people whom customers used to verbally abuse after each major IRA bombing, Bangladeshis who brought in lovely food on festival days, a Dutchman who had forgotten how to speak Dutch and had to speak in English when he called his parents, and black people. In common with so many white people in the UK, the only black people I ever met had been in retail and I didn’t really know what to expect from black colleagues.

I then sat in meetings with black people and hey, they seemed just like me. They certainly did jobs like me, liked football (they just couldn’t go to matches), agreed to take on actions in the meeting (they actually did them, unlike me) and liked the same jokes. But when they moved from being colleagues to friends, I saw a whole new world.  I had never realised what was sitting behind the professional façade, what they were hiding, what they couldn’t speak about or be labelled ‘black and angry’. That’s when I first realised I had ‘white privilege’.

Fay was my first black friend. Even though I couldn’t say “I’ve got black friends,” Fay, 53, and a business support officer, was in that group. She was boiling over with fun, her impressions of colleagues and her mother were a part of what makes some workplaces so glorious to be in. But then there was the serious stuff. I learnt from Fay that black people don’t like going on holiday in the UK.

“Can you imagine me in Cornwall, walking down the street with everyone pointing at me? ‘Look at the black lady!’ they’d be saying. ‘She’s a long way from home…’” So Fay and her family went to the US on holiday where she could be amongst strangers the same colour as her.

“If I went out after work it was nice to with some white people. You could go into pubs without hearing the sort of comments I’d get if I were in a group of black people. And we can walk to a bus stop without more comments or the police stopping us.”

One of the most awful things Fay shared with me was being invited to another little girl’s birthday party when she was six. It was a white friend from school. Fay’s mum was on a tight schedule and when she checked what time Fay should be picked up, the party girl’s parents said they’d arrange for her to be taken home.

“At the end of the party,” said Fay. “The arrangement was that the girl’s uncle would take me home in his black cab. I got excited and my friend asked me why; I said I’d never been in a black cab before. The uncle blurted out: ‘That’s funny, what with you being black.’

“I knew that wasn’t very nice,” said Fay. “But I was only six so I wasn’t sure why it wasn’t nice. But on the Monday morning back in school the girl who’d had had the party told me her uncle had said ‘blacks smell’ and that I would be the last black person that went in his cab.

“I can’t tell you how upset I was. My mum had taken me along in my best party dress, none of us smelt, we’re very proud people. But that wasn’t the point, it was just about the most hurtful, racist thing someone could say. Even now I find it hard to go to a social occasion at a white friend’s house, it brings back that awful memory.”

There is an undercurrent of racism us whities are not aware of, because we don’t need to be on our guard. I asked Fay about school. She went to a girls’ school which was divided equally between white and black girls. Fay told me that there was only one black teacher but many of the teachers were great and supportive. But, as ever, there are exceptions.

“I was in the rounders team and I was a great catcher. One day, in a match against another school, the sun got in my eyes and I dropped the ball. Our teacher asked me why I had done that and I said that the sun was in my eyes. She replied: ‘You’d think that that where you lot come from that a bit of sun wouldn’t be a problem.’ Every girl on our team walked off and we forfeited the match.”

“My mum sent my brothers out to get some shopping when they were 13 and 14. They didn’t come back for hours. When they eventually got back, crying, they told us they’d been arrested by the police and put in the cells. Then they’d been released with no charge and no explanation. And can you imagine my parents going to the police station to ask what had happened? They’d be arrested too.”

“My brother was out in his car with his two-year old twins in the back. He was stopped and searched and then handcuffed, in front of his twins who were terrified. Again, he was released with no explanation. He was so traumatised that he got rid of the car, he became reclusive and never drove again. Black men used to beg women to sit in their cars with them if they had to go somewhere, for some reason the police were more respectful of black women and were less likely to stop a car with a woman inside.”

This reminded me of Dave the plumber, who often did work for me. “I ran through a park when I was about 17,” said Dave. “I was late for college. I was stopped by the police and arrested but they wouldn’t tell me why. When they got me to the station they told me that I must have mugged someone, that was why I was running. And that they would keep me until the report of the mugging came in. Several hours later they let me go. Just let me go, like it was a favour, no apology, nothing.”

Work had presented Fay with issues most of us never encounter. As a telephone operator all the black women were made to sit together, because of their ‘smell’, and if they spoke to each other they were disciplined.

“Even having black managers didn’t help, in some cases it made things worse. Those managers felt they had to be tougher with other black people to show they weren’t biased towards us. In one place my manager decided to withdraw working from home as a privilege if he thought we weren’t achieving targets. Not only did it become obvious that he only did this with black people, it wasn’t even a right that could be withdrawn.”

Fay talked about ‘the conversation’. The talk black parents must give their kids about living in a largely white society. It covered situations like how to act in the workplace and what to do if you come into contact with the police. How odd that my parents never gave me that lecture.

Peter, 47, a marketing professional, told me about the conversation: “Don’t make eye contact with a police officer. If they do stop you, be polite, don’t give any lip.”

I met Pete first around 10 years ago. We worked from a headquarters building in the City where, one morning, we had come into work to find that our pictures from events had been defaced. All the black faces had had crosses cut into them, as well as the face of my white, gay colleague. The fact that the white face was defaced too informed me that the perpetrator was someone who knew us, we couldn’t blame this on some random idiot working in the building, though that would have been bad enough. We discussed what to do about it but those affected just said “Leave it.” I saw again just how much this was a part of so many people’s lives and they kept quiet about it and then went off to the next meeting about budgets and customer numbers, whilst much of the population continued to deny white privilege.

“I don’t get stopped by the police so much now I’m older,” said Pete. “But of course I’m aware of the women that cross to the other side of the road, and the tighter clutches on handbags, when they realise a black guy is behind them. I just turn a blind eye to that.”

“As Will Smith remarked: racism isn’t worse, it’s just that it’s on film now,” said Peter. “But we must have a conversation. Black lives do matter, but we just want to fit in to all lives. We want to talk to our white brothers and sisters about white privilege. There must be an understanding about what #

white privilege means: systemic policies in policing, housing, work, etc, have had a real effect on allowing us to move forward in the way the rest of society has been able to. We have moved on in some ways since the 60s and 70s but due to the racism embedded in these areas, life still presents real problems for us. The Covid-19 report has highlighted this yet again.”

A Public Health England report has shown that people of Chinese, Indian, Pakistani, other Asian, Caribbean and other Black ethnicity had between 10 and 50 per cent higher risk of death when compared to white British. The disease is impacting hardest in highly populated areas and on workers with low-paid, public-facing jobs such as taxi drivers, security guards and care workers.

“It’s hard to know what to do, so many of us don’t want to be seen as a ‘problem’ that we just shut up. But we want to move forward, with white people; we can’t do it on our own. It’s great to see so many white people involved in the protests. We want to work together. We want you to speak up for us when you see things happening.”

We talked about how we should go about that. I asked if humour was a good way to approach this, or if it was completely inappropriate? And specifically whether any humour, from white people, based on his colour was appropriate.

“That’s a difficult one,” said Peter. “It’s true that humour lightens the mood and is a good way to start a thinking process sometimes. The context has to be right. For example, I didn’t appreciate a tired old cliché from a colleague about me being ‘difficult to photograph’. But amongst my white friends I still find the comments about black men being gifted ‘down below’ oddly amusing! But, as I say, it has to be in context. And I’m not just a black man, I’m a dad, a husband and a football supporter who likes other jokes too.”

One thing that has always intrigued me is the 1970s controversial sitcom Love thy Neighbour. Essentially it was tragic 70s comedy, based on race. It used offensive terms but for me it showed integration, Nina Baden-Semper and Kate Williams’ characters, a black and white woman were inseparable friends. Rudolph Walker’s black character was always in the pub with his white mates and Jack Smethurst’s white character was portrayed as a bigoted idiot.  But I’m white so what did I miss?

Pete’s first answer was to remind me that he was ‘too young’ to remember it. But of course it was widely known amongst his parents and older relatives.  After some research Peter came back to me: “My dad actually enjoyed Love Thy Neighbour. But at the time, I suspect he didn’t acknowledge the elements of the programme that in today’s world would be seen as a ‘no-no’. If I could ask him now, I believe he’d see it differently. That said, I believe this type of programme could still be used as a basis for more meaningful and open discussion.”

Natalie, 41, a corporate responsibility manager, echoed this (and had to ask her dad too): “As well as a number of other points Love thy Neighbour was trying to portray white and black people getting on. But some of the jokes were very racist. Many black people liked it because we enjoyed seeing ourselves on tv, there weren’t many other opportunities. So whilst it was racist and offered little in terms of education on our respective ways of life, we accepted it. We had to.”

Natalie was in a mixed relationship. That has ended now but I was interested in her thoughts on this. Fay had said it was something she had been reluctant to do, if only because she couldn’t bear the thought that in an inevitable row with a partner, something racial might slip out and, for her, that would be the end of the relationship. Natalie said that she felt if she had a connection with someone, colour didn’t matter.

“The separation was absolutely for the better. I have wondered if white privilege was at play here, which led him and his network to behave so appallingly,” said Natalie. “But that wouldn’t stop me having another mixed relationship; I know the warning signs to look out for now. Some of my best friends are white and one got me through the aftermath of the relationship, he understood me and my situation.” I asked Natalie why she hadn’t got together with him: “He’s gay,” she said.

We discussed humour for a while and Natalie agreed with what Peter had told me: “Context is everything. If you have a good friendship with someone, there are no limits to where humour will begin and end, as long as there is trust.”

Natalie talked about work. “You know that thing about ‘not suffering fools gladly’?” she asked. “Well us black people know we must do that. I have been to so many meetings that are such a waste of time, with ridiculous things being said, but I can’t say anything. I’m almost always the only black person in a meeting and I don’t have the same scope to make constructive criticism as my white counterparts. If I’m frustrated with someone, I’m automatically labelled ‘aggressive’, rather than actually bothering to explore what my issue is.  There is a new trend at the moment: ‘bring the real you to work’, which simply doesn’t apply to black people. If I find the right manager who supports me for being me, then I can shine, otherwise you have to be a yes man.

“I had ‘the conversation’ too. My mum told me how to act at work: ‘Always be your ‘best-self’, never have down-days, never be frustrated or angry, don’t make mistakes and make sure you work twice as hard as everyone else’.  I got dreads and went travelling, when I got back she was clear: ‘You can’t go to work with your hair like that ’. I resisted at first but got rid of them before starting my first job and watched as white people with dreads strolled into offices. I see millennials today who can pretty much present themselves in any way they see fit and go into the office, that’s fine but you still don’t see a scruffy black person doing the same things; the bar is absolutely set a different level for black people, whatever they do. 

“I have a two-year old daughter, and I’m already wondering about the conversation with her. We’re going to a George Floyd memorial where the town hall is lit up purple, which she will like.  I’m not going to talk to her about colour at this point, I’ll just say that people are coming together to demand change for the better.

“My dad talks about when he came to the UK. He worked hard to buy property but barriers were put in his way. To buy a property, you had to pool your money with your local community through a ‘pardoner’. This is where a group of people pay a regular sum to a trusted person (an older, respected member of the community) weekly. Every week, one member of the group receives the total amount contributed by all partners. It’s like a pyramid scheme today, but in a trusted community in the 60s was the only way a black person could raise a deposit, which was often higher than a white person would pay, to keep us out of certain neighbourhoods. That would usually give you enough money to get a deposit and a mortgage through the council. Black people couldn’t get bank mortgages, they were literally laughed out of the bank.”

Natalie talked about resilience: “We have to be resilient in everything we do. I simply put things to the back of my mind, otherwise you will become an angry individual, and I won’t give anyone the satisfaction: did I really miss out on that job because there was someone better? Did that person really do a monkey gesture at me (whilst sightseeing around Berlin)? 

“I’m accused of being a perfectionist, I guess I have to be, if I want a decent quality of life. At a BAME Facebook event I attended, a speaker said equality in the workplace is when you have mediocre black people in senior positions (like their white counterparts) and he’s absolutely right! So I have to be a perfectionist if I want to succeed, I dare not.”

I had heard a few of these stories, and it was heart-rending to listen to Fay, Peter and Natalie. I was left in no doubt years ago that something was wrong but have been too worried to ask deeper questions for fear of saying the wrong thing (though I still do that) or patronising black people. I am sickened by the nonsense written on social media about ‘white guilt’ and ‘not being ashamed to be white’. I’m not ashamed or proud, I’m just white. I’m no prouder of that than I am of having toenails; I haven’t worked to be white.

I talked to a white friend, Andy, 57, who runs a building business, about this. He had grown up in south London and told me: “I was brought up amongst some the UK’s most accomplished racists. We used all sorts of words I’d never use now. On my first day in secondary school I used the ‘N’-word with some black classmates and was hauled up before the headmaster. The thing is, I couldn’t understand why. That racism was driven into us at home.

“I couldn’t tell you when I changed, I can’t say what prompted it, but I find myself apologising to friends from minorities for what other people have said now. ‘It’s ok’, they say, ‘we’re used to it.’ That’s not good enough.”

What I do know is that white people must start listening to what has actually happened to black people, and other minorities. Start listening, start asking, stop defending yourselves first. As a white person I know that if this does not happen, and the running sore of racism isn’t tackled through an open-minded look at our joint history, it will be worse for us too.

And start looking at some of our leaders, who know they can gain easy votes and salaries from appealing to those who claim that black people have no right to speak up; in many cases they have given up that right. White privilege is real, I know, I’ve been using it for years though I never knew I had it until I started asking questions about what I’d already seen for myself.