How My Daughter Dealt With My Racist Neighbour
But should we expect perfection in our locality?
Racial sensitivity is a topic that is flogged all over. In print, in broadcast, on social media — you name it. It is also a topic that is supposedly discussed in the academe, from primary years upwards.
No-one can escape the topic unless one lives under the rock, snoozing in oblivion.
With my brown face, living in countries with Caucasians as the dominant population posed no friction. There had been no encounter with people who looked down on me, save for that couple of late-teen girls who referred to me as chink.
This happened at my bus stop in Auckland eons ago. Shortly after, I met the girls again, at the university where I worked. I thought they felt uncomfortable when they saw me — but no apologies from them.
Now living in the UK, there are no instances of racial insensitivities that came my way — just from plain curiosity (“where did you learn your English?”) or from ignorance and gaffe (“a Thai Philippine bride”).
I dealt with that curiosity and that insulting faux pas, not contentiously but in a laidback manner. Making them realise that they’re no better than me based on skin colour, I secretly thought that was a hoot.
Having moved houses last year, I found my neighbours to be as lovely, as helpful, and as chatty and friendly like our previous neighbours.
I must emphasise that I live (and have lived) in areas where I am the only brown face in the neighbourhood. The same with my daughter, living in another part of England, where hers is the only brown face. Suffice to say that her neighbours are as nice and as friendly as mine.
Or so I thought, that my new ones were all skin-colour blind.
The exception lives at the back, sharing half of the other one/thirds of the garden fence on the south side; the ones whom I have not met nor have any sort of interaction with.
It was Easter school break. My daughter and her 11-year-old son visited us (my Caucasian husband and I). It was a sunny spring. Mother and son on school break were in our back garden.
My daughter was doing selfies amongst the flowers.
My grandson was at the garden table, painting tiny plastic soldiers, a craft.
A ball suddenly fell into our garden from the south side of the fence. A couple of teens were playing basketball in their yard.
The elder mid-teen popped his head on top of the 2-metre wooden fence. And in a rather bewildering tone, he spoke in an emphatic but inarticulate South Asian accent, asking my grandson to return the ball to him.
I should mention at this point that neighbours from all sides of our house see me, see my brown face in the garden, as I tend to it and top up the bird-feeding station.
Those who have not spoken to me might have assumed that I could not speak proper English because, clearly, I do not look like them. And that incorrect assumption applies to any other non-white people in my garden.
The thing is, my daughter and her son are as British as the rest of them.
And while my grandson was puzzled at the tone and accent used by the lad, my daughter spoke to him in measured tones, pointing out that he was being racist in his anti-social behaviour.
My daughter’s unmistakable British accent must have confused the lads, who spoke to her with their put-on halting South Asian accent.
He said “sorry” and added, “Are we good, yeah?”
This has not been said courteously; instead, it was conveyed in an accent we hear in films featuring thugs.
My daughter, more vexed at the neighbour’s chav manner, copied such accent and said emphatically, “No, we’re not good, yeah!”
IF it were not a serious issue, I would have laughed at the way the conversation unfolded. (I was in the kitchen when it happened.)
Having race-insensitive neighbours is somehow jolting.
But should we expect perfection in anything? Perfect community? Perfect neighbours? Certainly not.
No matter how much I, and all other people of colour, assume that all neighbours are neighbourly and skin-colour blind, there remains that possibility that one or two are intolerant of those who do not look like them.
I am not one for confrontations. I am, nevertheless, waiting for the parents of these boys to knock on our door and apologise for their children’s behaviour.
It hasn’t happened. It might not happen.
Who knows what the lads have told their parents — if at all?
If you ask me if I care, I’ll be honest and say that no, I do not care.
I never have any problem with people — friends, colleagues, neighbours, and everyone else — who do not look like me. I value behaviour, not the colour of the skin. I treat them all as fellow human beings.
And if some people, like my one neighbour, has a problem with others who do not look like them, that is their problem.
Is it not?
(What do you think?)
