It must have been in the winter of 1963 when the first Asian immigrant in our class at senior school appeared. A young Indian guy by the name of Basi, who hardly spoke to any of us and appeared not to understand much of what was said by us boys with the harsh East London/Essex border accents. Our class was the first in our school to also have mixed genders from what was previously a separate boys on one half of the building and girls on the other. There was a lot of change going on at that time. Music was changing, the Beatles were about to hit the airwaves, Pirate Radio ships offshore were belittling the official BBC channels of the Light Programme and the Home Service. Revolution was in the offing.
Poor old Basi in his first week had to join us boys in the changing rooms and play his first game of rugby, a game he hadn’t a clue about, let alone the cultural side of having to strip naked and shower with a gang of white boys all equally scared of showing their bodies but if they didn’t get in that communal shower, got a slippering on their bare ass off the P.E. Teachers. Out on the rugby pitch a fit and fast running Basi had collected a pass and was heading for a try three quarters of a way down the pitch when us boys defending cruelly shouted at him instead of tackling him, “Basi, you’re going the wrong way, turn around.” We all played on his lack of knowledge of the laws of a game completely new to him. Humiliatingly for Basi, he took our craftiness as the truth, promptly turned around and ran back the way he’d come, by which time even his own side had turned on him and stole the ball back. Was that racist? It probably was in a way, but then we’d have probably done that to anyone new.
That incident shows how easy it is though to slip into a sub-conscious bullying and racist viewpoint. In the years up until I left school in 1965 a few more coloured immigrants came into the school. I remember learning about South Africa and apartheid because a girl classed as Cape Coloured joined us as an asylum seeker, and a teacher let her tell her family story to the class. Generally, as kids we were not exposed to many immigrants until a few years later. By the 70’s London had spread out more, and Indian communities sprang up as Idi Amin kicked them out of Uganda and the UK finally accepted the responsibilities of its former empire. As I started work in London I met more from the West Indian black communities in places like Brixton. If anything, us white boys allied more with the black West Indian community than the Asians who all were known under the all-encompassing term of Paki’s.
The music scene helped most of us whites of the ‘Mod’ persuasion mix with the black West Indians. Blue Beat, Ska, then Reggae, became the music of choice along with the black American blues scene, then Soul and Tamla Motown. My enduring heroes Otis Redding, Aretha Franklin, and Bob Marley mixed in well with other white blues followers like the Rolling Stones. Because they mixed we tended to also. I remember being one of only 2 white boys in an illegal reggae club in Ilford, behind an Indian restaurant and dancing the night away, although getting some jealous looks from some of the black guys.
My memories of those years is not of overt racism, there was not the gang culture of today on the council estates, but yes we did have a cultural sub-conscious racism. Comedy, and general expressions were accepted and the ‘N’ word along with words like ‘Spade’ were fairly mainstream amongst my culture and even others. It always seemed to me that my black pals were often more racist to the ‘Pakis.’ We all knew what was right and wrong or in front of whom many expressions were unacceptable. Obviously, the numbers were lower then and us whiteys never felt outnumbered and as we grew older have moved out of London and further eastwards with what is now known as the ‘white flight.’ I can remember embarrassing myself in using the word ‘Jewess’ to describe a girl I met unknowingly in front of my boss who was also Jewish. I was mortified when I realised what I had said and ever since then was extremely careful with how I spoke in all company, not just with people of colour. The one thing I do acknowledge is that I am still probably the least racist, casual, or otherwise, amongst many of my friends from those days. I do also notice and argue with many older than I and generally of younger white working-class tradesmen on race issues, and certainly about the BLM movement when trying to explain the difference when they bring up the “all lives matter” argument. My own kids and many of their friends are more enlightened and my son even nearly got me into a scrap in a York pub, telling a table of Yorkshiremen to stop their offensive racist political talk.
As I grew older and my work became more international I mixed, and loved so many friends of other countries and cultures, but I do still sometimes put my foot in it and also understand that it is not only us white boys of that era who can let our guard slip. I’ve seen racism from the people of many other cultures, people who are often otherwise seemingly nice. In general, black people in the UK tell me that we are the least racist country out of many, but I am not so sure when our class system kicks in. As a white guy from a working-class background and from a very left-wing family I have always seen class as the bigger problem. Those of a certain class and especially where one school is concerned are racist, elitist, and arrogant in the extreme, and they are the establishment in this country.
What opened my eyes more into my need to control my own sub-conscious racism was an incident about 20 years ago. I was living and working in Dubai and had a black Nigerian lady partner and we were sitting together on the sofa being playful, and generally having fun like most normal couples, when she played a trick and was tickling me. I just laughed and said something like “I’ll get you, you little monkey!” An expression my father used on me but when she innocently said in response, “that’s what the big white Bwana’s used to say back home when we were kids.” Then she repeated in a deep voice, “Get away you little black monkey!” I was mortified and apologised immediately, we were in love and she understood that I hadn’t meant it in that same way, but it showed me that common expressions like that had consequences. I immediately re-trained my whole sub-conscious outlook from that day on.
Brian George 10/10/20
