Where are you really from? - An Essay on Microaggression and Racism
I was unsure whether to write this essay. It felt poignant to speak upon my personal experiences receiving racism - in order to raise awareness for the minor everyday occurrences that you hear less about. However, my passport states that I am "White British". How could I possibly understand racism? I am not claiming to be the worst case study of this discrimination. Nor am I suggesting that my examples are the ones in most need of immediate attention. The purpose of this essay is to share the problem in all of its forms. Minor racism is still racism. All of it must be abolished.
Before we proceed, I should establish my identity to further enhance your understanding of these stories. I am a White woman, born in London, still in London. I own Greek Cypriot blood, with olive-tinted skin and dark eyes and hair.
Ignorantly, I assumed when I was a child that my core responsibility in tackling racism would be to protect my peers - not myself. Though, as I heard my parents recite narratives of their experiences with racism, I soon learnt that I was not immune from experiencing this myself. My father, telling me that he was walking on the pavement to be spat on and called a "Paki". My mother, who has been told many times by strangers that she must go back to her own country. To which she would respond, "This is my country." My parents were born in England. Other people refuse to accept that. It is only now that I have grown into adulthood that I notice this same refusal of acceptance towards myself.
I have been mistaken for an Indian my entire life. People have their initial assumptions, that is okay. Though, when I correct them of my nationality, they insist that I am lying. Once at a bar, an Indian man approached me and asked if I was Indian, too. When I told him no, he spent the next ten minutes informing me of my own nationality. After he finally left me alone, he returned to speak his parting words. "Listen, I have been around the world. And you are not Greek." Sometimes I wonder if my apparent appearance of Asian descent could be the catalyst for the racism I receive. What a sad thought that truly is. That I can understand the racism portrayed onto a minority group I am not even a part of.
When the disrespectful comments at bars and recognition from external people began to pile on top of each other, I found myself recollecting on my past. After remembering the words my, considered, friends constantly projected my way, I was mortified. That I allowed them to verbally abuse me simply due to my in-denial perceptions of White immunity. Curling their bodies and hunching their backs, they would repeatedly pronounce the word "visa" in a horridly offensive Greek accent. "Your parents came to this country illegally," they would say. To which, I asked my parents if there was truth in their words and I learnt that it was far from. Both my mother and father were born in Great Britain. Both their mothers and fathers were forced to escape Cyprus as refugees during the war. They worked hard to build a good life in their new home.
With almost absolute certainty, I do not believe I have once responded to the question, "Where are you from?" without hearing something spoken along the lines of, "Where are you really from?" Because, look at me. Of course I am not from here. My friend, who was born in England, too, but does not own blood in her veins from a country outside of the United Kingdom, is in disbelief at this exchange she has witnessed on numerous occasions by my side. Recently, we visited Rome together. And, even in another country, people insisted that I could not be from England. I get so tired of explaining myself now. When people ask me where I am from, I confirm, "Do you mean where I was born or why I look like this?" It is always the latter.
Men seem to struggle with either being attracted to my ethnic aesthetic or wanting to criticise it. Some do both. My nationality is merely a "type" to these men. They find the way I look sexy and fetishise my origins as if I am an exotic object not worthy of truly understanding beyond a family tree so different to theirs. Whether somebody has a thing for Italians, Latinas, Indians or Arabs it does not matter - I am instantly more desirable to these men because I could "easily" be any of them. They refuse to spend time and conversation attempting to dissect the countries that really form me. Where I was born, my favourite cuisine and literature, the languages I speak and my religious beliefs.
Sometimes I do not want to associate with my Greek history. The culture is still, very much, racist. With families disowning each other based on who they fall in love with. The judgment and lack of respect whenever I visit Greece because, to them, I am the wrong type of Greek. Most cultures have their flaws, we still have a long way to go, but I want to celebrate the good in them while fighting the bad in them. I wish to be allowed to do so.
The recorded figure of racially motivated hate crimes reported in the United Kingdom remains devastatingly high. Though, these are the reported ones. Each day, microaggression is inflicted upon people who look like me, and people who do not. When you live a lifetime receiving this abuse it can build and build until you no longer feel like you belong in your own home.
