A few days ago my father was making general conversation with a group of his workmates. Somehow the conversation turned to travel and my father mentioned that his darling daughter (moi!) was preparing for her own solo travels.

There was the general gasp of ‘You must be so worried if she’s going alone!’ chitter chatter but one man had a question:

“Where’s she travelling to, Steve?”

(My father): “South America.”

The man in question then proceeded to mock and taunt my father with scenarios such as, “You just wait! She’ll come back with a (blank) husband called Abdul. They’ll have a bunch of (blank) kids and you’ll be taking Abdul Jr. to school!”

My father, remaining composed, simply said, “So what? If my daughter wants to marry someone from South America, who cares? She can marry whoever she wants. My only concerns are that she’s happy and gets treated right.”

The man guffawed and continued, “Naahhh! No! No! It’s just not right. Us whites need to stick to our own. Mixing’s just not right.”

Do these attitudes really still exist? I couldn’t believe my ears when my dad told me about what had happened.

Photo credit.

It reminded me of something that happened when I was in school. I must have been about 9-10.

I had finished my school dinner and was waiting outside the dining hall for my friends to finish theirs and join me so we could play.

I started talking to a girl who was also waiting for her friends. I recognised her immediately as she lived right down the bottom of my street; She was in the year below me.

To kill time we started playing a couple of random schoolyard games. (Polo, Postman’s knock, etc. You know the ones.)

Eventually my friends emerged from the dining hall in a big huddle. I said bye to the girl I’d been playing with who also went to join her friends.

As I walked over to my friends, I noticed there were a few glances my way and a couple of hushed whispers.

An awkward silence came over the group as I stood next to them before one came forward and said, “Um, Ceri, did you touch the black girl?”

The girl I’d been playing with came from a family who originated from Pakistan.

At the time, I remember not really understanding the question my friends were asking me. Had I touched the black girl?

“Um … No?”

The tension among the group was broken.

“Oh, that’s okay then. If you had, you wouldn’t have been able to play with us.”

And that was that. I didn’t think anything of it at the time. To tell the truth, I hadn’t really understood the significance of it.

Now when I think back to it, I can’t quite believe that happened. I told my parents about it recently and they were gobsmacked.

I mean, it’s not a child’s fault that they have that attitude towards race at the age of 9-10. Especially if they’ve been brough up in a predominantly caucasian environment. It’s the parents’ fault.

Is it any wonder children don’t learn that racism is bad until they’re nearly young adults with parents like the man who’d made those comments to my father?

My parents always brough us up to believe that there was no difference between race. I had black Barbies as a little girl and was always exposed to documentaries and films on different cultures, races and ways of life. My grandmother even bought me a children’s book that had each page split into two: It showed a day in the life of a 10-year-old boy – One in Britain, one in Africa – and focused on the fact that even though the African child didn’t have the material things we did, the two boys enjoyed the same things like playing football, going to school and having family celebrations.

I’ve been brought up to not even think about a person’s race when I meet them. It wasn’t until I became an adult that I realised not everyone thought that way.

What a shame.