Interview: Is it racism or something else?

Hello everyone. I have been accused by some of my readers of presenting a rather rosy view of life here in the UK - well, I write about my personal experiences here and they have been pretty darn good. I came here on a scholarship to a top university, I got a job before I even finished my final exams. I managed to climb two career ladders in finance and media and at the age of 38, I have enough personal wealth for me to retire today if I wanted to. I am thus picking and choosing the fun projects I want to do because I enjoy them rather than working to pay my bills - so of course I am going to tell my readers that life in the UK is very good. But one reader sent me an article on the BBC about Chinese people in the UK who have experienced some pretty nasty racism whilst living here: have I totally ignored the experiences of other ethnic minorities whilst only looking at this tricky issue from a very personal perspective?

London Chinatown

I felt I couldn't answer this question alone, so I arranged for an informal chat with a few of my friends who are ethnic minorities here in the UK and they were all born here and have grown up here. Meet Abrisham, who is of Pakistani origin and from the West Midlands, Joseph who is of Caribbean origin and grew up in Glasgow and Nina, who is half Chinese, half Vietnamese and grew up in Salford near Manchester. I began our discussion by pointing them to the rather shocking story in the BBC article of the rather extreme racist abuse that Sara's family suffered in North-East of England, including an incident where her mother was kicked unconscious on her doorstep by a group of young men.

Limpeh: This story is shocking, it is just terrible - but what I want to know is whether you guys have experienced anything like this before? Is this a rare or isolated incident or is this more common than we imagine?

Joseph: I think that it is not strictly speaking a race thing, but when the victim is of an ethnic minority and the perpetrators of the crime are white, it is hard to ignore the possibility of a  racism as a motive involved. You see, I grew up in one of the rougher parts of Glasgow, in this place called Pollok and if we had a choice, we wouldn't have chosen to lived there but my parents were poor. We didn't have any money and we were trapped in a shitty council block with so many dodgy characters. But you know, white people suffered just as much from crime as the blacks or Asian did. There was this nice older lady who lived downstairs from us, I remember when she was robbed when she was just coming home from work one evening. Like she didn't have much money on her at all, but the guys beat her up real bad and my parents heard her scream for help. But when we got there, she was like, lying on the floor, bleeding....

Like this woman was white, Scottish - she was as white as they came and she got mugged and beaten up for... like, for what? If a black or Asian person got beaten up like that, we'd say, "oh the UK is so fucking racist, it's so horrible, look we get beaten up because we are black or Asian". But what do white people say if they got beaten up like that neighbour of mine? What did she do apart from being in the wrong place at the wrong time?

Abrisham: It is because she was a woman. Women are often victims of attacks like that because we are physically weaker than men and if these young men tried to attack a tall, strong bloke like you Joseph, then you would have been able to put up a fight, fend them off, you know. Women are far more vulnerable to attacks like that - it doesn't matter whether you are black, white, Asian or whatever. These attackers will always pick a weaker target - so as for the Chinese woman who got beaten up as well as the Scottish woman who was mugged - let's not forget the role of gender in both attacks. Women are just more vulnerable in such situations.

Nina: You have to understand that running a take away in a small town is a tough business. I have relatives who did just that in Salford and the business was erratic. Sometimes you had good days, sometimes you had bad days. Some days you make a healthy profit, other days you wonder why you even bothered getting out of bed. Nobody gets rich running a Chinese take-away like that, many Chinese people do it because they don't know what else to do, but they know that there is a demand for Chinese food and that is one thing they know how to do: cook Chinese food. But do they know how to run a business? That's another thing altogether. It is a far cry from running a fancy restaurant - you just have a cook, a kitchen and a little counter to take orders. It's easier to run, but quite hard to make money.

Chinese food is very popular in the UK.

So like Joseph said, poor people who live in rough council estates are subjected to a high crime environment and there is a high correlation between poverty and crime. Poverty turns people to crime, but it also means that you are more likely to be affected by crime if you are poor and lived in a rough area. Look at the areas where rich people live: they can afford high fences, high tech security systems, guard dogs and security guards. So the rich have far less problems with crime, poor people can barely afford to buy a decent lock for their front door. Do you ever hear about some rich Chinese millionaire being abused whilst coming out of one of most exclusive Chinese restaurant in the West End, Mayfair or Knightsbridge? Nope, that never happens in respectable neighbourhoods - this kind of attacks only happens in the most deprived council estates, the roughest neighbourhoods.

It is kinda crazy that these Chinese people would want to even try to set up a Chinese takeaway or any kind of business in these areas because they are an obvious target for crime. The average value of each transaction is low, most people spend a few pounds getting a packet of fried rice or a noodle dish. It is cheap food.Thus most Chinese takeaways are cash only businesses and so they instantly become a vulnerable target if the criminals know that there is a big amount of cash in the till in a Chinese takeaway. So if you have some drug addict desperate to get hold of some cash to buy drugs, then they will target the Chinese takeaway because it is a vulnerable target: loads of cash, often opened till late at night and little or no security. Personally, I would never try to open any kind of shop or business in that kind of dangerous neighbhourhood - you just wouldn't feel safe at all.

Abrisham: I remember when I was about 14, my family moved and I had to go to a new school. And on my first day at school, I was like, are people going to pick on me because I am a Muslim? Am I going to stand out because I am wearing a headscarf? And then you know what? The person who got picked on the most was this fat white kid because he was just obscenely fat. Like I am not even talking about someone who's moderately obese, like this guy was super-size-me huge. And he's white - but I guess his morbid obesity made him more of a target for the bullies than the fact that I am a Muslim girl who wears a headscarf. I'm not saying that everyone was super nice to me - far from it - but I was not treated any better or worse than the white kids. I think almost all teenagers struggle to find a sense of identity, to try to assert themselves, to try to fit in with their peers and develop a sense of self-confidence.

Many teenagers experience bullying in school.

I don't like the way some Asian people claim it's so hard to be an ethnic minority here blah blah blah because of racism - look I grew up here, I know what it is like, but I also opened my eyes and can see that my white peers also had problems of their own. Like there was this white girl in my class at school who was tall, slim, beautiful and you'd think that when you look like a supermodel you'll have heaps of self-confidence. She disappeared from school for a few weeks - the official story was that she was unwell and was in hospital, but we then found out that she had tried to kill herself and had become mentally unstable. Turns out she had loads of shit going on at home with abusive parents and she was so messed up on the inside. So in her case, racism and race had absolutely nothing to do with her problems - but did she have a hard time growing up? Of course. Looking at her made me realize that it's not just us Asian kids who face problems, white kids face all kinds of problems too and because I had loads of white friends who were messed up in their own way, I was able to relate to their problems as well and it made me see beyond the racial divide.

That's just my reaction to this story on the BBC - I am not sure if it is a right or wrong reaction. It is just my honest reaction and I am sure if you went to talk to some of the white people that Sara grew up with, you would uncover some pretty unpleasant stories as well. It's because it is not all about race you see, it's about society's problems and it is about poverty as Joseph said. The fact that white people have plenty of crap going on in their own lives doesn't justify racism, of course. But we need to realize that hey, society's messed up you know, all young people go through hard times and it's not just like Chinese or Asian people who suffer. We all do - and if we can see that, then we can reach across the racial divide and have some kind of understanding. Because all this article is doing is like saying, "oh poor me, it's so hard being Chinese because these racist white people are so horrible to us" I don't like that - it doesn't represent the situation accurately. That's oversimplifying a really complex and messed up situation.

Joseph: With all due respect, please. whilst I see your point Abrisham, you're seriously not telling me that you've never experienced any racism before, have you? Like, surely you must have, right? I certainly have over the years.

Do we categorize "racism" and "bullying" separately? 

Abrisham: I have experienced racism, of course - look at me, I stand out from the crowd instantly because of my choice to wear a headscarf as a Muslim woman. I am making a different point Joseph. My point is that as a society, people are horrible to each other. It's not as simple as white people are the evil racists and Chinese or Asian people are the victims - my point is that if you want to talk about the issue, you have to look at the bigger picture. There are white people who discriminate against other white people, there are blacks and Asians who are racist towards white people, there are people who do not discriminate against others on the basis of social class or physical appearances or religion. Obviously, I do not condone racism as I have been a victim of racism before as a Muslim woman growing up in Britain - yes I have suffered as a victim myself but I think that we need to talk constructively about the issue instead of just accusing white people of being these nasty, evil racists.

Limpeh: I tend to agree with Abrisham on this point - whilst individual cases like that are often rather horrifying, I feel that it is probably more constructive to look at the wider issues about the racism which then allows us to start to understand why something like that Charlie Hebdo killings can happen in this day and age. There are never simply explanations and whilst I never want to dismiss the experiences of victims of racism, I also feel that people who go on and on about racism tend to conveniently ignore other kinds of bigotry.

Nina: From my experience, I can see that the Chinese people who are rich tend to avoid racism altogether - they can afford it, such is the power of money. Their kids are sent to the best schools where they can get a good education, in such good schools, their fellow classmates are also from very rich families and when they go home, their parents have beautiful homes in nice neighbourhoods. Their parents can probably afford nannies, baby sitters, private tuition teachers and other kinds of quality after school care to ensure that their kids are well taken care of. The kids get driven around, they don't use public transport.  They probably are sent to music lessons, ballet classes or sports lessons like gymnastics or tennis to mingle with other rich kids who can afford that kind of privilege. When they go on holiday, they stay at five-star resorts and are treated like VIP - their wealth allows them to buy the very best service and treatment.

This will save you from racism.

Whereas the poor kids are left to their own devices after school: they either stay at home and watch TV, surf the internet or if they start wandering around the streets of their local neighbourhood, who knows what they will get up to... God only knows what those poor kids will encounter: bullying, exposure to the wrong company, being near undesirable characters like drug dealers - such is the kind of crap that goes on in the more deprived neighbourhoods in Britain and you will see that on the rougher council estates. It's pretty appalling. So if you're poor, then there's so much all these crap you're subjected to because your parents simply don't have the money to protect you from it. Do poor people deserve to be protected from racism? Of course they do - but in reality, the ones who are least able to defend themselves are the ones who suffer the worst from it.

Limpeh: So Nina, did you suffer from racism growing up in England? Be honest.

Nina: Yes and no. I think I avoided the worst of it - my parents were not that poor, so at least I didn't have to grow up in a dodgy council estate. We had a decent house in Salford, the neighbourhood wasn't bad at all... We were not rich but we were not poor either. There were some stupid kids at school who called me names, like Miss Saigon or Me Love You Long Time, they made fun of my parents' accent and they would make stupid assumptions about Chinese or Vietnamese people. But it was verbal, it was never physical - like I was heckled, but I was never beaten up. And okay, not that this justifies anything or makes it alright, but those same stupid kids who taunted me, well they taunted everyone else. They made fun of the white kids who wore glasses, the kids who were fat, the kids who had a stutter, the kids who were Jewish - you name it, even if you believed you were perfect: trust me, they would find something just to taunt you about. They were bullies and it was their way of gaining some kind of control over their victims.

Limpeh: Are we perhaps at the risk of saying, "oh everyone suffers from some kind of bullying, even white people, so the Chinese people who are suffering from racism should just accept that even white kids suffer from some kind of discrimination and bullying." Two wrongs don't make a right.

Abrisham: Two wrongs don't make a right, but offering a one sided view of the issue or over simplifying it doesn't help further the discussion either. So if you wish to help Sara's family deal with the racism she faces in her community, then you need to look at the effects of poverty on their situation as well. I feel like the BBC article conveniently ignored the fact that they were talking about a poor family living in a rather small, deprived town in the north-east of England - I think it is a British thing, we're too polite to point out that someone is poor even though it may be obvious that they are because it is considered rude or politically incorrect to mention someone's financial status like that. So it gets left out of the argument despite it being a rather important factor in this case.

Nina: I see Abrisham's point - I think we both agree that the article was poorly written and didn't do the issue justice, but that's a criticism of the journalist at the end of the day. We both acknowledge that racism is an issue and a problem that needs to be dealt with. So we need to find the right way to talk about it, approach the issue, look at the root causes, understand the factors involved etc. A good journalist really should sensitive topic like this justice.

Did the journalist offer a very one sided view of the situation?

Limpeh: OK let's move on now, let's talk about the other stories mentioned in the BBC article. In October 2014, Chinese takeaway owner Jie Yu was stabbed during what police have described as a racially-aggravated attack in Edinburgh. He was attacked at his take-away. (I allowed them to read the article in full.)

Abrisham: Oh my. How horrible.

Joseph: What the....?

Limpeh: I wanna know what elicited that reaction!

Joseph: This line, "Mr and Mrs Yu are considering moving away but said it was a “difficult choice” as their two older children, aged nine and seven, are settled in school." Clearly, this is a very rough neighbourhood. Look I am from Glasgow but I know Edinburgh well enough to know that there are some pretty dangerous neighbourhoods there and okay, so your kids have some friends at school but moving away from that neighbourhood is probably the best thing you can do for your children! They seriously have their priorities wrong! This guy has already been stabbed to within an inch of his life and is lucky to be alive - what more does he need to convince him that this is not the kind of place to bring up your kids? Is he waiting to be killed or what? Oh for fuck's sake! Sorry, I do feel sorry for this guy but...

Jie Yu ran a Chinese takeaway in Edinburgh.

Nina: I agree with Joseph there. For crying out aloud, if you can afford to move, then move at once! For the sake of your kids. Are you waiting for something nasty to happen to your kids as well before you will move way from there?

Abrisham: That's just insane. Sorry. I feel bad for the poor guy who got stabbed but what is he waiting for? It does sound like a nightmare of a neighbourhood to try to live in and run a business. It's so scary. "Their car was vandalised on numerous occasions, the window of the takeaway was smashed and staff were often concerned about the 30-strong group of youths who congregated outside, allegedly joyriding on stolen motorbikes."

Joseph: And this is the part that I find unreal: Mr Yu, who has been looking after the couple’s two children while his wife, Mae, runs their Peking Garden takeaway, said: “This is the capital city and we have stayed here a long time. The police don’t have the power to tackle criminals. Great, so you know this is a dangerous place. What do you do? You let your wife run the business whilst you stay at home. Like seriously. if they would attack a man like him, what would they do to his wife? How can he let his wife continue running the business on her own like that? What if she gets stabbed as well? Does he not give a damn about her safety at all? Unreal.

Limpeh: Do I sense some consensus here about his decision not to move away from that dangerous neighbourhood?

Was it wrong for Jie Yu to refuse to move his family after the attack?

Nina: Don't get me wrong, I understand how difficult the catering trade is. Margins are low and you are dependent on customers who will come back for more - many new restaurants, cafes and takeaways do fail within a few months because they are unable to establish themselves fast enough to get off the business off the ground. You sink in so much capital when you start off - you renovate the premises, you print new menus, you invest in advertising, you have to give special offers to entice new customers to try you for the first time. Maybe you have some savings to invest, maybe you get a bank loan - but you do burn through a lot of money pretty quickly in the first few months just to try to establish yourself. Either you start making money soon enough, or you just run out of money if you're spending more than you're earning. You don't even think about trying to break even from the start, you accept that you're going to make a loss at first until you can get your name out there - maybe get some newspaper to do a good review of your food and get enough people interested enough to give you a try.

How often do you walk past a brand new restaurant, cafe or takeaway and give it a try? You probably are a little cautious, you'll think, "oh I'm not sure if the food there is any good..." That could be part of the reason why Jie Yu is unwilling to relocate his business elsewhere if he has already established himself with the local clientele where he is. Relocating elsewhere is a huge business risk - he may have to invest a lot of money into setting up a brand new takeaway elsewhere, only to see the business fail after a few months. I can see that as a viable business decision not to relocate - it is too big a risk if they are completely dependent on the business to feed the family. At least that would have been a far more plausible reason than their kids having friends at school. Still, it doesn't change the fact that they really should move away from a dangerous neighbourhood like that after such a viscous attack.

Limpeh: So! Have I been way too optimistic about the issue of racism in the UK, because it has not affected me?

The issue of racism has not affected me personally here in the UK.

Joseph: I think you have to understand that you are not poor. You didn't grow up in some of the nastiest, roughest council estates here, you live in a nice part of town which means your neighbours are probably decent people...

Limpeh: I actually grew up in a fairly nice house in Singapore on a private estate. I had my own room, there was upstairs, downstairs, a garden in front, a huge backyard and a garage area for the car. By Singaporean or British standards, that was a nice place to live. It was a very safe environment, we never had to worry about our safety if we wanted to go out at night. You could let the kids play in the streets and it was fine.

Joseph: Right, so when you came to university here, you had the money to pay for decent accommodation whilst at university. You didn't have to live in dodgy neighbourhoods or rough council estates.

Limpeh: That's right. I had a scholarship in fact, so money wasn't never ever an issue or problem for me. Since I graduated, I have also only lived in nice neighbourhoods where I have never really had a problem with safety.

Your UK address decides whether or not you will be affected by racism.

Abrisham: As a mother, I knew how important it is to bring up your children in a safe environment. I have lived in some rough places as a child and I would never ever subject my children to that. That's just me, I am a real mother hen when it comes to protecting my children and maybe I am overprotective of my children at times, but I think I would err on the side of caution. I want to send my children to good schools, I want to live in a respectable neighbhourhood where my kids can feel safe. You know, you were very lucky enough that your parents had the money to spare you from some of that kind of scary crap that some of the poorer folks have had to put up with. You should not take that privilege for granted and you most certainly should not assume that every other Chinese person or ethnic minority are not having a difficult time just because you have led a blessed life.

Nina: If I may state the obvious please, you are extremely fortunate. Very much so! Be thankful to your parents. Don't take that for granted. Your parents' money and of course, later on in your adult life, your own money has protected you from racism in this country. Look, you have a good job, you work with intelligent people who don't do stupid shit - that automatically protects you from racism in the work place because most intelligent people will realize that racism would get them into a lot of trouble in the work place and even if they were actually racist, well, they would have to keep their feelings to themselves and watch what they say.

In both of the case studies, the perpetrators of the racist hate crimes were dumb kids, teenagers who are hooligans, who are not in school studying hard for a brighter future. These are young people who have lost hope, they have little to look forward to and they indulge in criminal behaviour because if they get locked up and thrown in jail, they have little to lose. It's not like they are looking forward to going to Oxford to read medicine, no. If they tried to look for work, the best they can hope for is some form of menial work on minimum pay. When those are the options they have, then they feel little obligation to follow the rules and obey the law. They attack people, mug little old ladies, beat up Asian people, deal in drugs and do all kinds of illegal crap because well, they have nothing to lose if they get locked up in jail or even if they get killed when they get involved in gangland violence. They are trapped in this cycle of poverty.

Is the law doing enough when it comes to racism in the UK?

Limpeh: I did encounter this kind of mindset when I was in Tunis, in Tunisia. But those were North African teenagers who acted that way, I didn't think that Scottish or British teenagers  would be like that.

Joseph: Oh you would be surprised. I don't think there's that much of a difference whether you're living in Scotland or Tunisia if you are broke and have no money. It's the same kind of feelings of anger, hunger and envy when you walk down the street knowing that you have no money, your parents have no money but there are others in society who have money to buy nice things in shops and you will never be able to buy those things.

Nina: So yeah, your money has protected you from racism. I'm sorry to shatter any illusions you may have about British society not being racist. Racism does exist in certain parts of British society, but because of your privileged position as a rich person with a good job, you are not exposed to it but as you can see from the two cases studies in the BBC article, there are other Chinese people who are poor and they are unfortunately bearing the brunt of it.

Racism disproportionately affects poor people.

Limpeh: What is the moral of the story then? If you want to be an ethnic minority, then make sure you're rich? And that life is hard for anyone poor, whether they happen to be black, white or Asian? Does it boil down to that - money?

Joseph: (Singing) It's a hard knock life, for us... It's a hard knock life, for us...

Nina: Sad but true. Money talks. That's the world we live in.

Abrisham: I agree. Yeah, it does boil down to having money.

Limpeh: Thank you very much for doing this interview and sharing your experiences with me on my blog.