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One of the recent rebuttals I experienced against white privilege was as follows; "As a working class person who grew up in a northern steel town, I can't be privileged." Well, as a guy with Black parents from the north, here's why they're missing the point... (1/12)
My grandparents were part of the Windrush generation. ICYMI, after 1948, many people came from the Caribbean as British subjects to re-build the nation and its severe labour shortages. Whilst it was an opportunity, Caribbean people faced a lot of racial hostility. (2/12)
My mum was born in Sheffield, my dad came over as an 8 year old. They had parents who had faced racism both overt and institutional. The problems carried on to the next generation but also talking into account, the north is significantly less diverse than London & SE (3/12)
On the surface, life probably wouldn't seem different between a white or a black working class person. Going to the same schools, parents doing similar jobs, living in the same areas etc. But consider this... (4/12)
If you were Black, you had a high chance of being the only Black child in a classroom. You may be the first Black child a teacher has ever taught. We already know both statistically and anecdotally experiences in education are very different for Black children (5/12)
Minorities tend to be more susceptible to bullying, and we're talking about a context where racism in news, TV, comedy, politics etc. was even more overt and had the ability to exacerbate these experiences (6/12)
As a child, I only remember seeing a handful of Black people on TV. In my parents time, you might have seen more blackface minstrels in a single show on the BBC, than actual Black people. Representation was poorer so how might that affect aspiration? (7/12)
Far fewer Black people had a gateway to university and even less so if we're talking about elite universities, and less if you're not from the south-east. So even if you worked equally hard despite your circumstances, you still were less likely to reach a certain level (8/12)
I often think about how experiences with the police as a child or teen would have differed as a Black person, compared to white counterparts. When we're already talking about the multiple levels of racism experienced by two generations (9/12)
You could be from the same place, same class, have the same jobs and even suffer from the same post-steel economic decline. You had friends, colleagues, partners who were Black. But your lived experience is still different (10/12)
I was born in London. A place where my parents had more prospects with the city's economic power. A place that is way more diverse and the decades changed. But I can relate to a lot of these experiences in my own life and have done up to the present day (11/12)
It doesn't matter the social class, whether you're from the north or the south, 1970 or 2020, or you have the most multi-cultural friends. If you are white, the truth is your experience will still be different compared to a minority (12/12)
