Some people never cease to amaze you..
I bumped into a girl I went to school with, in the pet shop this morning. I was keen to get the polite greetings over with, and just get on with buying cat litter. She, however, wanted to have a full-on recount of the past God-know-how-many years in which we hadn’t seen each other.
No, I’m not married.
Yes, she tied the knot two years ago.
No, I don’t have any children.
Yes, she has three.
No, I’m not an IT genius, I work with kids.
No, she doesn’t work, she’s currently sapping state benefits while she sits on her ass and does fuck-all else.
And isn’t it a terrible shame that I’m not married yet. And isn’t it awful for me that I haven’t had any children.. Of course, my children would be ‘half cast‘ and it would surely be really hard for me accept that my kids would be ‘coffee and cream babies’.
Excuse me?
It’s actually not a terrible shame, nor is it awful that I’m not married and don’t have kids. It’s not exactly what I’d say was my choice, but it’s hardly the end of the world. And the fact that if the other-half and I spawn some kids, they will be mixed race, really doesn’t concern me in the slightest, nor should it concern any other human being. Half Cast is a derogatory word, which yes – was used years ago to describe someone of mixed race, but is now incredibly un-PC, and is quite frankly just unac-fucking-ceptable.
I can categorically state that my children will benefit from knowing about two different cultures, two different worlds, and that will not in any way hinder them in being perfectly rounded individuals. In this day and age, how can any grown adult view a child of mixed race as any different to a child who’s parents are from the same race and/or religion?
She really pissed me off. And I made it perfectly clear that she was incredibly lucky that I hadn’t knocked her ignorant, stupid little head right off her shoulders. Coffee and cream babies.. For fuck’s sake.
It never ceases to amaze me how people can still be so ignorant, how they can still be so judgemental and narrow minded.
Sure, I worry that my children might be picked on at school, or that some people may look at them a different way because they don’t fit into some neat little category of race. But I’m 150% sure that not only will I be able to handle that in a positive way, but that I’ll be able to educate and reassure my children that anyone who treats them in a negative way does so simply because they are undereducated, ignorant, racist and small minded.
I first read the poem below when I was fifteen, and instantly fell in love with it. I chose it for my oral work and read the entire poem in dialect, much to the amusement of my idiot classmates..
To me, it perfectly explains how someone can use a word, whether innocently or not, and end up creating all sorts of insinuations about another person. It’s a piece of literary art that I’m sure I’ll read to my kids one day, so that they too can understand that every person is a whole person, no matter who they are, who their parents, or even the parents of their parents are.
John Agard is a legend. And it’s probably worth me pointing out, that the poem isn’t ’spelt wrong’ – it’s written in dialect. Just incase there are any ignorant readers out there that were about to let me know I hadn’t turned my spell check on. :-)
Half-Caste by John Agard.
Excuse me
standing on one leg
I’m half-caste
Explain yuself
wha yu mean
when yu say half-caste
yu mean when picasso
mix red an green
is a half-caste canvas/
explain yuself
wha u mean
when yu say half-caste
yu mean when light an shadow
mix in de sky
is a half-caste weather/
well in dat case
england weather
nearly always half-caste
in fact some o dem cloud
half-caste till dem overcast
so spiteful dem dont want de sun pass
ah rass/
explain yuself
wha yu mean
when yu say half-caste
yu mean tchaikovsky
sit down at dah piano
an mix a black key
wid a white key
is a half-caste symphony/
Explain yuself
wha yu mean
Ah listening to yu wid de keen
half of mih ear
Ah looking at u wid de keen
half of mih eye
and when I’m introduced to yu
I’m sure you’ll understand
why I offer yu half-a-hand
an when I sleep at night
I close half-a-eye
consequently when I dream
I dream half-a-dream
an when moon begin to glow
I half-caste human being
cast half-a-shadow
but yu come back tomorrow
wid de whole of yu eye
an de whole of yu ear
and de whole of yu mind
an I will tell yu
de other half
of my story
You know, coffee and cream babies sound DELICIOUS!!!!! lol
Honey, go punch that bitch in the cunt. Someone has to!
Whether we like it or not some people will always speak in ignorance. A few years ago I was dating a black man who had children, When ‘we’ were are all out, people who didn’t know us, obviously assumed we were are a family because we are all together.
So to an outsider it looks like black Dad, white Mum and mixed race children on a day out together.
I know that people still have issues with mixed relationships, I am not naïve enough to think that all people in the world are open minded and accepting, but I guess you don’t realise the extent of how un-accepting people are until your put in an unfamiliar situation.
Maybe I should explain that at that time I was living in a town in Kent, it’s always been a small town but over the last few years has become one of Brown’s ‘boomtowns’ which means that a lot of people from London and other areas have moved in because of easier commuting etc. So it’s not a backwater town with a predominately ‘white’ culture, we had a mixture of people.
When I was out with ‘the family’, people – especially white men I have to say -threw me looks that could have turned me to stone and a lot of whispering etc took place, I even overheard a conversation between two men that kind of went, pretty girl shame she has ‘half chat’ kids . People also act differently in other subtle ways, for example a landlord in a pub we went to for Sunday dinner seated other people before us, and he also served other people who arrived after us first at the bar.
People looked at his children in different ways – one, they accept them for the beautiful looking young people they are and smile or two, they see them as a ‘colour’ and ignore them or even treat them differently.
It’s more than that though, it’s a vibe that you get from people, it’s knowing that they are categorising you, defining you because of your colour or the colour of your partner. It’s going into a bar where you would normally keep a tab quite happily all night, a bar where I am known with my friends without any problems and all of a sudden they ask you to keep your card behind the bar – just in case you run off without paying. Why? Because I’m in the company of a black man.
I wonder if this is a conscious reaction of people? Or if the idea of a mixed relationship even in this day and age is something that they subconsciously believe is a ‘council estate’ syndrome. Meaning that people who are in a mixed relationship are confined to the working/lower class and more than likely to be a troublesome pairing. Of course, we see celebrities in mixed relationships, but is this the exception or the norm?
The instances I have given above are small things, but still things I have noticed. I know from my previous encounter with this same ‘black’ man that there is still a kind of stigma attached to a white girl and a black man in many circles. Men who wouldhave before, asked me out, started passed comments about me having ‘been’ with a black man.
I would also like to point out that this reaction is not confined to ‘white’ people, many black people react the same when it comes to mixed relationships and interestingly, the worst case of someone being vocal about disagreeing with a mixed relationship in my presence was from an Asian male.
Tabby – I know, how gorgeous would our kids be?! She’s seriously lucky I didn’t knock her teeth out, disrespectful little whore that she is.
Lou-Lou, I know exactly what you mean. I experience that on a daily basis, and believe it or not – more often from other Indian/Asian females and males, than from ‘white’ people of either sex. However, I think that tends to depend on where you live, and what the ‘general’ attitudes of people are. When I lived in a big city, it was ‘white’ people who showed that attitude the most. It’s just so sad to think that even now, people still struggle to accept that people, are just people, no matter who they are, or where their family is from.