Post 62: Colour Blind?

SKIN COLOUR (what is)

I am not black. I am not white
And nor is any human being
Why do so many denigrate
Skin colour; when it’s in the seeing

There’s tints of every colouration
From deepest brown to lightest pink
That we perceive in any nation
It’s no excuse for racist think

They say that beauty is skin deep
And certainly we need to know
That bigotry is base and cheap
And feeds on ignorance to grow

So, when the mob, by media led
Decide their hue’s the only ‘right’
Remember that their fears are fed
By ‘facts’ that are not black or white

Following the recent surge of right wing violence, how many of us are shocked and saddened at the prevailing attitudes of a significant percentage of the populace that still espouse these lazy unthinking views; to the point that they feel the need to scare and smash other people’s lives.

It’s a sign of the times not a changing, when I repeat a poem from a previous post (Post 8) that has already comprehensively described my take on racist views. In Post 37 Post 37: Who are Indigenous? published in January 2023, I list the past additions to our gene pool in the United Kingdom; and it is glaringly obvious that you’d be hard pushed to describe any member of our population as ‘pure’ English; and it does seem to be ‘just’ English. I personally have, hardly ever, heard these opinions espoused by people of Welsh, Scottish or Irish ancestry.

My hubby and I were immigrants into Wales in 1972. Those were the days when there were posters advertising ‘Come Home to a Real Fire’, put up by Welsh Nationalists, trying to stem the growing incursion of, mainly, English second home owners buying up holiday homes that the locals could not afford. So, what else is new?

Luckily we were naively innocent and ignorant of these opinions; and encountered only friendly and welcoming overtures from the natives; once they realised we were there to stay. Any ‘racist’ remarks stemmed from that same ‘ignorance’, and were more curious than bigoted. Two examples that stick in my memory; the wife of some close neighbours, who had gone out of their way to help us settle in, was chosen to represent, I think, the Womens Institute of the Carmarthen area, at the AGM, which necessitated her going to London; the first time she had ventured out of Carmarthenshire, let alone Wales.

When she returned, we quizzed her about the visit, which she had obviously enjoyed and experienced with open eyed wonder. One observation, which rather took us by surprise, was her question as to why ‘all the buses were driven by ‘black men’; a statement that made us feel a bit uncomfortable; even though we knew that she didn’t have a racist bone in her body. Indeed, if by some incredible chance, a person of colour had arrived at her farm, they would have been welcomed into her spotless kitchen, and plied with a high tea of bread, cheese, ham, welsh cakes, and, of course, plenty of strong tea!

My second example is, again, from the lips of a Welsh farmer’s wife. We used to buy our ‘raw’ milk from the nearest small farm to our dwelling; about two miles down the road. These visits always included some lively chats about the news of the day; and one of these discussed those very same posters inviting (English) visitors to ‘come home to a real fire’. What did she think of these sentiments, we asked her. Her eminently sensible and pragmatic reply was “Well, they all grow out of it by the time they’re twenty one” How I wish that was the case these days!

During my lifetime I have encountered some unexpected racist opinions; from people I had previously assumed to be free of this taint. When we lived in Twickenham in the late sixties, we gave board and shelter to some American band members, who had come over to take part in a tour of gigs with Duster Bennet, a musician of our acquaintance.

The bass player took to the English pub culture like a duck to water, and we all got on famously, becoming firm friends; until one day, the subject of violent racist riots in America reared it’s ugly head. To our surprise and shock our new friend suddenly espoused virulent and racist opinions about ‘the blacks’ in America. When we tried to argue with him, he turned on us, giving as his main justification for his attitude that “we didn’t have to live next door to them”. I remember being quite upset that somebody we had really liked could turn out to have such diametrically opposed views to ours.

And we had ‘lived next door’ to a large community of, mainly Jamaicans, in a suburb of London. On Sundays we used to take great pleasure in watching many of the community going to church (Seventh Day Adventists); smartly dressed in vivid colours; the young girls in frilly dresses with bows in their hair; the boys in smart suits, and all laughing and noisy, on their way to sing and pray to their maker.

Another example; and one that disturbingly illustrates that it’s not just the colour of the skin that engenders these statements. We have been to Morocco three times. On the last visit in 2015, we revisited a Moroccan friend who had started a camp site near Goulamin, a town in the South of the country. Hassan, a dark skinned Berber, welcomed us with open arms and showed off the improvements he had made to his going concern; which was mainly aimed at French tourists, and had been included in the Rough Guide to Morocco.

Two of those French tourists were a couple, coincidentally Pier and Jacqueline by name, who had been to Mali, in a very basic tiny van; not your usual tourists of the French variety. During one of the evening get togethers at Hassans, we asked for details about the journey, thinking that we might venture further South. Hassan suddenly leaned forward and said with some insistence, that we shouldn’t attempt it because “you could never trust those blacks”; an elegant example of the necessity for degrees of darkness to cater for all shades of racists!

And last, but not least, a fellow gardener of our acquaintance, with whom we had regularly exchanged garden plants, seeds and cuttings; and many afternoon cups of tea, espoused at one of these get togethers, when the subject of the ‘small boats’ dilemma came up, that it was all the fault of ‘the blacks’ and the ‘immigrants’ who were ‘taking over’. Our gardening acquaintance died last year; and I remember feeling sad that such a pleasant friend had revealed a side to their character that I could not align with their feeling and knowledge of all things growing; an instinctive but wrong assumption!

Another subject that will, unfortunately, run and run; but, despite this, I hope that we would all do our bit to call out bigotry, in all it’s divisive lying forms. Until next time, stay race and colour blind!