Denise is a 25 year old drama teacher from London, currently working in the Middle East.
"Growing up in East London in the 00s I had never felt like the other. At school, I was one of many other black children and I didn’t notice the difference between myself and my fellow black and Asian peers. I was always aware of my race from growing up in a first-generation Nigerian household, I knew that my parents were not born in the UK and I was black. However, it wasn’t until I started going to secondary school in Romford, Essex that I noticed the unconscious divide and separation between races. In secondary school, we referred to ourselves as ‘the black girls, the white girls, the white boys and the black boys’ and nobody thought anything of it. Referring to others by their races wasn’t a slur but merely a descriptor of their identity and that’s why it always confused me when people would act like it was once I left the safety net of my school environment. Going to performing arts conservatoire in London, I was exposed to a whole new kettle of fish. I was met with people who had grown up outside of my Greater London bubble, who were uneasy about markers of race and identity and would shy away from ‘uncomfortable’ conversations.
A very memorable conversation I had whilst at university was once we were discussing whether or not we identified as English and expressed that I didn’t. A course mate explained that by me not identifying as English was perpetuating racist connotations with the term ‘English’. When I explained that I didn’t see myself as English because I wasn’t white it was then my identity as Black British became more asserted than ever to those in the room. University highlighted people’s discomfort surrounding identity and how we as people choose to identify and I wasn’t exempt to that discomfort around topics I was less familiar with such as gender. Fast forward 2 years from university I’d chosen to move to the Middle East, Kuwait, which has a vast ‘expat’ community with millions of economic migrants from The Philippines, India, Bangladesh and the United Kingdom. I didn’t think my identity was complex until moving out here and people would ask me where I was from and I wasn’t sure whether they were asking within the UK or my ethnic heritage.
The complexities of identity in Kuwait found me in an uncomfortable ground where my Britishness set me apart from my other black counterparts who were treated as third-class citizens before my own eyes. It makes it abundantly clear how the poison of imperialism still lives on in our society and how it rears its head in the most unexpected circumstances."
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