I’ve Been Racially Abused In The Run-Up To This Election. Here’s Why It Matters

After oohing and aahing at the views, we left, still wearing our thick jackets and carrying heavy rucksacks from a day of classes. On our way out, a guest standing with friends on the balcony made eye contact with us. He said he hoped we had a good evening, and smiled. “How polite,” I remember thinking. I smiled back, said thank you and walked past. 

As I did, and while still within earshot, I heard him say, “The bus is waiting outside.” He wanted my friends and I to hear that. He wanted us to hear that we, with our un-airbrushed faces and lack of designer clothes, fancy cars or wealth, were not welcome where the likes of him and his upmarket friends socialised. 

My younger self might have cried after, embarrassed. In the moment, though, I was annoyed, divided between staying quiet and walking away or saying something. If I stopped to confront him, I didn’t know how that would turn out – all my friends had already left. 

I felt a similar  feeling of shame that I had felt on that cold morning at the train station. But this time I stopped, turned around and said, “I heard that. And there was no need for that.” To which he said, “Yes, there was.” I wish now I had said more. But at the time, I just didn’t want to engage for a second longer.

After telling my friends what happened, one confronted the man, who then dismissed him as being “aggressive”. My friend, born and bred in London, is black, so to call him aggressive is to label him with the most basic stereotype of his race.