Originally Posted by pgtips

Example. My team went to lunch at our local golf club and during a conversation about the British class system I was told I was "slave class" by another member of the team.

Originally Posted by pgtips

This topic is so deep that I do not know really where to start.

Being born in Britain of Caribbean parentage, and a male, I suppose I have an abundance of stuff to say.

I think I will start by saying that there are good people and bad people in all societies.

I think my first real incident of racism directed towards me was in secondary school aged about 13 when I was called a black bast**d. Now seeing as there were only three other children of colour in my class in a predominantly white school that did cut pretty deep and It still hurts thinking back to it almost 25 years later.

My way of dealing with this was to call this guy who was much bigger than me then was a white bast**d. I remember all the other kids stop playing football and looking at me with utter surprise that here I was, the only black guy playing at the time calling a white guy this in response to what he had called me. This had a kind of wierd impact in that it kind of earnd me some playground respect for having the gaul to stand up for myself and this was the last time this kind of thing happened to me during school.

I think it was also not so bad because I attended a catholic school where the majority of students descended from Ireland, and were immigrants to Britain themselves and had to put up with discrimination directed towards the Irish.

When my dad came to britain in the early 60's in some hostels and bars their were signs outside stating ' NO DOGS, NO BLACKS AND NO IRISH'.

I also had it easier because in the neighbourhood I lived in the house backing ours was an Irish family and from the age of about 5, their son Jimmy who was about the same age of us became my buddy and we were always in and out of each others houses. We also had a white lodger for many years who is still a great friend of the family.

I think the next time I was made to feel different was at careers evening in school aged about 15. The careers officer asked me what I wanted to do and I said computer programming or be a business man, and he said why don't I become a carpenter and take up woodwork to work towards that, even though in most subjects I was top of the class.

Years went by and again I felt pretty much part of British society but as you get older you become more aware of the divisions between the races and realise all is NOT an even playing field. You get to KNOW YOUR PLACE.

When I started driving things really became evident, because that is when I started getting stopped by the police on too many occassions to remember. My papers were always in order, but I was always wary of them, because I knew by then, that being black, if you said the wrong word could lead to a beating down the station.

I think it is around this time when a lot of young black men become disillusioned with society and realise all is not fair. It most certainly hardens you as you then have to grow a thick skin and know when to turn a deaf ear in order to survive and progress.

A lot of the black kids in my neighbourhood, even though they were quite intelligent were afraid of the thought of going to university, because this would have meant leaving their areas to go off to some university where there was the notion that racism was rife, and even if they got a degree as a black person this would not do them much good.

Luckily this has changed somewhat. especially amongst black women who realise a good education is key to advancement.

Fast forward 15 years later, I finally climb the corporate ladder in the IT field agin the only black guy on my team and all this racist crap comes back up.

Example. My team went to lunch at our local golf club and during a conversation about the British class system I was told I was "slave class" by another member of the team. I felt so small, at the time I wished the earth just opened up and swallowed me. What made it worse was that my project manager turned a deaf ear and the rest of the team did not rally around me. I felt so alone and humiliated and struggled to keep the tears from flowing and conceal my anger, but as usual you just smile and politely change the conversation.

Not long after this during a one on one conversation with another team member, I was told because the kind of house I lived in and nice neihbourhood I lived in, and car I drove (a jeep), most white people would think I was a drug dealer. I looked at this individual and I asked him is that what he thought ? He replied of course not because he works with me and he know I am a professional erning good money. However the damage was already done and paranoia started to set in. I started to question in my mind everybody around me because I really put my trust in my colleagues and never knew these kind of thoughts could exist in their heads. These people who were nice to me when they wanted me to teach them the latest IT tecniques all of a sudden seemed to go cold towards me and I wondered why ?
Well I found out that the project manager had let it slip I was the highest paid contractor on the team because I had specialist skills. The problem was I was a bit younger than them and black and boy did i get to know it.

I was humiliated on other occassions but again just became even more thick skinned and withdrew into myself. I still smiled openly and was grateful because this was the most amount of money I had ever earned in my life.

After a while it all became a bit too much and I had to leave because my health started suffering, I even thought I was dying at one stage as I rushed to the doctor with my heart pounding so hard, luckily it was just a panic attack and this is when I knew enough was enough. I was 35 and emotionally drained and unable to take anymore of this.

When I left it was as though a great weight had been taken off me and I went on to work for another IT company in Oxford. It was less money, I was still a tiny minority, the project manager was several years younger than me, as was my direct manager, but they showed me so much respect a bit of my confidence started coming back. I was especially looked after by a lad from New Zealand who made it his duty to be my guardian angel and always made me feel part of the team and always invited me to lunch with the rest of the crew.(Believe me eating lunch alone when you are the only black guy on a separate table is no fun).

I also worked in Stevenage on another project, again with much younger team and they looked after me well, always inviting me to lunch and making me feel welcome. Two lads in particular and I will always be grateful to them for the kindness they showed me and both invited me to their weddings, one in Germany and one in South Korea.

God has truely revealed to me there is good and bad in all races and nationalities and when I was at my lowest ebb, he showed me that just happened to be small minded bigots and it was especially important that he used some other white guys to pick me back up.

This was quite painful writing because some of the incidents are still quite fresh in my mind, however this has given me the opportunity to buy my own house, purchase a beautiful plot of land in the caribbean and most importantly to know how no matter how bad things become, all clouds have a silver lining.

Dedicated to Mark, Darren, Craig in Stevenage and my friend from New Zealand in Oxford (I hope you got that visa issue sorted out), all of you became my guardian angels at some point without even knowing it. Also all the good and decent people out there who can look beyond skin colour and race and just embrace you because the content of your chartacter and the radiance from your heart.

Amid all this I still think Britain is a great country with great humourous people, and in general a very racially tolerant society. It's not perfect, but where is ?

Originally Posted by pgtips

This topic is so deep that I do not know really where to start.

Being born in Britain of Caribbean parentage, and a male, I suppose I have an abundance of stuff to say.

I think I will start by saying that there are good people and bad people in all societies.

I think my first real incident of racism directed towards me was in secondary school aged about 13 when I was called a black bast**d. Now seeing as there were only three other children of colour in my class in a predominantly white school that did cut pretty deep and It still hurts thinking back to it almost 25 years later.

My way of dealing with this was to call this guy who was much bigger than me then was a white bast**d. I remember all the other kids stop playing football and looking at me with utter surprise that here I was, the only black guy playing at the time calling a white guy this in response to what he had called me. This had a kind of wierd impact in that it kind of earnd me some playground respect for having the gaul to stand up for myself and this was the last time this kind of thing happened to me during school.

I think it was also not so bad because I attended a catholic school where the majority of students descended from Ireland, and were immigrants to Britain themselves and had to put up with discrimination directed towards the Irish.

When my dad came to britain in the early 60's in some hostels and bars their were signs outside stating ' NO DOGS, NO BLACKS AND NO IRISH'.

I also had it easier because in the neighbourhood I lived in the house backing ours was an Irish family and from the age of about 5, their son Jimmy who was about the same age of us became my buddy and we were always in and out of each others houses. We also had a white lodger for many years who is still a great friend of the family.

I think the next time I was made to feel different was at careers evening in school aged about 15. The careers officer asked me what I wanted to do and I said computer programming or be a business man, and he said why don't I become a carpenter and take up woodwork to work towards that, even though in most subjects I was top of the class.

Years went by and again I felt pretty much part of British society but as you get older you become more aware of the divisions between the races and realise all is NOT an even playing field. You get to KNOW YOUR PLACE.

When I started driving things really became evident, because that is when I started getting stopped by the police on too many occassions to remember. My papers were always in order, but I was always wary of them, because I knew by then, that being black, if you said the wrong word could lead to a beating down the station.

I think it is around this time when a lot of young black men become disillusioned with society and realise all is not fair. It most certainly hardens you as you then have to grow a thick skin and know when to turn a deaf ear in order to survive and progress.

A lot of the black kids in my neighbourhood, even though they were quite intelligent were afraid of the thought of going to university, because this would have meant leaving their areas to go off to some university where there was the notion that racism was rife, and even if they got a degree as a black person this would not do them much good.

Luckily this has changed somewhat. especially amongst black women who realise a good education is key to advancement.

Fast forward 15 years later, I finally climb the corporate ladder in the IT field agin the only black guy on my team and all this racist crap comes back up.

Example. My team went to lunch at our local golf club and during a conversation about the British class system I was told I was "slave class" by another member of the team. I felt so small, at the time I wished the earth just opened up and swallowed me. What made it worse was that my project manager turned a deaf ear and the rest of the team did not rally around me. I felt so alone and humiliated and struggled to keep the tears from flowing and conceal my anger, but as usual you just smile and politely change the conversation.

Not long after this during a one on one conversation with another team member, I was told because the kind of house I lived in and nice neihbourhood I lived in, and car I drove (a jeep), most white people would think I was a drug dealer. I looked at this individual and I asked him is that what he thought ? He replied of course not because he works with me and he know I am a professional erning good money. However the damage was already done and paranoia started to set in. I started to question in my mind everybody around me because I really put my trust in my colleagues and never knew these kind of thoughts could exist in their heads. These people who were nice to me when they wanted me to teach them the latest IT tecniques all of a sudden seemed to go cold towards me and I wondered why ?
Well I found out that the project manager had let it slip I was the highest paid contractor on the team because I had specialist skills. The problem was I was a bit younger than them and black and boy did i get to know it.

I was humiliated on other occassions but again just became even more thick skinned and withdrew into myself. I still smiled openly and was grateful because this was the most amount of money I had ever earned in my life.

After a while it all became a bit too much and I had to leave because my health started suffering, I even thought I was dying at one stage as I rushed to the doctor with my heart pounding so hard, luckily it was just a panic attack and this is when I knew enough was enough. I was 35 and emotionally drained and unable to take anymore of this.

When I left it was as though a great weight had been taken off me and I went on to work for another IT company in Oxford. It was less money, I was still a tiny minority, the project manager was several years younger than me, as was my direct manager, but they showed me so much respect a bit of my confidence started coming back. I was especially looked after by a lad from New Zealand who made it his duty to be my guardian angel and always made me feel part of the team and always invited me to lunch with the rest of the crew.(Believe me eating lunch alone when you are the only black guy on a separate table is no fun).

I also worked in Stevenage on another project, again with much younger team and they looked after me well, always inviting me to lunch and making me feel welcome. Two lads in particular and I will always be grateful to them for the kindness they showed me and both invited me to their weddings, one in Germany and one in South Korea.

God has truely revealed to me there is good and bad in all races and nationalities and when I was at my lowest ebb, he showed me that just happened to be small minded bigots and it was especially important that he used some other white guys to pick me back up.

This was quite painful writing because some of the incidents are still quite fresh in my mind, however this has given me the opportunity to buy my own house, purchase a beautiful plot of land in the caribbean and most importantly to know how no matter how bad things become, all clouds have a silver lining.

Dedicated to Mark, Darren, Craig in Stevenage and my friend from New Zealand in Oxford (I hope you got that visa issue sorted out), all of you became my guardian angels at some point without even knowing it. Also all the good and decent people out there who can look beyond skin colour and race and just embrace you because the content of your chartacter and the radiance from your heart.

Amid all this I still think Britain is a great country with great humourous people, and in general a very racially tolerant society. It's not perfect, but where is ?

Originally Posted by Arcadian

I'm so sorry to hear of your experiences, PG Tips, I can't understand how it is happening that a far right 'political' party seems to be growing in strength in the UK.
I work for the NHS which one would think is one of the last places you'd encounter racism or bigotry of any kind. But I've heard a couple of co-workers use racist and homophobic language occasionally(fortunately the worst offender has now retired).
And I have made my feelings clear that this is offensive but I've just been made to feel that I'm the one out of line for speaking up.

Originally Posted by pgtips

It is funny you mention you were made to feel guilty for speaking up, because I also felt a sense of guilt in a perverse way. I spent weeks, months thinking if there was anything I could have done different ? Why my project manager did not stick up for me when I thought she was so cool and would not tolerate this ? Questions eating me up which no one would give me any answers to. Eventually I sent her an e mail telling her how disappointed I felt, but I was almost apologising in it too !!!! Confused or what. I have heard it said that mental cruelty is sometimes worse than physical cruelty as it ponders in your mind for ages.

My way of sort of dealing with this when I got no response from them, was to write to all of them and tell them that I have forgiven them, and it is all water under the bridge. None of them replied, I wish they did so we could have made complete peace, but at least I have made my peace and can kind of move on. However for a long time I lost my confidence to apply for the high paying contracts and still have some reservations, where back then my confidence was sky high. I suppose this is what they call being beaten down by the system.

Originally Posted by YankeemovingAbroad

Keep your head up! Remember many decent people support you.I know a sizable percentage of Britain's white population are fair people.It really is too bad that many other whites in the UK are backward ignorant back water fools and they don't deserve one minute of your time.Write them off and please don't give them another thought.

Originally Posted by anotherlimey

I just can't take it when someone says "I'm Irish", when:

1) They weren't born there
2) Their parents weren't born there
3) They've never been there
4) They eat, drink, watch the same TV as, watch the same sport as, and act like, every other American
5) They pretend to like Guinness but only drink it on St. Patrick's Day.

Originally Posted by pgtips

I think at the time I should have spoken to more people about this, but we are taught to put on a brave face and just get on with things whilst we bottle a lot of stuff up inside. The chap who started it all has since emigrated to Australia, he claimed he was leaving Britain because there was too many immigrants (as though there are non in Australia).

Before he joined I thought I got on great with my project manager, but she changed dramatically when she started hanging out with him and I suppose the rest just joined in. I still believe she is a good person who was just led astray, but who knows.

I am not really bothered about the rest but I would have liked an apology from her as I know she knows much better and at least we could of made peace. I hate leaving things like this and I like to have peace and unity with everyone.

White Britain as a whole are a great bunch of people, but you have to remember the media creates and causes a lot of distrust of black folk.
If there is a shooting or something negative happens in the black community it is all over the news, just the bad stuff.

There are hardly no black British positive programmes on mainstream TV, like for instance the 'Cosby's from the states. The kind of British films which make TV are things like 'Baby Father', a group of black friends with women and kids all over the place.

There are hardly no black leading figures in politics, we had one 'Bernie Grant', but sadly he died a few years back. The biggest black event shown once a year on TV( not prime time) is the MOBO's a music award show.

Black teachers are few and far between, so where does this leave the black kids, when nearly all the authoritive figures they see out of the home are white. Hence the inferiority complex.

This also aids the view to a lot of white folks that black guys are bad news and hence the underlying suspicions.

How do we break down the barriers ? By being as good a citizen as we can and showing other races that the majority of us are just decent hard working people who want to better our lives if given a chance.

A few years back a few of us were thinking of packing it in and heading off to Atlanta or Canada to start again, but hey I was born in Britain, have a british sense of humour, have paid my taxes and believe the majority of people here are still tolerant to others.

Originally Posted by Leslie66

Yeah but nobody cares what you think.

Originally Posted by anotherlimey

I'll just punch them in the face next time. They won't react because they're not actually Irish.

Originally Posted by Leslie66

So one day when your children say ..... My Mom is American and my Dad is British so I consider myself "British American" .... are you going to punch them in the face?