Choosing where to live

Two or three years into our relationship we visited Jo’s parents in their hometown of Kent. I remember Jo asking me, “Would you ever consider living here?” Without thinking about it I automatically replied “No, it’s far too white”. 

Now, let me clarify… I don’t have an issue with living near or around white people. And, considering I live in England, that would be pretty hard to avoid. However, growing up around people who look like you and have a similar culture than you is important (I now realise this as an adult - good old captain hindsight). Especially when you’re young and growing up. So, when I said “No, it’s far too white”, I wasn’t speaking for myself particularly, I was speaking for our future kids and family.

Why it matters where our kids will live

I, Ken, grew up in Inner City London before moving to Essex at the age of 13. In London, I was surrounded by people of different races, cultures and religions. It was my normal and didn’t think much of it at the time. At the end of Year 7, my family moved to Essex (despite my several objections to this). As you can probably imagine, I found the move from London to Essex to be a massive change. The fact the buses in Essex came every 20 minutes and stopped at 7pm baffled me (that might have changed by now). Felt like I was living in the past - not the main point of the blog, but an example of how weird it was for me to be moving to Essex. 

Before I even started at my new secondary school I knew there wouldn’t be many black people in my school. But mannn, I was really shocked by how white my new school was. At my new school there were roughly 2000 students and of that number there were just 15 black people (yeah, you heard me right… 15!) and only 4 of them were in my year. 

That reality hit me. 

I remember mentally preparing myself to encounter racism. I prepared for how I was going to react when (NOT if) I heard someone say something racist. I prepared how I was going to respond to my teachers when they did the same.  When I look back, I find it interesting that I never felt the need to prepare for racism when I lived in London… even though I witnessed and experienced it. When it happened in London, even at a young age, you knew your friends who looked like you had also been through it and understood how you felt. Even though your white friends would recognise it, they could never understand it. But, they would recognise the difference between me and them. I knew things would be different in Essex. And, SHOCK HORROR, when I started at my new school in Essex, I encountered the racism I was expecting.

This wasn’t the use of the ‘N’ word (as I had expected) or anything along those lines. It was that subtle racisms that presented itself in back handed comments. My personal favourites (if you can call them ‘favourites’) included; “You don’t talk like you’re black” and “You’re the nicest black guy I know” or “Can you rap?”  My response back then and still now is, “How should a black person talk?”, “Am I meant to represent every black person you know” and “What makes you think I can rap?”

As you can imagine, my response made them feel awkward (I enjoyed making them feel awkward to be fair) and you could see the embarrassment in their face when they realised what they were saying. As always, they were very quick to back track with the “I didn’t mean it like that!” or “I’m not racist!”. Now they may not have been racist or had racist intentions, but they certainly had negative preconceived notions of how black people should behave and talk, almost trying to make me fit that stereotype. Because of this, my experience of secondary school is tainted to some extent. I felt this weird responsibility on me whilst I was at school. I felt that how I behaved and acted was a reflection on all black people. If I was late to school, rude or got into trouble, that it would feed into the already negative opinion of black people. Yeah… that sounds outrageous, but when you are confronted with subtle racism daily you can understand why that mindset would develop.

The importance of being around diversity

I recently read Rene Brown’s “I am no longer talking to white people about race” (and would recommend this to everyone). There were specific chapters in that highlighted to us the importance of growing up with people who look like you and have similar culture to yourself. It explained that when you grow up, there will be things you’ll want to share with people who can understand where you’re coming from and be able to expresses yourself without having to think twice and be your most authentic self.  

It’s an important topic for me because I lived outside of a major city and saw the amount of cultural diversity change dramatically. I felt lucky because I was only 30 minutes away from London and I ended going to London near enough every weekend. Like I said, I was one of 15 black people in my school. Now, we didn’t all get along but there were certain things that we could all relate too and speak about. A lot of the times we wouldn’t even have to say anything to each other in class. We could just look at each other and our facial expressions would say it all… “here we go again” or “that shit wouldn’t be allowed in my house”. More importantly, without saying anything we all knew we would look out for each other because we knew we had too.  For people who were the only black or mixed-race kids in their class, school or even area, I have no idea of what their school experience would have been like. How they dealt with back handed comments, the stereotypes being placed upon them on and… the inevitable feeling of not fitting in and being different. So, even though I had some issues with secondary school in Essex, I am very aware it could have been very different. 

Jo and I are very aware that when we have kids we want to live in in a diverse area. Not just for our children but also for Jo and I as future parents. Our kids will obviously be mixed raced and this will bring about certain challenges that only interracial couples can understand (blog to soon come). For example, how we support our future child understanding they are half black and half white and understanding their identity. Because of this, we want to be around other interracial couples and parents so we can share those experiences and support each other to manage those unique challenges that we will inevitably experience. 

As always, your thoughts and opinions are welcome. Please share this with people you know to help us grow this interracial space.

Love Ken and Jo x