“Go back to your country!” a term that unfortunately many people of colour know all too well.  Luckily, London is a hotspot for all cultures where you will rub elbows with people from all walks of life. I recently took a trip outside of London and felt like a deer in headlights everywhere I turned. A random something-shire I couldn’t pronounce with a foreigner population of one.  

I found myself adjusting to their accents as they adjusted to my skin colour. Wildering eyes glanced in my direction each way I looked, ‘they can’t be serious’ I murmured to myself. I genuinely thought the UK was somewhat similar to London, even a little bit, but boy was I wrong. 

I was just a few miles away from the city, barely the outskirts but it felt like I was in another country. Of course, there is racism wherever you go, even in the multicultural microcosm of the capital itself. You’ll sometimes even find yourself sharing a late-night carriage on the underground with an imbecile of a drunk ready to put on a show at the expense of your skin colour.

But for some reason Londoners weren’t too obvious with their ignorance when sober, racism must be going out of fashion. Constantly feeling like an alien from Mars is something people of a certain race go through, black people to be specific. 

‘So you won’t be bringing your cultural food into the workplace? It can be smelly at times’ the interviewer says as he nods for my agreement. You see, the real struggle is making a decision. The decision to either take offence and speak on it, risking the ’off chance’ of being labelled the angry black woman, or to not say a thing at all, and chalk it up to their level of ignorance. 

It seems that no matter what stage you are in life, school kid, young adult looking for a job or a grown 70-something trying to enjoy her retirement, the melanin of your skin will somehow bother others. 

Although the level of racism seems to be moving towards a more subtle punch in the stomach than the usual blow to the face, we still have a long way to go and if the recent outrage of BLM protests weren’t alarming enough, then social media will definitely have a video on everyone’s TL with yet another black citizen being abuse or racially profiled. 

Throughout time, I’ve come to realize that being a black Muslim woman, carries power, the power to intimidate, the power to walk into a room and your presence is noticed almost every time. I'd rather use my power instead of being afraid of it.

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Written by Misky