But where do you really come from

 Subject: But where do you really come from.





Is our presence here on earth a moment when we can contribute to some ideal we have in our head of the way we think things should be or is it merely  a moment to go with the flow with what ever the current flow is.

My writings have a theme, they are conciliatory  yet demand better, they see a way of attending to societies needs and not getting lost in our individuality. The needs of the flock, not the recalcitrant ewe, the moderation of ‘individual rights’ for the rights of the group and the groups recognition of its group and their specific values.

I don’t equate all mankind as being of the same group. In someways we are almost the same with small genetic variances but in a more profound way, our lived experience makes us different. The modern intolerance for someone who doesn’t believe what you believe might not be modern but rather a historical characteristic, a sort of collar we wear to indicate where we come from. 

The recent rumpus over an old lady in the royal household brought down and kicked out of what she conceived as her home and her clan by someone who took offence to being asked “where do you come from” highlights a strong racial throw back from ‘people of colour’ to those who supposedly have no colour. This is becoming the unhelpful dividing line in this country as women of colour line up, on popular phone in m shows to show their support ‘their sisters’ against the ‘white sister’ of other tribe. 

The support for the 87 year old ‘Lady in Waiting’ and the contrasting vitriol against her seems to define us as brickbats fly based on presumptions of what Lady Susan Hussey meant when she said “but where do you come from”.  It used to be a reasonable question, one of even paternal interest for someone so far away from home, a method of opening a line of questioning to establish your interest in them. If I meet a fellow Yorkshireman I inevitably ask “which part of Yorkshire” is he from to find if we have a common experience of the locality, if I chat to a Polish guy or a Lithuanian I ask lots of questions about where he lived and what it was like to live there but this fragile, almost febrile society here in the UK and protests its sense of the ownership of being the underdog by unnecessary hostility. Of course it doesn’t own being thought the underdog since there are thousands of poor white people who are chastised for being poor, they even make television programs about them in ways they wouldn’t about non- white people.

Ngozi Fulani (Marline Headley) the West African lady who was upset at not being recognised as British, rushed home to her Twitter Account to express how upset she had been about the encounter and within a day Lady Hussey, after 60 years of loyal service, was out on the street. 

This sense of being British or English never arose in any dealings I had. Yes “I’m from England” was as far as it got, I maybe specified Yorkshire but that was it and although there were instances where the group around we’re capable of being hostile to such a claim, such as watching rugby at Loftus Versveld in Pretoria, or in the Sydney cricket ground where the term ‘Pommy Bastard’ was used to differentiate me from the other ‘bastards’ around me.

The claim of being made to feel I was not one of them only cemented my own feeling towards the nationality I represented  and it seems that Fulani doesn’t feel easy to be recognised for having roots through her parents in her native Barbados. That term native is also decried these days as we seem to shrink from our roots. The pride of being Barbadian is lost in and amongst the commonwealth of people born in London which happens to be in England. Does she also reject the culture of her parents, their food, their probably their propensity to attend church. Does she not feel relaxed when amongst the Barbadian people listening to their slang and laughter. Does she really feel more at home amongst the cosmopolitan tide of people in Bermondsey, Poplar or Walthamstow where culture is a rag tag of leftovers. Or is it perhaps her claim as CEO of Sistah Space a charity organisation to support African and Caribbean women who have suffered abuse paints a picture of the cause she supports surrounded by the abusers. She’s worth $1.000.000 and having dressed in African tribal dress to a gathering at Buckingham Palace is it any wonder she was asked “where are you from”.

This seems to me a divisive piece of propaganda.