Black, working class but in no way inferior

For anyone who doesn’t know me beyond my blog, I’m black. And I’m also from a working class background (although that might have been more apparent from some of my previous posts). Both my race and class are attributes I am proud of and I consider them to have contributed to shaping many of my experiences and perspectives in life. I see neither my race nor my class as an excuse for failure and I like to think my own life refutes that notion too. I am well-educated, broadly content with the person I am and (despite my many, many gripes about it) have a reasonably good job. Indeed, aside from a few blots, I am accepting of the hand life has dealt me.

There are others, some of whom have had different experiences from me, who consider being black and working class a double whammy in life. For many, being black is already deemed to be on a hiding to nothing and a guarantee for discrimination at various points in your life. Similarly, being working class is considered to result in being socially ostracised by the middle classes and a constant reminder not to get ideas above your station when it comes to ambition. At various points in my life, I have experienced all the above. Therefore I’m not quick to criticise those who maintain that opinion.

I fully acknowledge that my race and my class have made things harder for me than say a white, middle class male living in suburbia. It’s made opportunities less accessible and less apparent, often due to ignorance. Subconsciously, at times it’s also made me doubt my own ability to succeed to the same heights as my peers who come from a different background.

I grew up in a multicultural, working class community. My first school broadly reflected this in the intake. Needless to say, most of us came from working class families. Most of us were black too but at that age we didn’t give it much thought. When I went an inner city comprehensive at 11, it was more socially and ethnically diverse but I was probably still amongst the majority along racial and class lines. It was a rough school but not the worst and had some good teachers. Nonetheless, there were some incidents that the Daily Mail would have described as “broken Britain in our schools”.

During my time in the sixth form, I attended university open days and conferences with other schools and colleges, many with a middle class, largely white intake. It was then that I started to realise that I might not be amongst the majority once I went onto higher education and into the wider world. Some of the students I interacted with seemed more articulate, more confident and quite frankly more intelligent that my peers and I. And some of them would appear to be thinking the same thing. I would sometimes feel a sense of subtle inferiority having to interact with these students and the contrast between us seemed perceptible (although in retrospect, it was probably less than I thought it was). My race and class had started to make me feel like I might not belong in some circles.

Then I went to university and the status quo I had known was gone. I studied History, a subject traditionally (but by no means exclusively) studied by white, middle class students. For the first time in my life, I was in a minority within my setting.

I was surrounded by middle class students whose experiences and perspectives were so different from mine. Most on my course were white but beyond my fellow history students, middle class white and South Asian students had taken the place I once assumed within the majority. Their lifestyles were also very different from the experiences of my peers within my social circle and I. We worked part time jobs out of necessity; if they worked at all, it was just to supplement the money their parents gave them. For most of us, we were the first in our families to attend university; for them it had been the norm for generations. And many of them had come from private, grammar or selective schools whereas we were coming from an inner city comprehensive. I had no resentment towards them because of the life they had. After all, I had never known any different. But it was certainly an eye opener.

I didn’t walk around thinking other students were better than me but there was a sense that they were better equipped for a life of academia than I was. Academically, I’d gone from being a big fish in a small pond. Yet it took me a moment to acknowledge that they were no more intelligent than me just because their diction and background might have suggested otherwise.

Oddly, being black and working class offered me a credibility for which I only had to be myself to achieve. Yet I always knew that credibility would do little to help advance my career post university.

I did well at university and graduated with a good degree. However, I missed out on a number of opportunities that would have put me in good stead for my working life. This was largely down to ignorance. I didn’t have anyone advising me of the best internships, graduate schemes, placements or useful modules to study to break into a particular field. Ultimately, that ignorance was typical of my background. My parents, both of whom had relentlessly pushed me when it came to education, could offer no advice as this was a world alien to them. Despite their encouragement, they couldn’t comment on a world they had not experienced. That lack of guidance, lack of confidence, and of course being black (meaning institutional racism was likely to work against me at some point), meant I was playing catch-up in life before I had even started.

I use the analogy of a race to describe what I experienced. I’ve trained, just as hard if not harder than the other athletes. And as far as ability goes, I’m certainly up there. But everyone else has a head start on me and their coaches have given them tips that I wouldn’t know because I’ve been self-trained. They’ve also had access to the best training facilities whereas I have to make do with the basic facilities at my disposal. So despite all my efforts and hard training, I’m already disadvantaged before the race even starts. That doesn’t mean I can’t win the race or at least have a good performance although it does mean I need to run harder than anyone else in the field if I want to keep up. Years later, I actually still feel this way and it speaks volumes about the social fabric of Britain.

It’s easy to rue over lost opportunities that have meant I’m not where I might possibly have been in my life. More lamentable is the fact that for a while, I subconsciously kept my aspirations in check which undoubtedly restrained my progress. I didn’t see others from my background in certain positions therefore I didn’t envisage it for myself either. However, eventually I realised I was just as good as anyone else. It wasn’t too late but everyone else had already started the race and I had to catch up.

When I started working, it was a similar story. I was working in a traditionally white, middle class setting. Furthermore, by this point, a burgeoning middle class, most of whom would once have considered themselves working class, had emerged. This ‘new’ middle class was arguably a legacy of contemporary British politics. Socially mobile and socially aspirational, they identified more with middle class values and consequently increased the gulf between the working and middle class. On race and class grounds, I was, and still am, in the minority within my field but I’ve come to realise my background isn’t necessarily a disadvantage.

One thing I’ve had over my peers in higher education, and latterly my colleagues, is a broader life experience. Admittedly, it’s meant at times things have been harder for me but those experiences have shaped who I am. Furthermore, said experiences have not been at the expense of relinquishing or diluting my identity or background.

My work ethic and tenacity is at least in part attributed to my working class background. The acknowledgement that being black I need to work harder to dispel any notion that I cannot be as good as the next person, is also an advantage. I don’t doubt that’s different for many ethnic minorities. But the progress and broader acceptance other communities such as those from the South Asian diaspora have already achieved, arguably makes their path easier.

I don’t expect or seek any sympathy for the path I’ve had to take in contrast to others and I don’t feel it’s warranted either. Nonetheless, it should be acknowledged that by virtue of my race and my class, that path is subject to difficulties that others will never encounter.

For someone from my background not experiencing exposure to a world other than their own, they are unlikely to experience any sentiments of inferiority if they never encounter anyone to evoke it. Yet the reluctance to seek those experiences can suggest such inferiority exists before it even comes to the surface. There’s clearly something deep rooted about this that needs to be addressed in society beyond just a peppy can-do outlook.

I can’t pontificate about it “being easy with the right attitude” because it isn’t. However, what’s important is not suffering from an inferiority complex that panders to the notion that anyone should settle for less based on their class or race. Society attempts insofar as possible to predetermine that inferiority and perpetuates the apparent limitations and restrictions through long established social structures. No one should bemoan their background and I’m certainly not suggesting that. Conversely, no one should feel their background prefigures challenges that others would automatically bypass. Alas, the status quo is a sad reality while others remain ignorant to just how fortunate they are.