Social and Cultural Anthropologist and contributor Scherin Barlow-Massay
Having recently arrived from a country where I did not question my normality, or place any emphasis on skin colour, it was a shock when my primary school experience quickly inducted me to the various forms of racial prejudice. Slowly and insidiously, I learnt that this new environment which was supposed to be laden with opportunity, was a hostile and unfriendly place to live. As racism reared its ugly head, I suddenly became the subject of all kinds of media definitions and name calling. On the streets and in the playground, I became a ‘black bastard’, never mind that my parents were married; a fact that didn’t enter the minds of those who were intent to abuse me.
Back then, there was a popular tea advert that featured monkeys drinking tea, and while I found them entertaining, in school it was a different matter. I could guarantee, to my shame and embarrassment, that some smart mouthed child would taunt me with ‘I saw you on the television’. Or laughingly ask whether I ate bananas; such snide innuendos were not lost to me.
I became a ‘West Indian’, a terminology that I had never heard of until my arrival in England. And everyone, both black and white, assumed that I was from Jamaica. However, I was from British Guiana; a place that no one had heard of, and because of those assumptions, I found myself being pushed further and further into becoming a persona non grata from both the British and the Jamaicans. Subsequently, to make it easier for those who asked, I compromised my identity a bit, put myself on the map, and became a South American. To the British, the new migrants may have looked the same, but we were not a homogeneous group. People from throughout the Caribbean had their own unique cultural identities and were struggling to maintain their sense of belonging in the face of rejection, alienation and mounting racial discrimination.
In England, I was made painfully aware of skin colour and the overwhelming discriminatory beliefs that white skin and European features (i.e. straight noses, thin lips, and long hair) were better than black skin and Afrikan features. Therefore, every November, I sat, glued to the television set, hoping that a woman of Afrikan heritage would be crowned the most beautiful woman in the world. Sadly that never happened and by the time I was twelve, I realised that my skin colour, hair texture, and features would never be accepted on an international scale. But rather than internalise my frustration from the negative and painful experiences I had learnt, I began to embrace the beauty that I saw reflected within my community, and for me, that became a source of empowerment.
Guyanese born, Scherin Barlow Massay, is a writer, educator, poet and artist. She studied applied human science at university and later Caribbean studies at Goldsmiths’ University of London. She has lectured on various subjects and ran courses in socio-linguistics. She recently conducted research for a London museum that is now part of the KS3 programme throughout the British Isles. She was an editor for a quarterly university journal, and has edited books for other writers. Her approach to writing is to keep it simple, keep it factual and keep it relevant to the audience. She is a keen photographer and her photographs have been used on the front cover and within books.
