When is it okay to be racist?

Who is it okay to be racist towards?

I am a confident Black woman, 22 years old. I have blonde braids in my hair. I have an eye for men and I’m proud of my beautiful physique… I’m sitting on a tube. All of a sudden people start getting up across the carriage and before I know it the majority of passengers get up and start singing racist chants. A parent in front of me smears his white baby’s face with chocolate and puts a sponge on his head to imitate my blonde Afro (but this is child abuse). I do nothing. I try to stay calm and continue playing on my iphone, trying hard to look down at my mobile screen, and concentrate on the game I was playing. Sickening abuse is hurled, passengers start singing ‘monkey’ chants and more than a 100 inflatable bananas are waved around by passengers in front of me. The consequence? I am fined £8,200 by TFL staff for reacting by using a ‘vulgar hand gesture’ as I get off the tube.

Can you imagine that? In this blog post, Aisha draws on data collected from the case studies to ask us to consider what counts as racism….

Aisha is an avid footballer and has been capped three times for the British Muslim women’s football team.  Aisha is CEO and founder of an inter-faith sports charity All Sports Women.  The charity was established to encourage cross-cultural dialogue through sports participation, with the hope of using sport as a means to bridge the gap between different faith groups and cultures.  Aisha continues to challenge stereotypical notions of the ‘Asian woman’ through her academic research and community involvement.  In this post Aisha tells us a little bit more about her research.