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….