Where You From?
Firstly I’d like to note I’m not black. In light of the #BlackLivesMatter movement, some people have asked me how to be anti-racist. One of the ways of doing this is to engage with people who have different experiences to you. Perhaps I can present my experience of being a second-generation immigrant doctor of Indian descent. I present one of my clinic experiences:
Me: “If the rash spreads before you finish the antibiotics, call us sooner. Any other questions?”
Patient: “Can I ask you something?”
Me: “Yes, sure.”
Patient: “Where are you from?”
Me: “North London” (I knew exactly what he was getting at)
Patient: “Where are you originally from”
Me: “North London…Why is that important?”
Patient: “Well…well”
Me: “Why does it matter?…India”
Patient: “That’s what I thought. I went to Jaipur and it was beautiful.”
Me: “I’ve not been to Jaipur but I’m sure I will go one day.”
Why did I have answer a question about India? Was it because I was brown or looked Indian? What does an Indian look like? Both Joanna Lumley and Sir Cliff Richard were born in India. Technically, they are Indian. Would a white doctor who was born in the UK or India have to answer this question? Some would say if I don’t like the way I’m treated perhaps I should go home: this is difficult for me since I live in the town where I was born. It’s really not that far to go. This line of questioning is simply not afforded to white people. It’s not really about free speech: feel free to ask about someone’s heritage or background if you do know them. Neither is this about being a victim, nor is this is leftie wokism. This is about treating people differently on the way they look. Academics would call this a micro-aggression.
Microaggression theory is based on these small verbal or non-verbal slights that accumulate over a period of time so-called “death by a thousand cuts”. I appreciate that micro-aggressions exist and many have origins in unhelpful biases. “Where are you from?” directed to a non-white person, who has grown up in a country, implies that they are not from this country. For descendants of immigrants who are British citizens who have contributed to society (I feel I need to justify this), and who are British citizens themselves, the question “Where you from” is frustrating.
Having said this I do believe microaggressions exist but do not fully engage with the theory for 2 reasons. Firstly microaggressions are defined by the person affected so literally anything could be a microaggression, e.g. mispronouncing a name could very well be seen interpreted as a microaggression. This is an extreme example, but having such a loose definition leaves this open. To combat this many institutions have examples for their staff to follow:
Another counter-argument includes that the word “micro-aggression” implies that words are physically aggressive or violent and therefore micro-aggressions can be legitimately be met by violence. The line between microaggression and overt racism is thin:
Let’s go back to the question “Where you from?” If you are talking culturally, I might know something about my social group. But basing a prejudice that based on way I look that I must not originate from this country is forgetting a history of Empire and colonialism. Rizwan Ahmed summarises the plight of everyone who has been asked the question “Where you from?”:
Moreover, the question of “where you from” is often asked to us by older non-white people of similar heritage. Often it’s a way of measuring our worth or quality: a class-ism in a way. Telling people that my mother or father are from some obscure Indian village cannot possible tell anyone about who I am or my moral decency as a human being. Such archaic beliefs are similar to the caste system. Oddly enough at secondary school, a fellow student was keen to point out he was superior to me as he was a higher caste than me. I don’t think his superior blood made much difference since we were both going to medical school anyway.
When we talk about blood and race itself, race can be defined in 2 ways: sociocultural and biological or genetic. The socio-cultural association of race gives many people a sense of belonging but very often the cultural entrenched ideas of what originates from their culture. Modern civilisation is the result of the improvement of generations of ideas from algebra in Baghdad which allowed us to send people into space to the evolution of modern music which now has diverse multicultural aetiology. Biological or genetic definitions of race simply do not stand up since the genetic differences within races is greater than the differences between races. Adam Rutherford writes in his book “How to Argue with a Racist” how we are all genetically similar and very ‘mixed’:
“We think of certain areas, lands or people being isolated either physically or culturally, and these boundaries are insurmountable. But that is neither what history nor genetics tells us. No nation is static, no people are pure…Neither race nor racism has foundations in science.”
As humans we crave belonging and we can be tribal. But, we are more similar than we are different. So next time a complete stranger asks me “Where you from?” — there can only be one answer: “Does it really matter? We are all members of the human race.”
