Impact not intent

A few recent events have sent me into a spiral of squiggly thoughts that have taken time to coalesce.

I remember introducing my mum to my later-to-be in-laws. She and my dad had been divorced a while at this time and mum had remarried and had two young toddlers.

“This is my mum, Topsy”.

Topsy was my dad’s pet name for her and everyone we knew called her that. He explained the reason for the name to me when I was very young and asked why she had two names. He looked at my mum who had her back to me, and was washing-up at the sink, before explaining “Well, she is for me, the tops of my life”. The look my mum gave him as she turned at his reply, and his eyes as he looked at her made me warm inside. Safe. Protected. Held. So many emotions flooded my body as I bathed in that connection, but the overriding one was love. It wasn’t until I was a few years older that I first questioned the true origin of her nickname. I was sat snuggled up on the sofa with that after Sunday-lunch contentment. I still remember vividly the smell of roast dinner that permeated the house. Mum was, as are her daughters, feeders. Food, the more the better, demonstrated love.

In my dreamy contentment, full up on lunch and love, I was watching the Sunday matinee on our TV. The film that day was Yul Brunner in ‘The King and I’. As the plot unfolded, I watched as the story of ‘Uncle Tom’ was portrayed in a ballet scene. I did not understand much at that time about the ‘Uncle Tom’s cabin’ story, but could see that the dance was about cruelty to enslaved people one of which was called Topsy like my mum. I found the scene disturbing as the wicked Simon Legree chased the poor slave Eliza who was running away from him, but it also made me uneasy because of the connection of the name Topsy, also enslaved by Legree.

It was much later, when I was flicking through our beloved fake Encyclopedia Brittanica that I come across details of the book ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ written by Harriet Beecher Stowe. The images of black people from the book jumped from the page; big lips, long limbs, bare feet, white-teeth and fuzzy hair, including Topsy. Ugly caricatures of the illustrator’s take on blackness, which I now know belies the intended anti-slavery message of the writing inside. I can remember closing the Encyclopedia with a thump, not liking the feelings, both physical and mental that were taking my breath away…

Now, I had only ever referred to my mum as mum, mummy or mother (depending on my mood with her). Being a teen I really had no experience of introducing my mum to anyone, let alone the parents of a man whom I had agreed to marry. ‘Mrs B…’ sounded too formal. I settled on Topsy because it is the only name I had really heard used in the family, apart from when my mum’s siblings/friends from back home visited. They used her birth name or a shortened version of it. So when I nervously introduced my mum, it was like I was suddenly an adult being all grown-up. However, I was simultaneously crushed back to childhood and shocked at my mum’s quick reply, ‘I’ve always hated being called Topsy. My name is …’ She reached for each of their hands, and greeted them warmly whilst I stood slightly stung and stunned to open-mouthed silence. The moment soon passed onto light chit-chat, and I never talked to her about the reasons for her conscious step away from Topsy.

I wish now, I could ask her why she made that decision. Alzheimers has taken away that option sadly – talking of such things prompts either sadness, confusion or a jump down one of the many rabbit holes that her deteriorating brain throws in the way of her rational thoughts. Some might wonder if saying goodbye to Topsy was a chosen step away from her old life and old identity. After all, she was following a different path as someone else’s wife, and her motherhood had been extended with more young to protect. However, I suspect that the name Topsy had darker emotional origins for her. Uncle Tom and Topsy were negative stereotypes of black people. Tom was the archetypal dutiful, but unintelligent slave, and Topsy the disobedient, wire-haired, flat-footed black ‘pickanniny’ after Beecham’s book was published in 1852. I am sure my mum would have been labelled with many derogatory stereotypes on her arrival to England 100 years later at just 16 years of age, and I wonder if initially the label of Topsy was not as innocuous as my dad led me to believe. I wonder if every time she was called by that name it held the taint of the negative stereotype.

This is the memory that came to mind as events unfolded recently. The first event that occurred was the racist comments made to cricketer Azeem Rafiq which Yorkshire Cricket Club declared was merely ‘friendly banter’. The outpouring of memories of similar experiences of ‘friendly banter’ from brown and black people on social media hit home. The united pain and anger from the throwaway barbs sung out to me, along with shared frustration that often the pain was unacknowledged or negated by cries of our over-sensitivity and paranoia. The popular press jumped on the band wagon prompting the cry from some of the population that their freedom of speech was being curtailed. Often the usual fallback position was taken, which smacks of white fragility, that this was an example of the ‘woke’ view and ‘political correctness’ gone mad.

I cannot give details of the next event as it involves a white family member, however in a similar vein to the events above, a racist word was used accompanied by the comment that the person knew it was wrong, but felt they had the freedom to say it anyway. The personal hurt and disappointment is indescribable. Whilst some might chant the childhood slogan “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me” personally the opposite is true. Physical hurt brought about by racism can be declared wrong – it is in plain sight, it could bring about an arrest and most could not argue that it sits in the ‘unacceptable behaviour’ box. Words that are racist might be harmless in the eyes of the perpetrator, but the recipient feels the sting of them on the inside. I know that however well I try to hide the hurt outwardly, inside each new assault breaks open the wound left from the first time I encountered the barbs of racism. I have been spat at because of my colour, and I have been discriminated against physically through gestures or movements. I am lucky that for me this was the limit of physical assault that I have had to cope with. For me personally, the longest-lasting wounds come from the culmination of micro-aggressions. The greatest impact has come from small day-to-day occurrences; racist words, jokes or hidden messages behind seemingly innocent speak, which when challenged results in denial, or an accusation of over-sensitivity, or lack of humour. These have been the most hurtful things, and impacted my feelings of self-worth, self-esteem, and self-confidence and eroded any true sense of belonging.

I have reflected since these events on how I might provide a meaningful explanation to someone who feels their freedom is curtailed by being challenged about using ‘friendly banter’ which may cause offence to another. So often when challenged people will retort that racism was not their intention, therefore it was not an act of racism. It was whilst recently attending fantastic training on racial literacy that the penny dropped for me. The presenter talked of the importance of people considering impact rather than intent. If only more people, myself included, would consider impact rather than intent in their engagement with others, it would be a small start in feeling safe and protected, for those who are made ‘other’ in our society. Thinking back to the memory of the ‘pet’ name of ‘Topsy’ for my mum, it would never have been my dad’s intention to hurt her – he loved her with all of his heart until the day he died, despite their divorce. I know this, because he told me so many times during his painful battle to hang onto life. However, it was a name which held mixed emotions for my mum. Whatever the intention it was a micro-aggression that fell from the lips of those she loved. She probably never spoke out, to do that risked hurting them. However, I am sure there was a cumulative effect and when she began a new life she could at last speak out and abandon the source of daily pain. Strangely, for me the stab of pain comes not only when people make racial slurs against people that look like me, but also when they are made against anyone ‘othered’. The comments hint of unconscious biases bubbling to the surface and if the perpetrator holds these, what else lurks beneath? Stab…stab…stab at the wound caused by racism. It is the impact not the intent.

I started this post a while ago, before Azeem Rafiq revealed the details of the overt and covert forms of racism he endured for so long. All that listened to that broadcast could not deny the impact that it had on his mental health – the insidious, pervasive, systemic racism labelled as ‘friendly’ exchange was the cause. Many black and brown people in this country would have wept as Azeem spoke with their voice, hoping upon hope that people would listen and act. I certainly hope that the people, and one in particular, hear the message and consider the impact, whatever their intent before they let their racist arrow loose again.