Talking Point: Feature
Sarfraz Manzoor, writer and journalist, April 2007.
As a young British Pakistani growing up during the eighties the colour of my skin defined my daily life and my night-time dreams. I was raised in a working class family by parents who believed in the transforming power of education; my father was determined that I was not going to follow him onto a factory production line.
However, when I sought role models, when I tried to imagine myself as someone doing something different – a film star, a writer, a radio DJ – it was impossible to visualise because there was no one who looked like me doing such work. I have a clear memory of going to sleep at night fantasising that I had gone to Hollywood and become a huge film star but even in my fantasies the character I played was a Zorro-like masked hero; someone whose ethnicity could be hidden. I wanted the same things as my white friends but I believed my life chances were limited simply because I was not white.
That was twenty years ago, two decades on how much has changed? A young Asian boy growing up now should not be needing to limit his dreams like I did. If that was the entire story it would be wholly positive.
Sadly, despite this progress, the present state of race relations is a source of concern. When I was growing up I wanted to fit in, today's young Asians, particular young Muslims, are keen to stress their differences. In practice, this has helped create ghettoes; communities living parallel lives, rarely interacting.
Religion was a private matter when I was young, today young Muslims are far more vocal in their demands than we ever dared or believed we deserved. In part, this confidence can be seen as a sign of success but it is also potentially damaging as it means that these days we seem more willing to highlight what separates us from each other rather than what unites us.
It would be foolish not to concede how much has improved. Today there are Asian television presenters, authors, film directors, musicians and fashion designers. The limits of what are possible have extended but let us not pretend that discrimination does not still exist. One third of all workplaces have no Asian or black women in the workforce. And for those of us who are now working in careers they would not have imagined our opportunities are often still shaped because of ethnicity; executives and editors still seem unable or reluctant to see beyond colour so writers who are Asian are urged to write about ethnicity, television presenters who are Muslim encouraged to make programmes about Islam. There has been progress but ethnic minorities still have some way to go before, to quote Martin Luther King, they are judged not by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character.
Sarfraz Manzoor's memoir 'Greetings from Bury Park: race, religion and rock 'n' roll' will be published by Bloomsbury in June 2007
Your Comments
prehaps i am a bit late in joining this debate-but i really think that sure britain is entitled to its own race but that is not what the writer is arguing against. whenever britain tries to stop fusing the ethnicity's and accepts multiculturalism, accepts diversity, rather than forcing its beliefs (is it harking back to days of colonial power?) then you can argue that the debate is dated. racism exists-this is the unavoidable fact, so stop pretending that britain is the victim and start questioning what it can do to prevent such ignorance and hatred.
- moloko31, 18 January 2008
really tired of being thought of as the big bad whitey. we have a right to our culture and our own flag. racism is in the mind of the beholder!
- buellxb12, 19 November 2007
sure thing hon but sadly the argument goes the other way
experience of racism is universal to all races
it's a sad ugly fact
wot can we do - refuse to join in i guess - and that means non discrimination against anyone and sometimes that is hard - try being non discriminatory towards a bigot it is very very hard - but we should try our best every day and inch our way to victory over the demon of hating differences instead of celebrating them - and politely ignoring the indadequacies of individuals - that's what polite grown ups do
not much comfort i guess - sorry
- flofis, 7 May 2007
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