‘I’ve always felt dissonance between the jarring fractions of my identities’

Photo credit: Clay Banks 2020

Shaheim Minzie : Reflections of growing up black in 21st-century Bristol 

I’m fortunate. I’m fortunate to have grown in an area of diversity. Growing up in a gated hub of racial homogeneity, the stories of workplace racism my parents had spoken of felt unfamiliar. The political talks of feeling othered over fry up and newspaper readings didn’t seem to concern me. 

I am a second-generation British Caribbean from a working-class setting, raised in between the vehement choir of basses debating about racial politics in an Easton Barber-shop.

I hadn’t yet felt the hangover of nationalism and skinhead culture in St George. Or experienced the stories of abuse from Barton Hill’s white neighbours told by newly-immigrated mothers, racism tugging away at their hijabs. 

 And then when I was slightly older, through the congestion of social media, I had found ‘woke’ Tumblr accounts about racism, an echo of my parents’ accounts of workplace racism. I had opened my own Pandora’s box, demolishing the gated hub. 

 Surprise: racism did affect me...

 But, when we speak about racism, we often talk about the obvious, explicit forms. 

 We speak about childhood horror stories of playground racism, things that are easily identifiable. My relationship with racism isn’t overt. It’s one that isn’t often spoken: the internal conflict birthed from living in a racist culture.

 I've always felt a dissonance between the jarring fractions of my identities. 

 When I was younger, I grew to understand that I needed, for the comfort of others, to act ‘appropriately’ in different environments; that I needed to act differently to feel a part of ‘whiteness’ and ‘British’.

 Every morning, I’d neatly sew a diluted version of myself into the fabrics of my school uniform. I had formulated a set of views about how my dark skin had made me seem: less approachable, scarier, and therefore, to divert from the stereotypes I’d internalised. I never wanted to appear too ‘black’.

“The other kids who went to these parties would always scare me. They scared me in the way they spoke and acted, how they embraced my aforementioned skewed definitions.”

The black boys in the older year would rap lyrics of Bobby Shmurda, their favourite playground pastime. They’d kick chairs and slam classroom doors, unable to contain their anger. Everything I tried not to be. I needed to be calmer, presentable; I needed to talk about Sunday roast instead of the rice and peas my Mum would cook. ‘Assimilation’ was my ticket to acceptance, not only to others, but to myself. 

 Conversely, after school, I’d come home to my Patois-speaking parents. I'd come home to breezy beats of reggae bouncing off walls, lyrics of freedom and black power falling upon my ashamed and ignorant ears. 

 My parents are very well-known among Bristol’s Jamaican community, so we’d attend every party held. By the many collars that  burst veins out of my neck, I was dragged to the many parties that took place. 

 They bored me. They lasted for way too long. During the comedown from the highs of Coca Cola and ice lollies, you’d find your little self lost among clean Nikes and high heels, searching for your Mum to take you home, immediately. 

The other kids who went to these parties would always scare me. They scared me in the way they spoke and acted, how they embraced my aforementioned skewed definitions. They didn’t hide their Jamaican backgrounds and blackness the way that I did. 

Photo credit: Clay Banks 2020

I had spent so much time trying to be someone else, that when I was at these parties, or more generally when I was around people like me, I didn’t know what to do. I thought that acting ‘white’ had meant acceptance, but I realised all it really did was disconnect me from my culture, race and ethnicity.

The ‘n-word’ is a term used endearingly among black people. But, for me, I couldn’t. I believed that I didn’t have the right to, as someone who tried so long to hide from my identity. 

Tianna,  a mixed-race Year 11 Student at The City Academy Bristol, states “I do (feel comfortable with my blackness). But it depends on my audience,”. “I definitely had to change who I was to fit in”.  She continued by saying “Ghetto is what they made it (Blackness) seem like”. 

Through osmosis, you pick up upon many things as the world around you starts to form. At the root of this dissonance is representation of Blackness. Whether it’s the drug-dealing thug in a trap-house or Jim Crow on stage, representation matters, so much that it creates these dissonances. It creates childhoods that try to outrun tainted representations.

Afro-Caribbean immigrants have had an instrumental impact on Britain and on Bristol. From the Notting Hill and St Pauls Riots, the Bristol Boycotts and the explosion of culture that we’ve gifted Britain, we’ve had a rich history of resistance and innovation. There’s a lot to be proud of. Places like St Pauls, a physical love-story to the Caribbean diaspora, just scrape the surface of the expansiveness of black creation.

I’ve thrown the costume out, thankfully. When I say ‘I am a second-generation British Caribbean immigrant’, there’s a strong sense of pride. It’s almost like a badge of honour. And in that ‘badge of honour’ I’m recognising that my identities can co-exist. They don’t have to be in conflict.