2 for 1 on massive no-no's: Part 1 - Ignorance

Part 2 will be posted tomorrow. . .there's no point in drowning you in a massive post!

Yesterday we were in London for a food trade fair, you see the reason that I've not been posting is because I've been helping my cousin with her social enterprise, 9 Tea Cups which is a great company and I am super proud to be involved. But I'll be letting you guys know about what I'll be doing there in a future post.

So there we were doing our job and minding our own business when we found a stall filled with sweets from our childhood. For those of you who read the blog regularly you will know that my ethnic background is mixed. I gravitated towards this particular exhibitor so excitedly, the table was full of sweets from a place that I hold very dear to my heart.

So I ask about these sweets with their original names, not the translated names written in english, the stallholder (also from the place I hold dear to my heart) metaphorically leaps at me and starts an interrogation line of questions whilst scanning my face "how do you know the names?!", "you aren't !", "your name isn't  , sorry!" and "your skin colour isn't !". She then turned to her assistant and asks here what she thinks, thankfully her assistant wasn't an idiot and just smiled helplessly, then the woman starts on my cousin. I stupidly answered all of her questions, providing more info than necessary at some points. I'm proud of my heritage, the only reason that I haven't included it here is that it is irrelevant to the ultimate point of these paragraphs. 

I tried to bring her back around to what we were there to talk about; food. But she couldn't get over her own issues with her definition of what it was to share a genetic background. Maybe she was having a bad day, but that is no excuse. I'm used to people approaching me with curiousity, I'm used to the face scan to detect features that back-up what I am saying, I'm used to comments about the colour of my skin, I'm used to other ethnicities being offered up "I'd say you were x, y,z, maybe even p, but not a", not to mention the unintentionally hurtful "huh, you don't look it". But what I will never understand in those circumstances is what can only be described as a compulsive desperation on the part of the listener to tear down what I'm saying, instead opting to decide that I am lying about something that has no impact on anyone but me.

Badgering anyone with questions like that is the same as having someone insist to you that you are not male or female. Not only is it ignorant, it's frustrating and it's offensive. 

So this post is for anyone who has ever been marginalised, for whatever reason. You are worth so much more than a passing comment.

Then we came across part 2: Orogold. Check back later.

Love,

Layla

xx