“I have had different experiences of racism, from the overt with name calling in the 90s, and the covert racism when I joined the police. These were all at various levels of nuance and the things that fall in between, the different treatment of you or the way they speak to you, to the assumption that you're quite aggressive because you're Black.
“After I left the police I set up my own business and at this point in my life I was very aware of racist attitudes and assumptions of who I was because of my skin colour and they were very rarely positive – an example being that you are less motivated or educated, despite what you do to challenge that idea. With this in mind it made me very nervous when starting up. I eventually plucked up the courage and sent off my pitches and ideas to companies, to the point where I had a very promising opportunity with a large corporate client.
“I had a really good rapport via email over a period of 6 to 8 weeks, to the point where it was just a case of signing on the dotted line. They invited me into their establishment for a final face-to-face meet-up and it was when the woman I had been speaking to via email saw me. I instantly realised that there was an issue. It was her actual facial expression, it literally dropped with shock. For me, I had gone from building a really nice relationship online with this person to sitting across a desk from them with their little microaggressions – crossed arms, shutting my questions down with short, closed replies. She went above and beyond to try and put me off wanting to do business with their company. Needless to say, I never heard from them again.
“I look back on this experience in 2019 compared to the overt racism I experienced growing up in the 90s and I understand racism hasn't gone away, but rather it has changed its face.
“In a western society it's quite apparent that Black lives don't matter. Look at the current situation with COVID-19, it was clear from the start of this terrible pandemic that a disproportionate of people from BAME backgrounds were dying because of this disease, yet there was no effort to shield people from these backgrounds. We're worthy to do jobs keeping the economy running and people safe but we're not worthy to protect. Black Lives Matter. We as Black people know this, but it's time the establishments and institutions that run the world understand this too.”
Chantelle
