I fear the growing nastiness that Brexit is ushering in | Musa Okwonga
An elderly relative is asked if she lives in a mud hut, as hearts harden and minds close. Is this what the future holds?
At the beginning of January, a few weeks before the UK’s departure from the European Union, I had a conversation with a black relative who never talks about race. And when I say never, I mean never. She is the type of voter whom the Conservative party would largely regard as one of their traditional supporters: an older, affluent member of the professional class, who believes that any amount of racial discrimination can be overcome through focus and hard work. She was the one who brought up the subject, and her voice carried an unusual level of distress. She had gone into work one morning, where she has a senior role, and as she walked past reception a couple of the youngest staff members there called over to her, since one of them had an enquiry for her. When you go back to Africa to see your family, they asked, do you all live in those mud huts with the thatched roofs?
The older I get, the less I dismiss racist remarks as mere ignorance