Sean

My name is Sean Comrie and I am an Artist and a part time barista. My heritage is Jamaican Irish but I live in Smethwick, Birmingham. Despite living here my whole life people in this country make me feel like I don’t belong here and that’s due to the racism that is very visible in this country. It’s the small things like visiting supermarkets and getting followed by security or if there is something done that is unlawful or distrusting I am always the first suspect if I’m the only ethnic minority present.

Being Black and British is you’re never “British” enough. People will ask you where are you from? Whether that’s in Ireland, Scotland, Wales or in England and you’ll answer, “I’m British I’m from whichever part and then they’ll ask again “Where are you from?”, then I’ll say, “well I’m Jamaican by heritage and I’m also part Irish” and that’s what they were fishing for.

There’s been various occasions where me and my friends have just been children going to the park and then police will approach us to say “we’ve had a description of somebody that is this height and this colour” and there are plenty of people in the whole of the UK that could match that description. So to come and find us; a group of children and believe that we’re going to be dangerous suspects is a massive problem with stop and search. I feel as though the stop and search system is important because there are criminals out there that want to cause harm to other people, so it’s definitely important to identify those kinds of people and hopefully prevent the crime from ever happening.

I find that I have to be careful with the way that I address certain topics and the way that I speak to other people because I don’t want to be seen as aggressive or intimidating. I, myself I don’t find that I am being aggressive but just because of my skin colour sometimes the way that I say things; people will think that I am being funny with them, that’s another problem of being black in Britain.

Regarding Britain’s past, it’s a tricky situation, because a lot of things that made Britain great initially was conquering other nations and pillaging from other nations. This was seen as something that other countries should do, back when there were prominent kings and queens of other nations, which is kind of an impressive feat for Britain. On the opposite side of the spectrum the same things that we have pillaged and stolen from other nations is what has made developing countries poor and Britain has become wealthy because of that. I think a lot of people forget the history of where we (Britain) got our money from, it’s blood money and blood diamonds.

I think since Brexit the racism in this country has become more visible. Now people have gotten their way and it’s became a situation where it’s like “well if you didn’t like the vote then leave the country” ,whereas before people would hide behind it and say “I’m not racist I just want Britain to be British” but now it’s “we just don’t want you in the country because we’ve passed our vote.