More British Than British

That’s me. I’ve been called that. Trying too hard. “Laying it on a bit thick.”

I’m In the UK again after almost 14 months away. I’m from here. Was born here. But it’s not the same place and I’m not the same me. Don’t have a permanent residence anymore either. Hotels and Airbnbs like anywhere else in the world.

I don’t live here anymore. I live nowhere and everywhere. Still moving around and living out of a backpack. Spent a couple of weeks in London and then a week in Margate.

I went to Kent for the funny looks, awkward remarks and microaggressions. Feeling like a foreigner in my own country. I wanted to be reminded of that for some perspective after being away so long.

Kent is the place for it. A sort of passive aggressive Alabama of England. Repressed anger and resentment at outsiders. Even white outsiders, those “DFL” or “down from London.”

It’s not just Kent, much of the rest of England too. Really England is Kent. Everything needed to understand England is in Kent.

I’ve never liked England and it’s never liked me. I’ve avoided it most of my life except for some scenic spots. Stayed inside the city state of London (used to feel like one). Always felt like going to some other country if I went beyond the edges of the tube map.

Grew up on one of those edges. Dagenham, Ilford, Romford. Intersection of Essex and London. More England than London. Got out as soon as I was old enough. There were earlier escape attempts too.

So why “more British than British?”

It’s what I thought I had to be. What I tried to make myself. Didn’t see a choice. If not British then what? Indian?

I was born to Indian (Gujarati) parents. One from India, the other from Uganda (colonialism!). But I didn’t grow up with the starter kit. No contact with extended family or the wider community. Not a good childhood.

Parents separated when I was eight. Had a short period in foster care due to running away (white middle class foster parents). They told me to only ever speak English. Then my mother got custody of us, younger sister and myself. Tried to integrate us with extended family and community.

Too late for me. I had my own ideas. I’d become hyper-independent.

I didn’t think of myself as Indian. Didn’t think of myself as anything. No group identity. I was one of me.

Relatives I met were mostly working class first generation immigrants. Skewed my view of what it meant to be Indian: poor, uneducated and lacking sophistication. They couldn’t answer any questions I asked. They tried to tell me what to do and how to live.

No.

I rejected them and everything Indian. Didn’t eat the Gujarati food my mother made. I was preparing my own meals by 11. Frozen fish fingers and chips in the oven.

I turned to the dominant culture around me. I wanted to be accepted without question. Full assimilation. Become British beyond reproach.

British. Not English. I wasn’t white. That was important.

“British” and “English”, that’s all shifted over the last few decades. White Brits in England increasingly identifying as English first. Ethnic minorities more happily identifying as British. “British” now says more about a person’s worldview and politics. rather than simply being a label for national identity. Conversely some English people are rejecting “British” because they feel it doesn’t represent them anymore, i.e. has changed or been co-opted in some way.

Back in the early nineties none of this mattered. All I knew was that it was bloody hard to be non-white and British.

Constant imposter syndrome. Mispronouncing a word. Showing a gap in everyday knowledge. Second guessing myself all the time. Fear of being found out.

Relentlessly following up on all references, even made in passing, in order to keep up the performance.

Expending a lot of energy to just exist. On top of all the moving around which went on between the ages of 8 and 11. Temporary housing and a different school every few months.

At a school canteen when I was nine or so. They refused to serve me sausages. Everyone else was getting sausages. Why not me? Had I done something wrong? Was there something wrong with me?

I felt singled out. Denied.

I didn’t understand why.

I needed to British harder.

Moved into a more permanent school from 11. Made friends. White ones. They were casually racist which was normal back then. Racist chants and songs picked up at home and repeated absentmindedly (it all starts at home). I joined in too.

They told me “but you’re one of us.”

One of us. Who was “us?”

I avoided everything Indian or South Asian. People, food, music. All of it. Turned my nose up at curry. Britain loves curry. I was too British for curry.

Having white friends wasn’t going to be enough to gain acceptance. Because it wasn’t just about skin colour. I was different. Odd. Neurodivergent before it was understood or talked about. A geek before it was cool. I was a weirdo. At the fringes. So I sought out others at the fringes. The regular white friends were too dull and simple. Even the racism was too boring to be hurtful.

Fantasy roleplaying games, heavy metal, open source software (useful later). Anything and everything niche or esoteric and away from the mainstream, I was there for it.

I only saw white people in those scenes. Non-conformity, being “individuated”, is economic privilege. White privilege. Especially back then.

Children of immigrant parents didn’t have that luxury. Like the Indian girl from my class crying at an open evening because her father flat out refused to even listen to her about wanting to choose art as an elective. Not after the “sacrifices” he’d made.

Forced to live up to some ideal or chase prestige and money instead of developing yourself through play and experimentation. Not allowed to take risks.

I didn’t have to worry about any of that. No one was telling me what to do. I wouldn’t have been listening even if they were.

I did whatever I wanted. Walked miles to libraries (too poor to buy books). Read, tinkered, coded until the early hours of the morning. Slept in during the day. Skipped school. Developed myself in weird and wonderful ways. Surrounded myself with white weirdos who accepted me as I was. Well, we all just pretended I was white (including me).

Being a weirdo was good. Better than being reduced to a racial stereotype.

Outspoken. Rebellious. Stubborn. In your face.

I exist!

I’d ditched my east London accent around 11 in favour of Received Pronunciation, imitating what I’d heard on the BBC. Intonation, idioms. Got it all down.

Some people thought I was “posh” or trying to be better than them. That was fine. Better that than insignificant or overlooked.

A few rare encounters with Indian people. Occasionally I’d be told I was just trying to be white.

I was. Kind of.

But I wasn’t white. White people went out of their way to remind me of that. Especially if they felt threatened. I’d developed myself in ways which triggered the insecure to feel inadequate. People don’t like feeling inadequate around a poor non-white kid. It makes them mean and angry at the poor non-white kid.

Not that different in adulthood, people just mask emotions better. Resentment from those who’ve had all the obvious advantages in life yet are still unhappy.

Sorry that I’m better than you. I can’t help it.

Anyway, I did it. I became more British than British.

And it’s all still with me to this day. Walking around in a Barbour jacket, Crockett and Jones boots, Fair Isle jumper, carrying a Billingham bag and Fulton umbrella.

Fish and chips. Sunday roasts. Getting drinks in before last orders. Listening to Gilbert and Sullivan. Wearing Tweed.

Preferences, tastes, biases. All shaped by this need for acceptance. No longer possible to separate any of it. Where does it end and where do I begin? It’s a part of me, I’m a part of it.

More British than British. I’ve become some sort of caricature.

Affection or affectation? Do I genuinely like these things or did I make myself like them?

Does that even matter? At this point not really.

Reminded of something the British-Ghanaian artist Larry Achiampong said in an interview:

This idea of unrequited love, in terms of living in the UK for someone who is other, or not white; the yearning to be a part of something that is pushing you out.

Unrequited love. Yes. It’s like having a crush on some idea of what it means to be British. Pleasing. Appeasing. Being deferential. Reverent.

Obsequious.

No. Fuck that.

Who was I trying to please? Whose acceptance was I looking for?

Who’s the gatekeeper of what it means to be British?

Me.

I am. My own internalised, unrealistic and warped idea of what it means to be British. Along with a skewed value system.

I’ve been unwinding all this over the last few years. Dismantling the parts.

Realising I’ve been too hard on myself.

Ironically I’d already found acceptance as British years ago in many other parts of the world. At least as soon as I opened my mouth. Skin colour didn’t matter and I wasn’t resented for being well spoken or knowledgeable. Some places I was even celebrated for it.

The actor Riz Ahmed wrote in The Good Immigrant about having arrived at a place “where you play a character whose story is not intrinsically linked to his race. There, I am not a terror suspect, nor a victim of forced marriage. There, my name might even be Dave.”

That. I want that. To be “Dave.” No, I don’t want an anglicised name (named after the Himalayas and happy with it). I just want to be someone who happens to be brown. No need to inquire about my “culture.” Not being exotic or “other.” Except in the ways I’ve worked to differentiate myself.

A lifetime of comments and questions about my “culture” make this dysregulating. People happily filling in my backstory based on their narrow worldview and lived experience.

I won’t fit into any neat boxes. I won’t be reduced or othered.

I want my sausages.

Instead I get “but where are you from, originally?”

Or “you’re not into sports? Not even cricket?”

No.

Not. Even. Cricket.

The microaggressions, coded language, knowing glances.

A couple of anecdotes to show why I’m on edge and paranoid.

The toxic and febrile atmosphere in overdrive around the Brexit referendum in 2016. I was at a wedding in Sussex, an old university friend (not close). Far as I could tell I was the only non-white guest. At a table where someone made some jokes about Syrian refugees in relation to me (brown face and beard). All meant to be “in good fun.” It’s all just “good fun” in these places.

Later someone asked me if I had a bomb in my shoes. That was my cue. Didn’t stay late. £100 taxi back to London.

Posted about it on Facebook (when I still used it). Work colleague who lived in the same town was upset after seeing it. Not because of how I’d been treated but because I’d posted something negative about her town.

So I apologised and then felt bad so bought her a small box of chocolates.

Textbook conflict avoidance and people pleasing. Unfortunately apologies and chocolates cannot be taken back. But lessons can be learned. I hadn’t yet.

Late 2018 I took a contract at a government department. Couple of weeks in and on a call with a very middle class, middle aged white woman. She tried to make conversation while waiting for others to join. Asked “how often do you go back to India?” I looked perplexed. She pressed “oh sorry, is it Pakistan?”

I’m fairly certain she’d mistaken me for another person on the team.

It stayed with me over the weekend. Considered letting it go but couldn’t. So I raised it with one of the deputy directors. He set up a conversation. The woman was on the verge of tears. So I dropped the whole thing. Sucked it up. Moved on.

Nothing got fixed. No one learned anything. Except me. I learned a little more.

Same deputy director a few weeks later, when I mentioned I was going to Egypt on holiday over Christman and New Year, said “going to see family?”

Sure. It’s a country of brown people. I’m a brown person. Might as well all come from the same country.

This was all tiring. Especially in an implicitly white supremacist institution.

The whole country was tiring so eventually I left it behind. All of it.

Now I’m here again.

I’m not sure what the UK has to offer me. Beyond a lifetime of second guessing myself.

I can be more British than British anywhere else. If they remind me I’m a foreigner then that’s fine. I will be a foreigner.

I have found acceptance from the only place it should have come from all along.

Myself.

I’ve forged an identity.

Distinct. Mine. More British than British.

Maya Andelou said:​

“You only are free when you realise you belong no place — you belong every place — no place at all. The price is high. The reward is great.”

I’ve paid that price. I am beginning to reap the reward.

I’m also keeping in mind the words of Brené Brown:

“I feel like I belong everywhere I go, no matter where it is or who I’m with, as long as I never betray myself. And the minute I become who you want me to be in order to fit in and make sure people like me is the moment I no longer belong anywhere.”

That’s right. No more apologies. No more compromises.

Finishing this somewhere in the Danish countryside. People are reserved but friendly. They look at me like a foreigner here. Which is fine because I am a foreigner. My uncle moved here over 40 years ago and has Danish children. People still look at him like a foreigner. He’s fine with it too.

I’m fine with everything.

Hello world.