When I was in London for the Cup final, I walked past an older white lady distributing leaflets for a ceasefire. I had been minding my own business, happy, smiling, part of the crowd in my Man United scarf.
As we walked past, I realised that there was a bloke getting up in her face, screaming at her, calling her Muslim scum, a terrorist supporter, using language that I wouldn’t even want to repeat.
In these situations, my natural instinct is always to stick up for someone I see who is being attacked. So, when I saw these 2-3 guys harassing this older woman, I did what I have done many times in my life and I stuck up for her, I physically got into the same space and made sure she wasn’t alone.
Obviously, he turned on me next, he got right in my face, called me every kind of hateful thing you can imagine. Recovering from a heart surgery, having a guy like that start on you is a scary thing. You start thinking “He’s going to fight me. He’s actually going to fight me”.
Eventually my friend pulled me away, and thankfully that was the end of it.
A few years ago, I watched a woman sat in her car and as these two lads came past, one of them reached inside her open window. When she got out to confront them, I stood with her. When I did, it went from being her fight to my fight. They started on the same racist stuff; I was younger then and managed to fend them off.
It was no different then as it is now, I’ve spent my life defending the people who need defending. The problem in London though was that I begin to think to myself, ‘if something happens here, I’m the one who’s going to get arrested’. You start to not want to take that chance, to not want to get involved.
There’s a lot of hateful things about Muslims on social media, on YouTube and increasingly out of the mouths of our politicians. After a while it begins to feel like we’re second-class citizens, that we have to tolerate the abuse, that we have to shut up and take it.
I have spent my life sticking up for the people who need me to, all that I can hope in return is that when you hear this hateful rhetoric that comes through on social media, on these news sites, on YouTube, that you would stick up for me too.
At the National Centre for Diversity our priority will always be to stay focused on the positive work we see taking place every day. When I go to events and meet people who are persevering, working every day to build fair and inclusive cultures, to diversify, it’s truly uplifting. There’s always more work to be done, and in this polarising climate that work can feel scary, but as daunting as it may be, the feeling of doing it together, of standing up for each other will always be more powerful.
To find out how our Investors in Diversity accreditation is a tool that will help you to build an inclusive culture contact a member of our team today by emailing admin@iiduk.org, calling 0800 288 4717 or fill out our EDI health-check.
