‘Being woke led to racism’ Racism Ended It series

Kristen Bailey is an author of comedy fiction novels. Her mother was born in Singapore and her father was born in Guyana. Kristen's unique family ancestry is far too complicated for a brief bio but a recent DNA test concluded she was 66.4% South China, 21.8% South East Asia, 6.9% North Western Europe and 4.9% Pashtun. Her brother and sister’s DNA results were very different but we don’t talk about that. She currently lives in Hampshire, UK with her husband, Nick and their four kids.

Bailey shares their story in besea.n’s monthly series: ‘Racism ended it’. Where we share stories about times that racism ended or impacted a relationship; whether that’s friendships, work, romantic relationships, or family dynamics.

If you have a story to share about a time where racism impacted your work, family life, friendship, dating/relationships or any type of story that fits under our series theme, you can safely share your story via our pitch form where we may contact you to publish your story anonymously. Please note that whilst we will carefully read every submission, we may not publish every story.

There are some people that you think you’ll be friends with forever and *Jack was one of them. We had a long-chequered history of friendship that extended all the way back to university in Bristol and even then, we were an unlikely pair. He was a 6ft something, white, rugby player, born and bred in the Midlands who had a poster of a roast dinner on his wall. I was London born of mixed southeast Asian and south American heritage who liked a cropped sparkly top and an R’n’B night. We collided (quite literally) at halls and in different nightclubs along the way. He was hilarious, larger-than-life but there was also a gentle, intelligent side to him. Over the years, we drifted in and out of each other’s lives, him always flirting on the right side of appropriate but with warmth and humour. We married other people and tried on different jobs and countries. When gravity brought us together, it was usually at milestone moments. I’ll always remember when his son was born. He responded with such joy, such disbelief. I was ecstatic for my friend. He was going to be a spectacular father.

And then last year, something happened that has still left me reeling. My children all contracted COVID around the same time. It was a physically and emotionally trying time and Jack and I exchanged some messages to check in on each other. He was a pharmacist so offered me lots of useful opinions about vaccines etc. He was kind, concerned about my kids but then he told me that his household had been ill “although we were negative for the old kung-flu.”

What followed was a brief exchange. I wasn’t nasty but I asked him not to call it the “kung-flu.” He seemed offended that I’d bring his casual racism up, and replied with “don’t go woke on me…” I replied that I was proud to be woke, I reiterated that the term “kung-flu” offended me. He didn’t stop. He told me “woke (was) an extremist viewpoint” that “wasn’t allowed” and “my proudness (to be woke) will offend someone” along the way.

I remember how I reacted to his reply. I shut down. Completely. In my bubble, I was already tired and stressed and worried for my own health and that of my family. I didn’t have the energy to argue or debate with him. At that point in time, hate towards people of East Asian origin was all over the media. I felt it all so acutely and now this, from a friend was triggering, wounding. Not just that, it felt like a sucker punch. He had overstepped a line, he needed to move back, he needed to apologise. Instead, he pushed deeper beyond the line, telling me why he was right, why I was wrong. In that moment, to protect myself, I totally disengaged.

Christmas came and went and I ignored him. It felt harsh but necessary. No apology came. He’d send messages asking why he’d been ‘cancelled’, designed to make me feel guilt, to question my supposed hypersensitivity to a throwaway comment. Was it though? Maybe we could have had a conversation about everything, but in my mind, he needed to work things out for himself. I didn’t have the patience or goodwill to explain to him why what he said was so offensive to me, how whole diasporas of people have been victims of horrific abuse because of the pandemic and people’s misplaced blame, how language like that propagated hate. I’ve known you for years, Jack. You’re a smart man, work it out.

I continue not to talk to him. I’ve had COVID myself since then. My focus shifted further on not trying to fix our friendship but me, my kids, my health. I see a twenty-year odd friendship drifting away. I can forgive my friends many things but this feels like a turning point, one where I need to turn my back on him and say, no. I won’t have you say things like that to me and pretend it’s part of the course of our relationship.

It was with some shock a few months later, therefore, that a similar situation arose with another friend, Dave. Dave’s son and my son are best friends, and he is my son’s football coach. Dave and I have long-sprawling conversations at times, usually involving anecdotes about footballers I don’t know. The friendship is in its infancy but his family are kind and generous. I’m at an age (42, if you were wondering) where I understand friendship can be fleeting but for now, he’s wondered into my life and someone I talk to regularly. Once, during a phone call, Dave and I chatted about the race scandals surrounding cricket and he put his cards on the table, and asked me why you couldn’t say the word, “p***”. I remember I laughed when he asked me this, mainly out of shock. That word is abhorrent to me. However, the way he asked me wasn’t aggressive or belligerent. He seemed more interested in understanding why he couldn’t actually say that word out loud. “So you’d be offended if I called you a c****?” I remember he said it so casually. “Yeah, I would. Do you actually say that word to people’s faces?” He said he and his extended family used a version of it to describe a Chinese takeaway. At this point, I was on the verge of hanging up, my face curled up to a snarl but I took pause to listen. He wasn’t saying these words to offend in the moment but trying to understand the root of why they may cause offence. I gave him a brief history lesson, he seemed to take it in. There was grace and apology in his tone, like a switch had been flicked, the whole conversation felt constructive. This wasn’t about converting someone into wokeness, just adjusting their world-view, the core of their language and how they can be more respectful. This was someone who legitimately wanted to do better. “I’m not racist, Kristen,” he told me. “I honestly just didn’t know.” He thanked me for talking these things through with him. I told him he was welcome to chat to me about any of this, at any time.

Are these conversations and situations happening more in the wake of the last two years? They are, and they’ve given me time to reflect on how I handle them, about how I let them define who I am. The truth is, I’m not sure I’ve ever discussed these matters with my friends in that much depth. If friends ask me about my ethnicity, I’m always honest. I would rather they know than assume and I accept that friendship is one of those slow-burning processes where over time people reveal themselves to you, often for the better but sometimes for the worse. The hope is that friends get to know you as the person rather than what I represent at face value but that they also have a more nuanced view on race, that their beliefs are aligned with yours.

In that way, maybe it’s fortunate that the last two years have moved the conversation forward so I now have an instant litmus test to look into people’s mindset, a way to know if they should be in my circle, whether that friendship is worth more or less than the value of their beliefs and opinions. I don’t know if that sounds callous but it’s something that’s come with age too. Confidence to know friendships aren’t set in stone. Even if there is history there, it’s time to have a zero-tolerance policy on people who aren’t allies, who simply don’t have a point. The boundary lines have been redrawn to protect me, my family, my mental health. For some, I just don’t have the energy or time to debate what’s on their side of the line. By all means, come closer to my line but talk to me, not at me. Understand who you are talking to when it comes to race. I don’t expect you to understand the unique circumstances of my ethnicity and identity but respect the differences. I compare my experiences with Jack and Dave but essentially, the person I will always compare them and everyone else to is my husband. I’m married to a white man and in nearly fifteen years of marriage, my husband has put in the work. He’s grown to understand that being the minority means you do graft a bit harder to dispel people’s perceptions of you, the hurdles are endless and tiring. He lives with it, the conversations, the racism, the prejudice and he’s attuned to it. His respect for me and how we raise our mixed-face family is constant but always evolving. He’s become the benchmark by which I compare all friends, all white friends, all men.

Will I ever speak to Jack again? Who knows? I’m still fragile, COVID has sucked the thunder out of me, I am too tired to have that conversation and pretend we can sweep his casual racism under the carpet. I mourn the friendship and the history we have and maybe always will. I’ll see Dave at football tomorrow and at the weekend. There is someone who understood his role as my friend, who wanted to be part of a solution which was rooted in conversation, teaching, change. Having those two incidents happen within months has been clarifying for me, it’s helped me understand the conversations I want to engage in, the friends I want at my table. One day, Jack may figure it out for himself but until that day, my back is turned - frustrated, disappointed, deeply upset that this is how years of friendship have come to an abrupt end.

*names have been changed throughout