‘If you don’t like it here, why don’t you just leave?’
Everyone has grievances with the country of their birth. Take Brexit for example, millions of people so unhappy with the state of their country that they voted en masse to fundamentally change its course.
But one consistency throughout the Brexit debate and its aftermath was that not once were any of these Brits asked, plainly and simply: ‘If you don’t like Britain as it is now, why don’t you just leave?’
No, for some reason, this statement is reserved for people of colour. This, according to Afua Hirsch, is indicative of the unspoken idea among many white Brits that the place of people of colour in British society is based on the premise that they behave accordingly, and not shake the apple cart.
An incredibly offensive thing to say to someone about their country of birth, but widespread nonetheless, to the point that journalist Nick Ferrari once asked Hirsch, live on Sky News, exactly that.
We spoke to Hirsch about racism in the United Kingdom, and how the British media uses it as a form of entertainment.
“I’ve never heard it said to a white British person. It was hurtful.”@afuahirsch says racism is used by the UK media as a form of entertainment. pic.twitter.com/PUtyLqiNrA
— PoliticsJOE (@PoliticsJOE_UK) June 24, 2020
