I'd never like, really encountered racism before, I just wasn't aware of it.
I just thought everything was going to be the same when I moved here but then people
started, just these weird things started happening, and they would just happen and I would have
no idea and it took me a while to realise what it was and then when I did come to realise
i was like "oh my god."
Like what?
I remember one time it was like really early on in the year I went on a coffee date with
this guy and he was from the all boys school just down the road, and we went to the coffee
shop and we sat down and this was the first time we'd seen each other face to face he
sits down and he goes "oh so you go to this school right?" and I go "yeah" and he was
like "oh cool!
Are you here on a netball scholarship?" and I remember sitting there and being like "I
mean I don't know why you think I would play any sports at all, I don't know what it is
about me that makes you think I can play netball."
Just little things like that kept happening and I kept getting confused and it wasn't
until one day I was walking out of the school gates and this couple was walking in and I
wasn't even like half way out the gate and I could hear the woman saying "Oh I didn't
know that black people could go here." and I remember just standing there and being like
oh! so that's what it is people don't think I deserve to be here, I somehow got a free
pass to be here.
Now you've left school what about your experiences since?
Is there something that is really vivid in you?
Obviously I turned 18 when I moved to uni and we'd start going out to town and my friends
and I would be out in town, and I remember one night we were just in some club on the
dance floor and me and my friends were just like laughing with each other and I remember
walking away and going to the bathroom and there was this guy who was standing there
and he looked at me and was like __________.
And I was like oh well that's my night ruined then, I'm going to go home and cry now and
I remember walking out on the street in town and there was a car full of I assume dudes,
they all sounded like dudes, and someone like put their head out the window and was like
"Get back to your f***ing boat" and I was like, I mean I came here on a plane but okay,
cool.
I've had like so many people who are like "Oh you're pretty hot for a black girl."
or "I've never f***ed a black girl before."
and I'm just like okay, cool, very dehumanising but cool.
Sometimes I just walk down the street, it's always especially at night and people just
be like ________ and I still don't really know how to process it and talk about it properly,
without getting really worked up.
My youngest brother he had like an incident at school with one of his friends.
My brother said he told him a couple of weeks before, this was literally like a couple of
weeks two or three weeks after March 15th and before that he had been telling my brother
that he wishes that the terrorist came in three other people so they could shoot more
of the towel-heads.
What do you think New Zealand or Christchurch can do to better ourselves in this, because
you've experienced something pretty ugly.
Teaching people to be more, open minded you know like you don't have to come up to me
and be like oh my god I'm so sorry let me kiss your feet, I'm so sorry for all the things
that has happened to you, just understanding what the person next to you might be going
through, just understanding, you don't have to walk in their shoes but just try and understand
what it must be like for them to be in their shoes.