ZIA SARDAR talks to Bux Qalandar Memon
During my childhood racism was much more overt. It was largely about the colour of your skin. ‘To Let’ signs on houses often carried the refrain: ‘No Blacks, Irish or Dogs’. People would cross the road to avoid you when they saw you coming. I was a regular bunch bag for racist bullies and thugs and came home from school routinely battered and bruised. Initially we were all ‘blacks’; then all Asians become ‘Pakis’ and ‘Paki bashing’ became a favourite sport of racist thugs. The 1960s and 1970s, an era of recession, saw the rise of the fascist movement; and the consequent rise of several youth movements such as the Southall Youth Movement. There were two dominant kinds of racism: police and popular. Various racist murders and cases of police injustice led to a number of riots in places like Birmingham, Bradford and Brixton.
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(Submitted by Robin Khundkar)