{"id":59256,"date":"2019-11-19T21:22:39","date_gmt":"2019-11-19T21:22:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=59256"},"modified":"2019-11-19T21:23:32","modified_gmt":"2019-11-19T21:23:32","slug":"my-jamaican-dad-was-an-raf-hero-why-did-no-one-believe-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=59256","title":{"rendered":"My Jamaican dad was an RAF hero. Why did no one believe me?"},"content":{"rendered":"

My Jamaican dad was an RAF hero. Why did no one believe me?<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The Guardian<\/a>
\n2019-11-16<\/p>\n

Hazel Carby<\/strong><\/a>, Charles C. and Dorothea S. Dilley Professor of African American Studies; Professor of American Studies
\nYale University<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>
\nHazel Carby<\/a>: \u2018I learned that I was not considered British.\u2019 Photograph: Michel Huneault\/The Guardian<\/em><\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

My Welsh mother met my father during the war<\/a>. From childhood, I have grown to dread the question: \u2018Where are you from?\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

I was in primary school the first time it happened. The boy who sat at the desk to my right \u2013 the one who used to pinch my arm whenever the teacher\u2019s back was turned \u2013 finished talking about his father\u2019s war experience of heat and flies and deserts while driving tanks across Egypt<\/a>, and looked at me smugly as if to say, \u201cBeat that.\u201d It was my turn to describe my father\u2019s contribution to the war effort. I stated clearly that my father served in the RAF<\/a>. On the piano at home stood a photograph of a young man in RAF uniform, with an enigmatic smile, head tilted at a slightly rakish and daredevil angle, holding a pipe in his hand. In my eyes he was the epitome of wartime British heroism.<\/p>\n

Before I could describe the photograph, I was interrupted by the teacher who told me to sit and listen carefully. I sat. The entire class was stunned. Silenced by her anger, they stared at me, the culprit, as the teacher issued a warning about the dire consequences of telling lies. She insisted that there were no \u201ccoloured\u201d people in Britain<\/a> during the war, that no coloured people served in any of the armed services, and certainly not in the RAF, the most elite branch of the British military.<\/p>\n

Speaking in the slow and deliberate tone of voice that she adopted when she would brook no opposition, she declared that coloured people were not British, but immigrants who arrived on these shores after the war had been fought and won. We all shifted back in our seats, and I cowered in shock and humiliation…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My Welsh mother met my father during the war. From childhood, I have grown to dread the question: \u2018Where are you from?\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,1245,459,8,10],"tags":[970,967,30525,30526,2103],"class_list":["post-59256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-biography","category-history","category-media-archive","category-uk","tag-hazel-carby","tag-hazel-v-carby","tag-raf","tag-royal-air-force","tag-the-guardian"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=59256"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59256\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59259,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59256\/revisions\/59259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=59256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=59256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=59256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}