celebrating cultural awareness

I went to a cultural awareness panel discussion at work as part of Black History month.

The first talk was ‘not all men who wear turbans are terrorists’. As I know Sikhs wear turbans it would not have crossed my mind, but he had some stories to tell.  He was upbeat, quirky and young.

Story 1 was about as 4 hard up 15-year-old teenagers getting tout tickets for the Arsenal stadium. The tickets got them in but not a seat.  4 turban wearing teenagers split up to find seats.  They were brought down by gun toting, body armour clad security, bags opened to reveal their mum’s packed lunches and chucked out.

Story 2 was more recently. He has a long train journey at the end of the day and puts his phone alarm on to make sure he doesn’t fall asleep past his stop.  The alarm went off.  Next thing he knows some older guy is tapping him on the shoulder asking him if he has a bomb.

Was it a joke? He didn’t think it was funny.

The next speaker talked about Nigeria and the three main tribes there. What did I learn?  That the capital is not Lagos.  That 1/43 people in the world will be Nigerian.  That a huge number work abroad.  When they discussed this, they said that the fact a shared language was English was significant.  This is not the first time I have heard people born in country extol at least one benefit of colonialism.

The last speaker was from Trinidad. I am hoping to go to her wedding this year.  I have been to Cuba, but I haven’t been to any other Caribbean islands.  She gave us a map and we had to put names to the islands.  I got 3 right!  She talked about the myth that reggae is the music of the Caribbean, that marijuana is legal there – it isn’t – only in Colorado and how many Indian settlers are there.

The whole event epitomised what is best about working in multi-cultural teams in London. The diversity was given, but the talent, passion and humour were inspiring.  Not many white people there though.