Anjali Ramanan

So for me this probably looks more like challenging things in conversations, you know, asking people you know ‘what did you mean by that?’ – you know, challenging conversations around race, um people asking me where am I really from, when like people ask me where I’m from, I say London, you know I’m sure you’ve experienced this… where are you really from as though I don’t belong here, as though I don’t have a place in you know, white England, you know. It really gets to me, its like, you know, I belong here, I’ve been here all my life, you know, I speak really good English, you know. Both of my parents are English speaking, I’ve been to university I’ve earned my place here, and you know, challenging ‘what do you mean by that?’ I play this little game with myself sometimes – how many times can I ask or can I get them to reframe that question until I actually get them to say what they really mean. You know, so someone will say, you know, where am I from? And I’ll say ‘London’, and they’ll go ‘oh no but really… like originally where you from?’ And I’ll say ‘oh Brixton, Camberwell’, you know, and um ‘that kind of area, do you know it?’, (laughs) you know, how many games, how many questions, how many times I can get them to ask that question before they ask ‘but what’s your heritage? Where are your parents from? Where were you originally from?’ Um… yeah and I hope that makes people consider their motive behind that question and why… why do they want to know that? What in them, you know… why… you know… is it just… is it interest? You know, is it… you know, what are they really asking?