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On Being the Only Afro-Caribbean Woman in My Friendship Group
My experience with having a lack of BAME friends, how it made me feel, and how I changed my situation.
According to Statista, in 2011 only 3% of the entire population in the United Kingdom were black. Therefore, I lived and grew up in a predominately white neighborhood in a predominately white town. I’m convinced that when we moved into our house 15 years ago, all the black families from both estates were congregated together and lived next door to each other. There were only three coloured families in total.
Due to living in a predominately white town, I went to predominately white schools. In each of these schools, I can still count the number of BAME kids that were there because I was the one who hung around with them aside from one girl. For the sake of anonymity, I will call her Sharon, but Sharon was the only Kenyan girl in a group of at least eight other Caucasian girls, none of whom liked me very much including Sharon. What made Sharon so special? Why was I not a part of this group? Why can’t she see we need to stick together?
The situation slightly improved as I got older. When I reached Year 9, (8th grade) my friendship group of girls was a beautiful mix. Three were white, two of us were Afro-Caribbean and…
