It will come as no surprise that I was a pretty nerdy teenager. I enjoyed learning, and I had a great relationship with almost all of my teachers. Like many High Schools, mine was pretty cliquey. I knew who my friends were and I stayed away from the “popular” girls; I took little notice of their mean-spirited jibes at me because for every Ellie who would utter thinly veiled racist remarks at me, I had my own gang to make me laugh. That was the way it worked, and equilibrium was maintained.
In one of the few classes I shared with other Black girls, our maths teacher continuously sent us out of the classroom whenever we dared to ask her to repeat anything; citing that we were being aggressive and disruptive. When the Head of Department saw us standing outside the class, she did not ask us why we were all finding it difficult to understand her subject. No, instead she assumed that simply by virtue of us being sent outside by her colleague, we MUST have been guilty. She presumed our guilt and confirmed it with the colour of our skin. That was the habitual burden we had to carry around the school. There was no opportunity for us to speak out, or air our grievances, because then we would be gaslit, or told to stop making it about race. Even when other students repeated openly racist taunts at us, we would somehow be both victims and the aggressor.
When I was 14, my school was involved in a scandal. An explicit video of a student began circulating around the school. Almost all of student body had watched that video and many students had sent the video to their friends. Echoes of girls cringing and laughing reverberated around the corridors, across lunch tables and toilets. So, it came as no surprise when an emergency assembly was called and the gravity of the situation with distribution and possession of the video was explained to the students. I sat there, blissful in my innocence, as I had not watched the video or have a copy of the video. I did not even have a phone. Was I surprised when our Head of Year, Ms McCallum* announced at the end of the assembly that she would like to see me? Yes. But nonetheless I went to her.
“You’ve been sending that video around”
It wasn’t a question that she posed to me, it was an accusation. One that I didn’t have a response to. I‘d gone to great lengths to not see the video. When other student happily gawked at it between lessons, I chose not to. I thought that my years of good rapport with teachers, and also volunteering my personal time in after school clubs, would have led my Head of Year to see me as a regular student, and not potential distributor of child p*rn. But, the look in Ms McCallum’s eyes told me otherwise.
She then looked me in the eyes and said “You’re lying to me. We will be getting the police involved”
Again, an accusation. There wasn’t a question for me to respond to. It was simply an indictment that I had to defended myself against, knowing full well that no matter how I fought for myself, I was already guilty. Anything could say or do would have further proven my guilt.
Certain moments in time redefine and reshape who you are and who you’ll become. That was that moment for me: The head of year, the woman who was supposed to protect me and look out for my wellbeing had in one statement, not only threatened my future in the school, but also my community and my entire academic future. To top it all off, as a migrant, she had also threatened my entire family and their security.
I stared at her, speechless. That was when I finally understood that the skin I inhabited will be the greatest marker of who I was to world. To Ms McCallum, it didn’t matter that I spent my lunchtimes quoting Harry Potter and arguing over which Hunger Games rip off was superior, to her, I was guilty without question.
It took my friends stepping up and repeating my own words back to her before she let me go. And when I finally got back to class, a group of girls, who I did not speak to, but knew off asked me as innocently as they could ‘what did Ms McCallum want?’.
My heart sank even further then. I understood just how my life would be filled with girls just like this. The Amy’s*, Ellie’s*, and Lucy’s* of this world, all of whom would not think twice before weaponising a system against me. Even if they did not know overtly yet, they could weaponise their whiteness over me because society would always take my Blackness as a confirmation of my guilt. I would always be defending myself and wouldn’t always have allies to speak on my behalf.
They tried to hide their laughter as I walked past them to my seat. My hands shook, and I had tears in my eyes. Rage was building in my heart but I knew all too well what I could have lost that morning: what my family could have lost.
This was a microcosm of how Blackness will always bear the brunt of guilt. What happened to me happened to so many of my friends growing up. Whether it was being accused of theft and having a teacher strip search you at 8 years old, or having your headteacher accuse you of lying in front of your entire school. All of these little injustices quickly chip away at the notion of childhood innocence. It erodes away at your trust and the hope that the system can/will protect you. This even has ramifications for us as adults. Whilst many of my melanin-deficient friends will willingly call police officers in their time of need, I still chose not to. Even as an adult, even when I am the victim, the onus will still be on me to prove my innocence against the aggressor. It is why recent events have been so heart-breaking.
From Amy Cooper calling the police in faux hysterics, proclaiming that an African-American man is threatening her life, to the police charging into Breonna Taylor’s house and killing her, and even the McMichael’s chasing down Ahmaud Arbery and shooting him as he jogged. So often the our guilt had already been confirmed by our Blackness.
The presumption of guilt on Black people is a ghost that lingers behind each and every single one of us, it’s a constant weight we all carry, an ever-present reminder that Black people are rarely afforded the luxury of innocence. It is a price that is simply too steep, and many of us pay with our lives.
*All names have been changed.