Former Hear’Say singer Myleene Klass has shared her experience with racism growing up in Norfolk.
The Filipino British singer uploaded a childhood picture of herself with a lengthy caption detailing the racism she faced.
Klass was inspired to make the post by the murder of African American George Floyd who died at the hands of a police officer.
“How whilst I don’t understand the struggles a black person living in America might be experiencing, how I do understand and know my own experience of being a mixed race Filipino girl growing up in Norfolk,” Klass wrote.
Kicking of her caption, Klass listed a number of racist slurs that were thrown at her: “Slit eye, Number 69, Fried rice, Mongrel. Ping pong, Slut. All Thai brides are sluts.
Banana”
In the post, Klass recalls how abuse from racists wasn’t just limited to verbal. “On other occasions, it wasn’t just words, it was rock filled snowballs by a group of boys as I walked home, I had my hair cut in the school cloakrooms by some girls, later they threatened a lighter. There was spitting.”
Klass also shared racist questions she was confronted with such as “Why does your mum speak like that? Why don’t you have an accent?‘I was born here. Yeah, but you don’t belong here’. ”
“You’re Filipino, you’re all cleaners right?”
Even now, Klass says she is exposed to racism. “In the area I live now, ‘get a Filipino’ is bandied around so easily when referring to getting a nanny, they don’t even realise they’re talking about a person, an actual person,” she said.
“A woman who will likely have sacrificed being with her own children for years to raise your snotty kids.”
Nonetheless, Klass expressed how proud she was of her ethnicity.
“The world looks different now. I am mixed race and I am so proud of that. Growing up in Norfolk, there wasn’t much visibility as to what a girl like me could aspire to be but I was surrounded by incredible, selfless nurses and those in service, the same who are tending our covid patients and dropping like flies,” she said.
In related news, right-wing hashtags surrounding George Floyd protests are being flooded with Kpop content.
In other news, video footage of a Chinese takeaway in Lancashire being violently attacked has been circulating online.
The attack comes amid the Coronavirus at a time when hate crimes against Chinese people in the UK are rising.
