Opinion

No place for casual racism in Northern Ireland

Confusion over name when voting in the recent Assembly election 'burst' Bimpe's 'happy bubble'
Confusion over name when voting in the recent Assembly election 'burst' Bimpe's 'happy bubble' Confusion over name when voting in the recent Assembly election 'burst' Bimpe's 'happy bubble'

THE assembly election may be over, but the fallout continues - from uncertainty over who is in and who is out of government, to what that government’s programme will be.

For me it includes a lingering sense of deep disappointment in my home.

Not the usual weariness we hacks express at times of transition when we look back and see how little real progress there has been and is likely to be.

No, this time my disappointment is of a personal nature, so is more difficult to simply set aside or lampoon with a sarcastic tweet.

I had trotted merrily along to my polling station to do my civic duty, cheerfully handing over my polling card and passport and waiting while they found me on their list.

“How do you pronounce your first name?” the chap behind the desk inquired.

Well aware it’s uncommon, and always happy to help people out, I said my full name phonetically: “O-la-beem-pay.”

“Bimpe Archer,” his colleague volunteered.

“Yes,” I agreed. “That’s easier.”

“Or Patricia,” the first man said, looking at my middle name.

That burst my happy bubble.

“No, I don’t like that,” I said firmly.

“But it’s easier for us.”

To be honest, I was furious.

How exactly was it easier? His task was to find my name on an electoral list and hand over my voting card. Surely spotting Olabimpe Archer was easier than trying to find one Patricia in Ireland?

Clearly he was saying Patricia was easier for him to say, so he was renaming me accordingly.

Who else going into that polling station that day was going to have someone `decide’ to call them by their middle name because it was easier for them? It certainly didn’t happen to my husband when he later went to the same table.

In fact the only other person I know who random strangers decide to play `pick ’n’ mix’ with their two given names is my brother. Exhaustive questioning of friends and acquaintances has yet to yield any other examples.

Imagine being a child taken to the optician, dentist and doctor and every single one of them ignoring the name all your friends and family address you by, instead calling out the middle name put on your birth certificate as an add-on to honour your aunt?

That was my childhood. And I meekly stood up and trotted after them, too mortified to make a fuss.

Similarly I was expected to give complete strangers a rundown of my genealogy because my skin colour meant I couldn’t REALLY be “from here”.

In my first week at Queen’s University I was queuing with my school friends for a student card and the woman processing them couldn’t accept I wanted a `normal’ one and not one for overseas students.

How could I forget that same week someone trying to herd me onto a bus full of overseas students as I ambled along looking for a lecture?

Or when a photograph of me eating a home-made packed lunch with some friends from school ended up on the overseas students’ handbook? Look how well I had integrated straight off that boat…

I’m disappointed because while I may think things have moved on, that people understand not everyone from Northern Ireland is white, called Patricia and with an easy to place brogue, someone goes and proves me wrong.

Several years ago, attending antenatal classes, the midwife was running through breastfeeding for all the nervous new mums.

“Where you’re from it’s more expected, but over here it’s not as common,” she said.

After a minute I realised she was looking at me, which I found slightly disconcerting as my mum (who did indeed breastfeed me) is from north Belfast, which has among the lowest rates.

Then the penny dropped. She was looking at my skin colour, or recalling my name - both those things preclude me being “from here”.

When I was visiting America a checkout lady complimented me on my `heritage name’. I was touched. No one had ever put it like that before.

My heritage is important to me and I want to honour it, but it shouldn’t mark me out as forever an outsider.

That’s why we chose to give our son a single heritage name. So no one could choose another one for him against his will.

Despite being fair-skinned and blue-eyed, he is the embodiment of the rich diversity that makes up Northern Ireland today - when you stop just looking for the similarities.