Well done London. You elected an asshole for another 4 years. One who called black people picanninies with watermelon smiles and didn't want to cut short his holiday because of the riots.
But this isn't an anti-Boris rant. Lord knows that there are going to be enough of those today.
On the day that many of my friends, loved ones and comrades are going to Luton to clean the streets of EDL Scum, this is my response to the 28751 people who voted for Carlos Cortiglia, the BNP candidate.
You scare me. There, I said it. I am a black woman and you scare me.
Not because you're ridiculous, though you plainly are with your hideous ideas about repatriation and what it actually means to be British.
Not because you are stupid. though you plainly are with your hatred and your pathetic scapegoating of hard working communities. Eating curry and watching Japanese televisions sitting on your Swedish furniture which you loaded into your German cars.
Not because you are dangerous, though you plainly are with your violence and your lists and your websites that I won't link to.
You scare me because I don't know who you are. And because 28751 of you bothered to get off your ridiculous, stupid, hateful, dangerous arses to vote.
I'm trying to imagine what 28751 people all in one place looks like and I can't do it. I really can't. And that scares me too.
'But Deeva,' my left wing friends and Twitter followers say, 'there are 40000 less of them this time than last time. That's good right? We've made real progress right? Only 1.3% of the vote is a good thing right?'
Well yes, it is a step in the right direction. Yes, it is good that there are fewer scum that decided to vote than last time. But, and this is a big but, does this mean that there are less idiots who think that the BNP 'ideology' is the one for them?' Somehow I don't think so.
And this is why they scare me.
There are at LEAST 28751 of them. And I don't know who they are.
So when I travel through London, alone, often at night, I will look at the lone person wearing a union jack and glassy eyed stare and wonder. Is it you? Do you hate me because of the colour of my skin? Is it you that thinks I should go back to where I was born? (House prices in Surrey are horrendous, don't even get me started!) Am I safe?
When I am out with my man, who is white and we get sideways looks and sneering faces I wonder. Is it you who is terrified that I will somehow dilute the master race? Do you hate me for that?
When I am out with my mixed race children and we get the evil eye from people I wonder, is it you? Do you hate them for the black blood that is in them?
And when I see a group, I will wonder is it you? Am I safe? Is today I end up being threatened, intimidated, beaten, killed? Is today the day I will end up a statistic. One who will never get justice?
When Boris tries to cut tube station staff, how much safer will I feel then?
I am a black woman and even one BNP vote is too many.
I lived through the 70's with all it's Nazi salutes, seig heils and chants of 'Ain't no black in the Union Jack so all you niggers fuck off back' and I didn't think I would have to live through it again. At least they were easy to spot then. Now they wear suits. And I don't know who they are. Could be anyone. That scares me.
And London had AT LEAST 28751 of them.
You know what though? I refused to live in fear then and I refuse it now. And until there are NONE of them I will continue to fight. Not just the overt racism but the lazy bigotry too. I will challenge people who say things like 'Dirty Arab' and 'Spanish Practices'. I will call you out if you send me 'jokes' that have racist words, ideas or even slight undertones in them. I will continue to go to demos and tell the BNP, EDL and UKIP that neither their ideas nor their presence is welcome. I will continue to fight.
I may end up a statistic one day, but that will not stop me.
For I am a black woman. And one is too many.
