Read on Twitter
1/ The last few difficult days have dragged up a lot of things for me. As expressed, I am disappointed in the resounding silence from ‘Legal Twitter’. It didn’t feel right to not speak up more, so here we go. A (long) thread.
2/ I have almost no memories of being 3 years old, just too young. Except two. One, asking my mum if I can please have a dad for Christmas. Two, following the white girls at nursery who moved every time I sat next to them and ran away from me screaming.
3/ I remember my mum seeing it when she came to pick me up one day and asked me if this always happens. I told her it does and I remember her going silent and trying not to cry in front of me. I remember these things because they were traumatic for that little girl.
4/ I am at primary school now, I am 4 years old in reception and I go with my friend to see her cousin in playgroup. She tells me I have to stand away in the corner because, sorry, her cousin is scared of me.
5/ I hid on the playground at break and lunch times because when I was found I was punched, kicked and called “Lola the black Cola” by boys and “Medusa” by everyone because of my plaits (which are both quite inventive to be fair).
6/ This stopped because my stepdad took me to karate; I got very good at it and people became scared and stopped trying me. I eventually became popular. Maybe the children grew to accept me for who I was beyond my difference. Maybe they were still scared I’d high kick them.
7/ I am living on a council estate and scared of going to the shop alone because a group of older kids would punch, kick and spit on me while calling me the ‘N word’- girls and boys. Sometimes they wouldn’t let me go until I sang a song, “Lolo, sing a solo” they chanted.
8/ I’m at uni and a fall out with former friends leads to a “hate” Facebook group being made about me with a horse as the picture. Someone calls it out as racism - I don’t look like a horse and there’s no similarity except for colour. The picture is changed to a white horse.
9/ Continued references to me as a horse on social media. I start to wonder if maybe I do look like a horse. I believe I do. Present day: Dominic Cummings’ father in law calls his horse ‘Barack’ (Obama) because it’s half black & half white.
10/ I am at law school now. My tutor asks my white and very middle class, classmate who already has pupillage how she found negotiations with me after an exercise. Her response, “I found Lola aggressive”.
11/ In my head, I’m thinking “this is it. This is always going to be my career and life”. My tutor, I am grateful, stands up for me and says “I heard it. Lola wasn’t aggressive at all actually. She speaks assertively, that’s just her voice”. (Thank you @seeyouatthebar) 
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12/ I get into a disagreement with a student from a different class and he calls me ‘ghetto’. Needless to say, I’m not at all, it was just a tired racial slur. Not that it’s relevant, but he failed the course.
13/ And now I am in a profession where as a black woman, I am even more of a minority and I feel like an outsider. Where every time I meet a client I wonder and will always wonder if they’re questioning how I got where I am, my ability, or don’t want me around or to work with me.
14/ When they look at me skeptically, as I have seen some do, I don’t know if it’s just because I’m young (and look younger) or it’s what I fear that it is. My white contemporaries never, ever have to consider or worry about this.
15/ This is a snapshot, not even close to detailing all the instances of racism, violent and otherwise that I’ve experienced throughout my entire life and all the things I have to think about just existing as a black person. And clearly... I’ve had it lightly compared to others.
16/ If you think racism isn’t really a ‘thing’ in the UK and other places any more, it is. If you think quietly being ‘not racist’ is enough, it’s not. If you think what happened to GEORGE FLOYD is an isolated incident, it’s not.
17/ If you feel uncomfortable or defensive about any of this, look inwards at why. And if you think your silence isn’t complicity. Well, you know what my response is.
