Via Deeper than Twitter
US singer and Grammy nominee Kelis landed in the UK on September 12 and had a memorable, and quite racist immigration experience with her son. She took it to twitter.
“We just landed and I had the midget with me. We get in the passport control line and apparently pissed this one man off cause he thought I cut the line. Which wouldn’t be far fetched of me but this time I actually didn’t (not entirely anyway) well the point is from 0 to 60 this fat red faced sweaty “man” (I use the word man loosely here) started calling me a slave and told me to call him sir and how I was probably a disgusting nigerian. He called me kunta kinte and ranted and raved some more.
The man behind the passport desk laughed, shook his head in agreement I guess, and said “kunta kinte”. All the while the entire line full of people I just sat on a plane with for almost 3hours, over 50 people said nothing. I mean literally nothing. Didn’t flinch.
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We all no I’m no saint, so I retaliated. Not the way I wanted to or how that pig deserved. But #1 my gorgeous baby boy was literally sitting on my hip and #2 I’m a believer. And we are better.
Sposed to be anyway, it made me think. This person was aprox a 50 year old english man. I didn’t say anything at the time of the riots in London for a lot of reasons. But I am in london all the time and today I’m gonna say that the racial issues in the uk are disgusting. Its racially decades behind progression because everything is swept under the rug. People don’t talk about it. People don’t fight about it. Not mentioning a problem doesn’t make it go away.
I bring it up now because as an american it is abundantly clear that my country has a smorgas board (spelling?) Of disgusting racial problems. We are the poster child for racial inequality even still with a black president. But its NO SECRET! And that I can fight against. I can try to prepare and teach my son. Because its out there. But you can’t fight for or against something no one is willing to talk about or even admit exist. Everyone wants to be politically correct. But who really cares? And what does that help. I could go on and on. I won’t. But maybe someone will start to talk about it from here.”
The Mayor of London has written an open letter to Border Agency staff after American singer Kelis alleged she was subjected to racial abuse while travelling through a London airport.
Boris Johnson said he was 'appalled' by the star's claims that she was called a 'slave' and 'kunta kinte' by a white member of the public, comments which she says made a passport control officer laugh.
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