HOW RACIST ARE YOU?

As a Punjabi, I often enjoy the delights of being a Punjabi man through endless drinking of alcohol and meat eating on a Saturday with my mates (stereotypes? Oh no). So when in conversation, the word 'paki' is bandied around it's usually not a problem. It's kind of like how American black rappers call each other 'niggas'. So when a member of my drinking party referred to another as a 'paki' it was laughed off in conversation - it's usually not a racial term and there is no malice in it (it's used almost as a counter racist word - turning it on its head). All laughed apart from one - our Muslim friend who joined us that evening. He had obviously been the recipient of this racial slur before. The rest of us laughed away until I noticed I could not see his pearly whites - he wasn't laughing at all.

What did that tell me? If it doesn't affect you, you often cannot see the problem! Today, I saw the channel 4 programme 'The Event: How Racist are You?' which aimed to explore racism in the UK by rallying up a cross section of British people and subjecting them to a race experiment. The whites in the group were made to feel what it was like to be on the receiving end of racism through a crude social experiment led by Jane Elliot - the self confessed bitch.

It was interesting viewing and one that I think revealed that racism is very subtle in Britain. It's not all about paki-bashing and shouting paki or nigga at the ethnic minority in the street. Racism is inherently built into our society and people who are not recipients of racism will not realise how racist Britain can be because they are not subject to it. The people in power may not see that there is a problem. In the experiment, Elliot turns it on its head and subjects the blue eyed white people to discrimination. Some of them fail to learn from it - denying that it exists. By not seeing the problem, they became part of the problem.

A mixed race gentleman talks of not collecting his daughter from her middle class school because he didn't want her friends and their families to see that her father was an outward black man - it was shocking but I could sympathise. He chose to conform and do what was necessary which meant his life was easy and uncomplicated. Why rock the boat? Why fight the perceptions and stereotypes associated with being a black man with dreadlocks - it means he will be marginalised and so will his daughter so he just doesn't create that problem for his daughter. He is acutely aware that his presence would cause an outrage or a subtle frown from the parents. It's not as though he is going to roll up to a middle class school where mummies and daddies pick up their children in their estates in a blacked out BMW rolling on 20's with the music blurting the rhythms of Bob Marley and hotboxing his car as he smokes a spliff is it? Isn't that what rastas or dreadlocked men do? The man was aware of the limitations of his being - completely out of his control and subject to the scrutiny of others.

It is inherent that groups in societies will feel privileged over others. I felt privileged at school because I was in the football team and captain - it meant I could pretty much do what I wanted because I was the man - it didn't matter that I had a top-knot anymore. The reality of modern life in Britain is that racism still exists - ask Boris Johnson. One of his senior team uses the 'n' word as it was described in the press. Why is it ok to scrawl PAKI all over the front pages of all the newspapers? There are millions of people in the UK who are crushed when called a paki - the media however thinks its ok to re-use the word in their stories but we can't say nigga oh no - way too politically incorrect. Who makes the rules here?

The funny thing about all of this is the underlying currents that still haunt the civilised nation we call ‘United Kingdom’. Only recently, an actress is called a paki on the most watched TV programme in the UK. It’s a disgrace and Anton Du Beke should have been forced to tango straight out of the door. Remember Carol Thatcher? Maybe Ms Rouass wasn’t too bothered by the comments but I was – the most watched show on TV allowed a race crisis to unfold and gain national attention. Then Brucey had the nerve to say it was just banter. No Brucey bonus for you mate.

So racism still exists in all forms and subtleties theres no question about it. The Experiment proved that racism is often inherent amongst the ruling classes - its not just a white and black thing. Ask anyone who has been discriminated against - whether for colour, age, sex, sexual orientation. Unless those who discriminate rethink and acknowledge their actions and beliefs nothing will change.

CHAOS rules OK - are you in control?

Even those that think they are completely in control of their lives are actually not. What is being in 'control' and where do we draw the line between fate, circumstance, chance, luck and coincidence? I don't know... but if I take myself through a normal day then I come to realise that in fact I am in control of nothing. While I make choices that create my everyday life experience, I am constrained and pushed by external forces greater than myself - the forces of mankind that as a whole create a much greater effect than my own choices alone. Out of the chaos that sorrounds us, we all live an existence constrained by law, environment and our conscious thoughts through rights and wrongs and morals.

So I wake up in the morning - why do I wake up at 7am? Who said 7am is the right time to rise? Why not 3am or 3pm? Man has decided that a working day begins in the am and ends in the pm and there is certainly a mathematical and historical reasoning behind this - but in 2009 do any of us know what that reasoning was?

I rise, put on the TV and begin taking in the days news. The recession bites harder, the Labour party causes more havoc, The Sun decides to change political allegiance, property prices fall yet again, a Tsunami hits Sumatra etc. The days' negativity has begun.

I go to work to please my boss. I board a train. From the chaos, a small time table allows me to plan my day, creating boundaries and order out of potential disorder. How else would I know the train arrives at 8.11am? On the train, I am quiet and calm, executing my 'business' posture like everyone else. Conformity is annoying is it not?

During work, timings are obeyed - lunch times, meeting times and close of business time. All of these 'times' and gateways structured to create my working day. Returning to the train platform, consulting my little timetable. Being held up on platform 4 because train x is late... I am constrained by the fault of others and the knock-on effect is not my fault. I get home late and get in my car - drive through endless traffic. I stop at man-made traffic lights, negotiate through roads constrained by traffic laws and roads that almost tell me which way to travel - after all I cannot drive onto the path can I? That would be dangerous and against the law? Who knows what would get in the way, a lamp post? Designed to provide light and visibility on this clear evening. Or maybe a person - forced to walk on the sidewalk because that is the right thing to do. Or maybe a building. Man made.

In fact everything around us is man made. Look around. What is natural? Everything you see around you is ergonomically designed, fit for purpose and functional. Even my patch of grass in my urban jungle sprawl has been placed with intention - no rhizomes here. No chaos - just functional.

I now live in an urban jungle and in all of the functional, fit for purpose elements that sorround me lies a person making sense of the chaos... My organised religion gives me reasoning to make sense of the chaos but then I fear the priest is taking advantage of me. After all, the priest was late getting to his sermon today, a traffic jam and strong winds makes for a delayed prayer. Why would the priests' blessing have any bearing on me? He is a human being, breathes the same, cries the same tears, shits like everyone else. Divine wisdom or inspired bullshit? Man-made religion - adjusted and negotiated to suit those who practice it? An opiate to make sense of the chaos?

So if I live with total freedom then why is every element of my life almost governed by the elements both natural and man-made?