I asked my POC friends for the worst race comment they’ve ever received

Ask one of your POC mates how many times they’ve been asked where they’re really from and the answer is probably “too many times to keep track”. It’s a regular occurrence, one of many microagressions that are all too familiar for non-white and mixed-race people living in this country. And at university, where people from a variety of different backgrounds are thrown together into a melting pot of awkward situations, these small instances of discrimination can often become a part of daily conversation for POC. I spoke to seven of my friends at various universities across the country to find out about the worst comment they’ve ever received.

Eleanor, Caucasian and Indian, University of Warwick

It’s probably not that bad, but everyone says it all the time, even my closest friends: “you’re not really Asian”, or they overemphasise “half” whenever I talk about my race, and I just kind of have to laugh it off because it happens so often.

Serena, Caucasian and Mauritian, University of Leeds

A guy saying he wanted to get with me purely because I’m brown. I literally felt like an object. People calling me exotic still sucks, but usually they just don’t realise how tasteless that can be. Someone saying they wanted to get with me because of my skin was just blatantly offensive and downright weird.

Adina, Black, University of Leeds

Someone once told me, talking about my infant brother, that he “would be cuter if he was white because everyone knows white babies are cuter.” I’ve also been asked if my ancestors were slaves, and had someone say that they “don’t believe in mixing races, it’s like cross-breeding dogs.” In secondary school, a fellow student once said, “get this n***** out of my chair”. It’s awful that this is still happening.

Anonymous, Caucasian and Chinese, University of Leeds

I was once getting with a guy who I met on a night out and during the hook-up he said “oh, you’re so tight, I love Asian girls” among other weird comments. I’ve bumped into him a few times since and I’m not sure if he remembers any of it. I don’t mind jokes from friends because they’re usually quite funny, but that situation was disgusting. I’ve also had people fetishize me for being Chinese too.

Jill, Black, University of Warwick

It doesn’t happen too often to me personally, but my brother has been called a “coon” on several different occasions and my mother frequently deals with racial abuse from patients whilst she tends to them as their nurse.

Freya, Caucasian and Black, University of Southampton

Someone once asked if I was “mixed or something” because he didn’t understand how I could be black and not have an afro. He kept stroking my hair and asking if I relaxed or chemically straightened it. Then, he just gave up and demanded to know where exactly I was “from from”.

Illustrations by Ellie Scull for The Tab.