crowing when you want to sleep in put her off, similarly she liked the idea of fresh milk but not milking cows to get it, or killing them for your beef burgers
Waris said she liked the idea of going on daily bracing walks across the meadows, whereupon Courtney told her she hates walking and there are no meadows anywhere near her farm
as she ate her breakfast of eggs, bacon and baked beans, Courtney made the mistake of asking Waris why she wore a headscarf
Yazz looked up from her muesli expecting to see Waris kick off, instead, she dug her spoon in her thick porridge and said in a surprisingly mild voice that it’s Number One – cultural, Number Two – political, and then, just as Yazz expected her to say Number Three – none of your damned business, she didn’t
Waris simply said her mother told her she didn’t need to explain herself to anyone
Nenet, on to her second espresso and nibbling on a boiled egg, was ready to step in – not necessary, Courtney apologized, although she sounded more petulant than sorry, I was only asking because I didn’t know
cool, well now you do
Yazz decided that although Courtney was quite ignorant of other cultures, she’d shown strength of character and chutzpah, a precondition for joining the Unfuckwithables where they all tended to speak their minds and you had to fight back and not run off crying to the toilet like a wimp
she liked Courtney
and if she liked her
she was in the squad
one Monday morning a few months later, Yazz informed her, as they queued for the toilet after the Race, Class and Gender class, that she was in effect now an honorary sistah with an h, a term that originated with black women which was now being appropriated (typical!) by those who weren’t
however, Courtney could never be a fully-fledged sistah, only honorarily so
she explained that being a sistah was a response to how we’re seen as much as who we are, which actually defies simplistic reductionism, and that who we are is partly a response to how we’re seen, babe
Yazz found herself calling people she liked ‘babe’ these days, it wasn’t forced or pretentious, it just happened naturally
it’s a conundrum, Yazz continued the conversation over lunch of bean soup for her (protein for the brain) and meat, mash and mushy peas for Courtney
people won’t see you as just another woman any more, but as a white woman who hangs with brownies, and you’ll lose a bit of your privilege, you should still check it, though, have you heard the expression, check your privilege, babe?
Courtney replied that seeing as Yazz is the daughter of a professor and a very well-known theatre director, she’s hardly underprivileged herself, whereas she, Courtney, comes from a really poor community where it’s normal to be working in a factory at sixteen and have your first child as a single mother at seventeen, and that her father’s farm is effectively owned by the bank
yes but I’m black, Courts, which makes me more oppressed than anyone who isn’t, except Waris who is the most oppressed of all of them (although don’t tell her that)
in five categories: black, Muslim, female, poor, hijabbed
she’s the only one Yazz can’t tell to check her privilege
Courtney replied that Roxane Gay warned against the idea of playing ‘privilege Olympics’ and wrote in Bad Feminist that privilege is relative and contextual, and I agree, Yazz, I mean, where does it all end? is Obama less privileged than a white hillbilly growing up in a trailer park with a junkie single mother and a jailbird father? is a severely disabled person more privileged than a Syrian asylum-seeker who’s been tortured? Roxane argues that we have to find a new discourse for discussing inequality
Yazz doesn’t know what to say, when did Court read Roxane Gay – who’s amaaaazing?
was this a student outwitting the master moment?
#whitegirltrumpsblackgirl
Courtney added that as she only fancies black men and is likely going to have mixed-race children, her ‘white privilege’ is in any case going to be seriously dented, like at least 50% of it, and it’s incredible in this day and age that she’d never met any black people in the flesh before she came to university from Dartingford which is entirely white except for three Asians
Yazz informed her that’s a non sequitur, conversation-wise
Courtney replied that she herself is a big fan of the non sequitur which really only means that a conversation is free-flowing and intuitive, as opposed to following a predictable trajectory, so to speak
Yazz excused herself to go to the toilet.
4
Yazz invited Courtney to stay at hers at the end of their first year
she warned her that at least one of Mum’s harem was likely to be walking about the house half-naked in the morning and trust me, that’s not a pleasant sight with the oldies
Courtney’d only been to London once before, a day trip involving a bus tour to Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square, Big Ben, St Paul’s Cathedral and the Tower of London, before getting the train straight back to Dartingford
they shared Yazz’s double bed and chatted before they went to sleep that first night with the lights off and the moon shining straight on to the bed, which made the night feel special to Yazz, especially when the nights were warm and the window was open
as they lay there, Yazz asked Courtney why she hadn’t visited the capital more often, you don’t know what you’ve been missing, babe
it’s because my parents don’t like London, Courtney replied, they think it’s a hellhole full of coloureds, suicide bombers, left-wingers, luvvies, gays and Polish immigrants, who deprive the hardworking men and women of this country of the chance to earn a good living; Dad gets all his political thoughts from the newspapers, quotes from them verbatim, although funnily enough he’s friends with Raj, the mechanic in the village, they drink together down the pub
when I call him a hypocrite, he says, it’s Raj, Courtney, he’s different
you can tell your dad from me that the British economy would collapse without immigrants to set higher working standards, Mum says give me a Polish plumber or electrician over homegrown workers any day
it makes no difference to him, he says they’re all the same, love, meaning all the people he hates
I can’t wait to see his face when I bring home a mixed-race baby
Yazz showed Courtney Peckham, Stockwell, Brixton, Streatham
as they walked down Brixton High Street, Courtney said she was going to faint at all the beefsteak on show, couldn’t help staring at the juicy buns on the boys whose jeans were so low they exposed almost their entire underpants
Yazz noticed that those ‘buns’ reciprocated Courtney’s attention, her creamy softness pouring ostentatiously over the top of her denim blouse
they stared at Courtney, not at Yazz, who wasn’t the one getting checked out as usual, and she usually got checked out a lot
not that she’s interested in the kind of male who belts their trousers underneath their bum
today it’s all about Courtney, who’s not even particularly hot and it’s like Yazz is invisible and her friend is an irresistible goddess
a white girl walking with a black girl is always seen as blackman-friendly
Yazz has been here before with other white mates
it makes her feel so
jaded
they arranged