Why we all need a bolshie friend | Charlie Brinkhurst-Cuff

Stubborn, hilarious, opinionated and loyal: with a stroppy friend fighting your corner you can’t go wrong

There’s a set of distinct insults used by racists that can only really be thrown at mixed-race people in the UK. “Mongrel”, “mule” and “half-breed” hold a special place of hatred in my heart. They make me think of animals ready to be led to slaughter; dangerously inhuman terms, placing mixed-race people outside the bounds of compassion.

Last week, I went to see a play named after perhaps the most offensive of the insults in the same context, Half Breed. As might be expected, this brilliant one-woman play, starring Natasha Marshall, tells the story of Jas, a mixed up, mixed-race black girl, growing up in very white Wiltshire: the only “black in her village”, as she puts it.

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from The Guardian http://ift.tt/2z6V7f9

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