You remember they were really saying that black and minority Asian, but black and Asian and minority ethnic people are more at risk from Covid. What did you make sense of that then?
 
Shirin: I thought that was very negative. I don’t know why they had to say that in the news because you know like people.
 
Mohammed: Really scared and afraid.
 
Shirin: Not so afraid, it’s about you giving the wrong impression to other communities that we are more affected that shouldn’t be highlighted. That should be hidden agenda, confidential, isn’t it.
 
Mohammed: Yes, this was exaggerated. They’re not telling the true picture. Blaming the BME people. But Covid does not choose who is going to catch the disease [laughs].
 
Shirin: It’s for everybody. You can get it, anybody. It’s not like BME.
 

Well, when we first heard of the pandemic from China, Wuhan, it was explosion all over the world and it does not help being an Asian person, especially even though you are not from China. You are from Malaysia, as I told you I am a Malaysian, and how it affects the South East Asian community is because of the labelling because, as you can see on television, the media, where Donald Trump says, “Oh, the Chinese virus.” You know, and this affect a lot of people, which is South East Asian, because some people, they can’t tell between a Korean, Malaysian, Chinese, Indonesian, Filipinos, Vietnamese. To some people, all of us looks the same to be Chinese. So this has affected when comes to daily life because I have experienced two xenophobic attacks before I fell ill in April. And one of them was when I was coming up from shopping and this man just walk up to me and say, “Hey, you know you Asian virus. You should not be here. You people are barbaric. You eat bats. You eat dogs.” And I said, “I’m not going to engage with you because please leave me alone.” And he came right in front my face like that, so close, so close that I can feel his breath and I just say, “Sir, just leave me alone.” And, basically, I just took a dash but he kept following me and I, basically, just ran for my life because no matter how big a man is, you will feel the power is stronger than you I am not in a position to challenge him because I am a woman and I live alone. I don’t have many friends nearby in England and most of my friends are living up in Chester, in Wales and that is not helpful. So the second time was when I finished my shift, I was back then working in a mental health rehabilitation centre. I just finished a twelve and a half hour shift supporting person with mental illness and, on my way home, I was sitting in front carriage and this man came up to me and he, basically, he said, “You are not allowed in here. You have to get off the train.” I was shocked because I had done nothing. “You need to get off. You cannot be in the same train with me.” And, luckily, another gentleman was just sitting the opposite side from me and he came up and said, “Sir, you’ve got to move back. You’ve got to leave her alone.”

They are a lot of people, and if I’m being honest, became very hateful. I left the house in my mask which was an African print mask, just to go about five minutes from my house to my local Tesco. And people in the car shouted nasty name at me because my daughter got on the bus and walking, and people are shouting names, and that was because of the colour of the mask. The pattern of the mask is an African mask, and we’re shouted names at. “Go back to where you come from with your mask.” What has that got to do with the virus what has that got to do with, why have people suddenly became so nasty?

The narrative, the dominant narrative around Covid is laced in racism and bigotry. I defy anyone to tell me otherwise, the evidence is all there. As a journalist, I’m someone that analyses a lot of information and there has been many a time in the past fifteen months when I’ve watched news, when I’ve picked up a newspaper and when there is a particular focus on very racial diversity, like Leicester for example, or Birmingham for example. Frequently what we see is images of a mosque, a masjid in the background and women from a South Asian background. You can identify them from their clothing, a traditional shalwar kameez of a certain age walking along the street and these are the images that are pasted over the voice over of a journalist and the same goes for newspapers. They use this image over and over again. There was also some images on the BBC website of women in hijabs and then references to Covid and they were taken to task by a media pressure group about that. So, these images and this terminology and the connection between Covid is not happening accidently.

Being somebody from the black community to suffer horrendous inequalities and covid just highlighted how bad it was but it wasn’t to do with the fact that we were making, we were at risk of, we were doing risky behaviours, it was part of the bigger agenda of our health inequalities. And the Government have had an opportunity to address it and they haven’t really addressed it so again we were kind of like, I just find this Government so corrupt but again, they were just using information just trying to twist it. Whereas they weren’t dealing with the proper issues, which was about that the, you know, the poor, you know, they were likely to be working in and having poor incomes. They were living in, you know, multi-occupancies because there were two bedroom family, housing six or seven people, you know. It wasn’t through choice. It’s, you know, and nothing has been done about that.

The only reason I see for me getting the Covid was because of my job.
 
Your occupation, yeah.
 
Yeah and you know that majority of black people although they might have a high education level, of academic skills they are doing a job that doesn’t necessarily really reflect their skill and majority of those jobs are carers. You know, or cleaner and these were key jobs. These jobs would not stop during pandemic so they had to go to their work, they had no other option. I couldn’t say ok, I am not going to my work, for who, who would pay for my meal? You know. I had to go. And a lot of black and brown people you know are in that sort of category and obviously they will be more affected like by the pandemic because they don’t have other option, they need to continue with their work so that’s just another facet of inequality But this just show you how unequal you know like some of the groups are compared to others I would say.
 
And when that news came out, did it hit you at a personal level? Did it make you worry for yourself or was it, was it again mainly worrying for the community, you know for the black community?
 
I would say both, I would say both but in some extent I am already used to our inequality like I know about it. I don’t even have to hear you know some other people saying, oh dah, dah, dah, dah because it’s something I know already. So it’s not like dramatically taken like, because I know that people are like me are disproportionally, you know like compared to other groups so that doesn’t really, you know raise any trigger. But obviously I was worried about the whole community and now people as well as about myself too although I say ok, I think I will survive. I think it is not my time yet to die [laughs].
 
Yeah.
 
Yeah, so it’s sad.

Do you feel like if you are a white person, in the same situation, you know, your husband going to hospital, everybody feeling frightened about what’s happening, the care you received would be different?
 
I think it will be. ‘Cause I’ve seen it with the white people how they do it. I’ve seen all this.
 
Can you, can you elaborate and how does it, how is it different?
 
How is it different, for example, when it’s a white person, you see the way they talk to them. You see the way they talk to them. The language tone they use. The things you use and when you’re an Asian person, they just want to do everything quick, quick, quick. Throw you out the door. You are done. That’s it. I understand, but not everybody can.
 
In the care home because I know one of my managers and I said, “Oh God, look at the way.” If it’s, if it’s the white client and they got something straight away called the ambulance, okay and the way they described it. When the Asian person then they say, “He’s always moaning about this. He’s always doing this. He’s got nothing.” I said, “How do you know he hasn’t got a pain?”, and she said, “Oh, Shirin you should stop talking. You’re a kitchen assistant. You go back to your job.”

Like how was that for you as a black woman and you were just getting this news cycle 24/7 like what did you like make of that at the time?

I think the biggest well the, I was gonna say, the biggest impact was, it was the start of us being a station rail worker, Belly Mujinga. I just think that the way in which the State and her employers have treated her story and her experience is disgusting. You know, the fact that they initially didn’t wanna do anything, the fact that the guy was interviewed and he was let go, you know. What he did was a, was a criminal act and whether and, and it seems to me there was it was too early to dismiss the fact that that they, they were not gonna go any further with the investigations. What investigations did they do to establish that he was in the clear? And I think I read recently that they’re gonna do an autopsy on her and I hope to God they do. And I hope to God that it does show, as much as it can do categorically one way or the other whether he was at fault or not. And then he should be imprisoned, ‘cos he’s, he’s killed someone, taken their life when they were doing their job. He’s deprived a family of their mother, aunt, sister, whatever.

I think Covid really affected our community and that’s where people are hiding and they are saying we are poison, if you go near people, they are sick. We are very affected. We are the one whose gonna spread the germs around, you know. So, obviously, that’s how they, media and the public are portraying the community. If you had never dealt with BME people, never communicated. You hear this is the news, what do you hear? You hear the negative things. Negative things goes into your head. As soon as you see a BME, a black person on the street, you want to go away from them. They are the most affected person that’s it. If you go near them, that’s it, you’re killed, next day.

And I'm very irritated during, you know, the first wave where people started making inferences about genetic causes, and that was absolutely classic with the medical and scientific community, who have not understood the sociological impact of racism and the impact of racism on health. And how racism manifests not just in the way people access healthcare, or their interactions within healthcare once they get unwell, but the entirety of their lives up until that point. And it's been one of the good things to have come out the pandemic. Look, we are at least seeing people talk about this more, acknowledge it more and finally hope we do something about it.