Miss Sara Sampson

When I was a first year studying drama at UEA, one of the professors translated "Miss Sara Sampson" by Gotthold Lessing. Apart from some spectacular typong misstkess one line has always stuck in my memory "One can not always have the friends one would ideally choose."

My circle of friends (as opposed to acquaintances) has remained quite small since I came to Newcastle- certainly in comparison with life in Deptford/New Cross. My friends have been great... In recent years, my friends circle has grown even smaller, but my friends have still been great. During "Lockdown" I found myself part of a de facto "bubble" with the two friends with whom I have spent a Saturday or a Sunday for the last five or six years. One of them displays their lack of formal education with some pride and gusto, they know what they know and they have opinions about the rest! Our relationship has never had any intellectual depth; we just get on and have things in common. Things have become progressively more difficult in the last year because of additional stresses in their family AND because of the increased awareness of racism which has generated much debate across the country. It has also meant that whereas previously I have ignored or gently rebuked them for their casual ignorant racism because I know that they do not mean to be racist, I have grown more forceful. Meghan Markle has proved a useful target of their annoyance and we have shouted at each other about it several times. I know that there is change in them at least an increased awareness that it is not OK to say what you want to even if you don't think you're being racist. Last week they said something like "oh, we're not allowed to say that any more are we?" and suggested that it was now illegal to wear a Union Jack Suit. I called them out on both: I suggested that the first comment was the sort of thing I'd expect to read in the Daily Fail (sic) and that the second sounded like something you'd report to the style police. It is hard to get some people to understand that just because something doesn't affect THEM, it doesn't make that thing OK.

I confess that on more than a couple of occassions I have thought "what am I doing having a "friend" who says and thinks in the way they do?". I do accept that they do not know they are being racist because they simply won't accept that things they have said since childhood need to be changed and of course, they have always had Black friends etc... It does get a bit creepy when they talk about being Black (they're not) because they "feel" Black. They're sadly unable to elaborate on what "feeling Black" is like. A lot can be learned from the fact that they would say such a thing to a Black man in a conversation about ethnicity without any thought that it might be inappropriate.

As frustrated as I get with them, they are a friend... I confess to avoiding just about any real issues when I meet them... -so I suppose there are no guarantees that this will last... But it has been about 6 years so far.