What's in a Skin Colour?

I come from a tiny island where Christianity has a very strong presence still. Every village has at least one church (normally it's more than one) and statistics show that it's 99% Catholic.  You must be wondering where I'm going with this; well growing up I was fervently thought to love my neighbour and treat everyone with respect which also included people who had a different skin colour or religious belief to mine. Up to a few years ago we were a very homogeneous country but regardless of that I never saw the Maltese people as being racist. So when you grow up in such an environment you think that racism is something of the past, something you read about in books or watched in movies and I couldn't be more wrong!
Like St Augustine once said “The World is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.” At the age of 24 I packed my bags and left the island to travel and that is when I started to see the world from a very different perspective.  As a Mediterranean woman I am technically considered as white but because my skin is olive somebody with a fair complexion would not consider me as such. I lived in Ireland for a couple of years and it became very obvious by the reactions of the locals that I looked different, stood out, but I could not understand it at first. I was never racially abused but I think there were instances where I may have been very discreetly discriminated. It didn't really dawn on me how differently people saw me until I moved to Belgium.
Belgium is a very complex country to explain and unless you are a Belgian or you have lived there for some time you can never really grasp the complexities of little old Belgium. Recently I had a debate with a friend because she seems to think that they are racists but I had to disagree. Belgians do actually be-friend people who come from outside the country and welcome them into their lives as friends regardless of their skin colour, nationality, tongue or religion. In my mind Belgium has become a cultural melting pot in Europe and because of this some inhibitions have been lowered and people feel comfortable to talk about racial differences. On a cold grey winter morning I was complaining to my colleagues how I felt that I had lost all my colour and that I desperately needed a tan because I felt pasty white. Next thing I know my colleague looks up at me from a laptop he was fixing and with a cheeky grin he says " But you are not white!". I was both amused and shocked at his statement. "I don't see you as white" he went on "You have colour, ha, not like me!". My friend was indeed very fair and his statements were uttered lovingly and in no way were they intended to insult but they sure made me think a lot and made me aware of something I took for granted my entire life.
After two years in Belgium I came to London and that is where the fun begins! London, so big, so vast! London, where you could drop dead in the middle of the street and no one would notice but if they had to notice it would be your skin colour. Having said that in the last two and a half years I have been blessed with friends of all skin colours and nationalities and I can confidently say that if anyone of them would see someone dropping dead, they would notice and go to help regardless of their colour. So my belief that the human race can be good still holds. Until the Stephen Lawrence court case was in the news and highly documented by the BBC that is.
I had never heard about the murder or the trial before these last few days but I was horrified by this sad story. Whichever way you look at it and innocent 19 year old boy was brutally murdered and the lives of the people around him who loved him and cared for him destroyed. Whatever the colour or creed shouldn't have mattered! Justice is always depicted as a woman with a blindfold.... is it really? The whole story is one big racist mess and even though two people have been sentenced I feel that it's just not enough. The sentences were for 14 and 15 years hardly a penalty for murder but the jury has taken into account that they were juveniles at the time of murder. Juveniles or not they took the life of an innocent person and destroyed that of many others and even though they were young I am sure they were aware that what they were doing was wrong. Normal sane young people don't go round killing other young people based on the level of Melanin* in their skin. These men denied murdering Stephen Lawrence for all these years aren't they supposed to be punished for obstructing justice too?
During the BBC documentary there was footage that was shot via a hidden camera in the apartment of the accused. When I heard what they were saying about black people, I simply felt physically sick. The second time I came across the footage I simply had to stop watching because all I could of think of was my black friends and how hurtful and disrespectful these men were to people like my friends and their families and friends. I simply couldn't and still cannot take it! I kept thinking how at the time of the murder I was a 13 year old girl living blissfully unaware that life could become a struggle or be take away from you just because you look different! This Maltese Girl in London Sadly has a lot to learn still. When I look at my country it's chaining too and not for the better I'm afraid. Illegal immigration has afflicted the island and unfortunately it is turning some people into racists. I keep comforting myself that the problems arising in my country are not based on skin colour but on socioeconomic crisis that are afflicting everyone and that if the illegal immigrants were blond and blue eyed my people would still have trouble adjusting because the problem is not down to Melanin. I pray and hope that the Maltese people won't change so that I can look all my friends in their eyes and tell them with all honesty that there are still places on this plant that welcome you with open arms no matter how you look.
But before I leave the blog for today I just want to end my rant on a positive note by saying; if people could really take away their inhibitions and look at people as human beings and not as a race or colour or creed they would really appreciate the beauty of this planet. Different is nice, Different is enriching and beautiful it's not at all scary just different. So to answer again my own question the only thing we should see in a diffrent skin colour to ours is the beauty of it! I have a long way to go and a lot more to learn but if there is something that I gathered from my travels so far is not the scenery or the food but the beauty of people, their cultures, their traditions and the COLOUR they bring to life!

Love and respect,

G

*melanin [ˈmɛlənɪn] n (Life Sciences & Allied Applications / Biology) any of a group of black or dark brown pigments present in the hair, skin, and eyes of man and animals: