Life of Liam

The title of this post is a question that I have been asked many times, usually after I have said I was born and grew up in Livingston (a town in Scotland). It is a question that could be rephrased to "what is your ethnic background?" or "where are your parents from?" - though the need for this type of question to be asked at all is questionable in itself, unless it is the topic of conversation already. What I take from this question is "you can't be from Scotland, you're not white" and so I must divulge into the long spiel about my family background to appease their curious mind, after which they seem to switch off. I am mixed race. My mother was born in Singapore and my father was born in Scotland. It is a mix I am proud of, and one which has enabled me to experience so much more in life than many others may not be able to. However, living in a country where you do not exactly look like everyone else will of course lead to these types of que...

It is very disheartening to think that, in 2017, white supremacy still exists. In recent days, there was a white supremacist march in Charlottesville (VA, America) which was met with counter protests. Violence broke out and three people have died in total with more injured. It is 2017 and people are still dying because of racism. This is one event which has made the news but there are likely many more white supremacist campaigns going on all the time and we are not aware of it. Some people will argue that they are exercising their right to free speech but, I believe, there is a line. As mentioned in one of my previous posts , free speech is fine until it becomes hate speech and starts inciting violent, offensive, or discriminatory values. The saddest part is that this hatred is arising over something people cannot control - skin colour, the amount of pigment in someone's skin. This hatred is based on ignorant stereotypes and years of oppression on the "other" which have...