that’s called a dictatorship, Waris challenged her
it’s called political stability, Nenet swatted back
Nenet’s grandfather had grown up with Mubarak in Kafr El-Meselha, he worked in the Ministry of Justice with him, their families were friends
as a diplomatic couple, her parents acquired the skills to talk to anyone as if they were deeply interested in them, even when they hated the bastards, they’d even be nice to you, Waris, Nenet once said, reassuringly
Waris knew what Nenet meant, Somalis were looked down on in Egypt
when Mubarak’s government fell during the Egyptian revolution, Nenet’s family fled to the UK where they had citizenship anyway because her dad had invested a million pounds here to get it
prior to that, her parents lived in lots of countries while she’d gone to boarding school in Sussex
don’t ask me where my family money comes from, she said, replying to Waris’s enquiry
they’ve never told me
Nenet welcomed Courtney into Yazz’s room, all diplomatic smiles to diffuse the situation, come in, what’s your name? offering her Coca Cola, and when the music began again, showed her moves
just let yourself float, Courtney, imagine you’re water, air, light, let the music move your body, don’t overthink it, the aim is to dance with yourself for yourself
Courtney was soon swirling and floating with the rest of them, she liked this fa-la-la music and why hadn’t she heard of it before?
don’t you think that’s a bit offensive? Yazz asked
why? I like it and belly dancing’s fun, too
it’s not called belly dancing, Yazz replied, that’s so Orientalist and we don’t tolerate that here, at which point Nenet told Yazz to cut it out and explained their dancing is inspired by what’s now called Raqs Sharqi
okay, Courtney said, shrugging, doing a fancy spin and dancing as if she could divorce her hips from her waist, her waist from her chest, her arms from her torso and her hands from her arms
she was moving better than all of them
they all crashed on Yazz’s floor that night, had breakfast together in the refectory
Courtney told them she grew up on a wheat and barley farm in Suffolk, they joked it explained her farm girl looks
sparkling eyes, Nenet said
translucent skin, Yazz said
milkmaid breasts, Waris added
Waris, who’d never left Wolverhampton before travelling for university open days, admitted she’d never stepped on a farm in her life
me neither, Yazz said, my soul is urbanista not ruralite
Nenet informed them that her parents have a farm in the Cotswolds which breeds llamas and a wine estate in the Franschhoek Valley in South Africa
Waris said it was all right for some, to which Nenet replied it’s not my fault, Waris said fair-dos
Yazz said that while she liked the idea of fresh milk, the idea of cocks crowing when you want to sleep in put her off, similarly she liked the idea of fresh milk but not milking cows to get it, or killing them for your beef burgers
Waris said she liked the idea of going on daily bracing walks across the meadows, whereupon Courtney told her she hates walking and there are no meadows anywhere near her farm
as she ate her breakfast of eggs, bacon and baked beans, Courtney made the mistake of asking Waris why she wore a headscarf
Yazz looked up from her muesli expecting to see Waris kick off, instead, she dug her spoon in her thick porridge and said in a surprisingly mild voice that it’s Number One – cultural, Number Two – political, and then, just as Yazz expected her to say Number Three – none of your damned business, she didn’t
Waris simply said her mother told her she didn’t need to explain herself to anyone
Nenet, on to her second espresso and nibbling on a boiled egg, was ready to step in – not necessary, Courtney apologized, although she sounded more petulant than sorry, I was only asking because I didn’t know
cool, well now you do
Yazz decided that although Courtney was quite ignorant of other cultures, she’d shown strength of character and chutzpah, a precondition for joining the Unfuckwithables where they all tended to speak their minds and you had to fight back and not run off crying to the toilet like a wimp
she liked Courtney
and if she liked her
she was in the squad
one Monday morning a few months later, Yazz informed her, as they queued for the toilet after the Race, Class and Gender class, that she was in effect now an honorary sistah with an h, a term that originated with black women which was now being appropriated (typical!) by those who weren’t
however, Courtney could never be a fully-fledged sistah, only honorarily so
she explained that being a sistah was a response to how we’re seen as much as who we are, which actually defies simplistic reductionism, and that who we are is partly a response to how we’re seen, babe
Yazz found herself calling people she liked ‘babe’ these days, it wasn’t forced or pretentious, it just happened naturally
it’s a conundrum, Yazz continued the conversation over lunch of bean soup for her (protein for the brain) and meat, mash and mushy peas for Courtney
people won’t see you as just another woman any more, but as a white woman who hangs with brownies, and you’ll lose a bit of your privilege, you should still check it, though, have you heard the expression, check your privilege, babe?
Courtney replied that seeing as Yazz is the daughter of a professor and a very well-known theatre director, she’s hardly underprivileged herself, whereas she, Courtney, comes from a really poor community where it’s normal to be working in a factory at sixteen and have your first child as a single mother at seventeen, and that her father’s farm is effectively owned by the bank
yes but I’m black, Courts, which makes me more oppressed than anyone who isn’t, except Waris who is the most oppressed of all of them (although don’t tell her that)
in five categories: black, Muslim, female, poor, hijabbed
she’s the only one Yazz can’t tell to check her privilege
Courtney replied that Roxane Gay warned against the idea of playing ‘privilege Olympics’ and wrote in Bad Feminist that privilege is relative and contextual, and I agree, Yazz, I mean, where does it all end? is Obama less privileged than a white hillbilly growing up in a trailer park with a junkie single mother and a jailbird father? is a severely disabled person more privileged than a Syrian asylum-seeker who’s been tortured? Roxane argues that we have to find a new discourse for discussing inequality
Yazz doesn’t know what to say, when did Court read Roxane Gay – who’s amaaaazing?
was this a student outwitting the master moment?
#whitegirltrumpsblackgirl
Courtney added that as she only fancies black men and is likely going to have mixed-race children, her ‘white privilege’ is in any case going to be seriously dented, like at least 50% of it, and it’s incredible in this day and age that she’d never met any black people in the flesh before she came to university from Dartingford which is entirely white except for three Asians
Yazz informed her that’s a non sequitur, conversation-wise
Courtney replied that she herself is a big fan of the non sequitur which really only means that a conversation is free-flowing and intuitive, as opposed to following a predictable trajectory, so to speak
Yazz excused herself to go to the toilet.
4
Yazz invited Courtney to stay at hers at the end of their first year
she warned her that at least one of Mum’s harem was likely to be walking about the house half-naked in the morning and trust me, that’s not a pleasant sight with the oldies
Courtney’d only been to London once before, a day trip involving a bus tour to Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square, Big Ben, St Paul’s Cathedral and the Tower of London, before getting the train straight back to Dartingford