Transcript for: Experiencing racism
Interviewee: Mehboob Khan
Subject: Racism
One thing that we did experience through the late seventies and early eighties was racist due to the rise of the national front, now the BNP. In the 1970's and 1980's, the National Front was very active in Huddersfield, as well as Elland. One of the disadvantages we had was that our generation was still growing up, so we weren't able to articulate any strong opposition to the National Front and to undermine their ideology. However, I do remember being what we would describe now as being a victim of racism, at that time we didn't realise why they were being racist towards Asian people we just felt they didn't like us. We didn't know why they didn't like us, we were a bit young for that. We just knew that when a load of skinheads ran towards you, you ran in the opposite direction very fast. It happened on a quite frequent basis at that time. The Asian community were seen as an easy target for racist thugs. I remember at high school as well being chased by skinheads - who looked fearsome with their bomber jackets, dock martin shoes, lots of studs and earrings and tattoos - and chasing us around a very long, extensive field that the school had got. We didn't realise why they were chasing us, we just thought it was just a bit of fun and we were very good at running, so it didn't make any difference. They never caught us, so we thought that that was all right. They were always smoking and out of breath, so we weren't too bothered, but that was an experience that I think that kids don't have nowadays in Huddersfield. They don't experience in Huddersfield, well hopefully, any kind of overt, straightforward racism. I guess the covert stuff still exists.