BAME …. rhymes with “same”

I detest the acronym that has become current in the recent discussion of ethnicity. It is supposed to be a contraction of “Black, Asian and Mixed Ethnicity”. It is a sad irony that it was created by officials who were attempting to recognise the importance of diversity. The result is precisely the reverse, in that it submerges identity and denies diversity.

I have good friends and family who are absorbed by this purely bureaucratic device into “black”. As it happens they are not “black” to me, but of West Indian origin …. and even within that category they are not all the same. Friends at our local church originate in Antigua (or as one of them insists on adding, “…. and Barbuda!”) I am aware that this makes them different from the husband of one of my nieces, whose family are from Barbados, and this is not to be confused (definitely not confused) with the partner of another niece, who originated in Jamaica … and incidentally is a Muslim.

A friend of mine who is also a painter I have never regarded as “Asian”. She is a formerly Ugandan Sikh. This makes her different in significant ways from the woman who runs our village post office, who is an Indian Hindu. (I believe that the family who run the newsagent’s shop are originally from Pakistan.)

“Mixed ethnicity” is perhaps even worse as a denial of diversity and identity. One neighbour mixes Serbian and English: another in ways I am still unclear about, Korean and English. Two families in the area, who are long-standing friends, combine Englishness with Macedonian. Another friend in the village has recently elected for dual nationality, in the light of the impending British withdrawal from the EU, embracing his mother’s German identity. I could go on.

I do understand the bureaucratic convenience of not, for some official purposes, generating too many categories. There is a danger, however, that in reducing everybody to “BAME” we actually deny diversity, and nobody is left with any identity at all. Incidentally, I do not feel comfortable with the category that the same bureaucratic exercise forces on me. I am not “White British”, I am English. If you need to know my “race” it is human.