Comments by "Baresi-Unico-Capitano" (@recruitmentch) on "The Murder That Exposed The U.K. Police" video.
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My parents who are both surgeons moved us from Kurdistan in Iraq to the UK when I was 13 years old. Unlike my two sisters who were kindergarten age, I'd moved to the UK at an age where I had knowledge of my identity, culture, history of Iraq, and had also grown up in an education system that required us to learn Arabic. But despite us Kurds being oppressed and having fought against British and American puppets for over a century, I became a pariah in the secondary school I was enlisted. The year was 1996 and back then, I was pretty much the only foreign kid in my entire year. The school was in the heart of Kent, only contained a couple of black kids, one Turkish kid who was born and bred in the UK and 1-2 kids who were 2nd / 3rd generation from the subcontinent. It didn't take me long to pick up English, but that only made things worse. Looking back, I know the racism was taught to the kids by their parents. They'd gone home, told the parents that a kid from Iraq was in their school and well, so started a year and a half of absolute torment. I somehow felt that these people must represent British society because there really wasn't one kid who didn't join in with the racism. Be it the colour of my skin, where I'd come from, what I brought with me for lunch: everything would be picked on. Many a time during school PE, I would be jumped on by 5-6 kids when playing rugby. They'd kick, punch, hurl abuse and just act in the most hooligan and backward manner imaginable. Not one teacher ever stood up and tried to stop it. I used to tell my parents, but having grown up in Iraq with kids of Arab, Turkmen, Christian and Kurdish backgrounds, they refused to believe what I was telling them. I was a pretty easy-going kid, but that experience really made me develop a temper, and also a sense of distrust even in people who are supposed to protect and help you. Just short of 2 years, both of my parents were offered medical research jobs in Italy and we quickly moved. It saved my teenage years. I went to the UK as an innocent kid and left knowing what racism was and is.
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