*Racism is alive and kicking in a middle class underground cell in Clapham*..It has been years since my spider-sense tingled. Years since conversations were cut short as a result of very pregnant and ominous silences.. Years since I had that feeling that I was not really welcome. Being over 30 years old now I was, I thought prepared to understand the humiliation which is a result of realising that you have been reduced to mere pigmentation - What Fanon calls a 'corporeal schema'. But after a great night out, I found my drunken footsteps station themselves at the door of a party in Clapham. Moments before I had persuaded a girl who was leaving the party not to get into the taxi which I had just come out of. I said that it was not a legitimate driver and also she would be alone. She thanked me and was grateful for my intervention as she thought it was the cab that she had ordered. So I walked with her into the party.

This was when my spider-sense kicked in. A man who looked very much like Thom Yorke from Radiohead (I assure you that looks can deceive), turned to the girl and then to me and then back to the girl and said: 'I thought you were going to take a taxi home, not invite the taxi driver in with you..' There was no spider sense involved at this point. So I turned and calmly told the man that I was not a taxi driver but was in fact a member of the mujahuddin, and that I had just put my Ak-47 down to shake his hand. This blatant piece of reverse racist psychology was clearly too subtle for the twat, so I walked past him with the other guests I had arrived with. I went into the living room and was starting to allow what had happened to sink in, when another man entered the room. He bounded up to me and started to interrogate me as to whom I knew at the party and why I was here. Note: I was stood next to the other guests, but for some reason I had become the spokesperson for all that was sinister and threatening that could enter a house party. Note two: I was the only non-white person in the room (indeed the house). I replied by giving the full name of the girl who's invite I had taken to come to the party, as though I was dealing with a civil servant. At this point, I realised that I there was no justification for what was happening. I then decided that I would not stay at this party, as clearly there was something unsavoury going on. Note three: None of the other guests I arrived with were questioned about their credentials for entering the party. So I left. I wish that was the end, but I was truly reliant on the girl who had invited me to the party as I was stranded in London and needed to stay at her house. Moments later she came out with the hostess who apologised profusely and had brought the interrogator out.

It turned out that he was 'just being protective' of his house. I just dropped the topic. I was not going to enjoy the rest of this night, I could tell. At the party there were a few guests milling around in the kitchen. By now my old fashioned spider-sense was tingling like crazy as I talked to various people. As the night grated on, I kept hearing snippets of dull sounding ignorance. It dawned on me that I may have entered a training cell for middle-class racists. I'm probably being a little sensitive here but I did feel isolated: Whenever the topic of what had happened came up, people were so bemused that they made comical references to the 'misunderstanding' - I wanted to disappear so that they could get on the real business of conversation namely 'Who let the paranoid paki into the house'.

It has taken this long for me to process all that I thought about that night. I was slightly shocked by what happened and in some way I think I was pressurised to feel ashamed of myself for suspecting what I did. There is always a delicate game being played between racist and antiracist discourse. I never at any point in the night referred to any of the people as 'racist'. However the term was used a couple of times with reference to the question of the 'Taxi driver man' and indeed the interrogator. These references were made in earshot of me and obviously intended for me to hear. This is perhaps the most disappointing part of the night: I had busied myself with talking to other guests and trying to put the incident behind me, but I was not allowed to forget that I had entered the party and transgressed the implied social order prior to my entry. The night was punctuated with the odd comic re-enactment of the interrogation or a mock misheard parts of my conversation repeated to an audience..

As I have analysed this and gone over the incidents a few times in my mind, right now I am having a few doubts to say the least about my reading of the situation. This is often the case when one experiences social exclusion. One comes across so many voices that aim to trivalise and alienate one's perception: 'Oh he's just ignorant', or ' He's Australian!!' (I kid you not). However I am pondering: I know that the words came out as I was not the only person to hear them but I wonder, am I the only person that can still hear them?

::::: Update 25th March 2004 Upon reflection shit happens ::::::::
::::: Update 29th March 2004 Maybe its testimony to how far one internalises racism that I was hesitant to leave this post fully visible..... So I have taken the strikethrough out. And also made the heading bold rather then large text! ::::::::