This a photo of me, an Iranian/Persian woman. In term of race parlance am I white or black? The current preoccupation with ethnicity is a conundrum for Iranians. We are ethnically Aryan (from which the name ‘Iran’ actually derives), we are also Caucasian and Indo-European. Some of my cousins have much browner complexions than me, but however brown we are, we’re definitely NOT “mixed”.
Every year I worked as nurse and midwife I was obliged to fill in an NHS ETHNICITY QUESTIONNAIRE (above) as part of their ‘good practice’ requirements. And every year I would be frustrated by the listed categories, because other than the penultimate one “White – Other White Background” I didn’t fit into any of the others, and if you tick that one you are asked to explain. Should I describe myself as “Aryan” (it’s most accurate answer)? Or should I say “Caucasian” (same as all the other Whites)? Occasionally I would write “Persian”. Every single year I chewed the end of my pen and noted something different.
B.A.M.E (Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic) was an acronym first used in the UK in the wake of the pandemic as a proxy for non-white ethnic minority groups. The term has now been discontinued in the UK as it was seen to be unintentionally divisive. At the time it generated a nationwide celebration of minority cultures and the successful integration of first and second generation immigrants in Britain. An Iranian acquaintance of mine was invited to give a public talk about his experience as a successful BAME immigrant under the banner of BAME – Our Stories. He justified his qualification by stating that he identified as “Black – Other” rather than “White – Other, because in his view the term “non-white” means “Non- British”!
For me that’s taking ethnicity a step too far! Without intending any disrespect, I’m racially Caucasian and can’t class myself as Black. But if the public perception of brown people of pure descent (i.e. not mixed) is neither white nor black, then what is the tick box designation?
Checking up on every immigrant’s status is clearly a huge task, but it was so much more labour intensive before the advent of computers and the internet. When I arrived in the UK from Iran on 5 August 1979, I was granted a three-year student nurse visa, registered as an Alien, and required to make annual contact with the Aliens’ Registration authorities. After we were married the following May. I moved to Glasgow and applied for British citizenship.Late one evening on 6 August 1980, James was out on-call at the hospital, and the doorbell of our tenement flat rang loudly. I wondered who it might be at this late hour, and opening the door I was shocked to be confronted by a police constable in full regalia standing on the stairs. I thought James had been run over by a bus, was lying unconscious in the road or bleeding to death on a hospital trolley. Why else would a policeman come to one’s door so late at night? Visions of impending widowhood rose before my eyes, and for a moment I thought I was going to faint in the doorway. The policeman took out a little black notebook, flipped over a few pages, and began:
