English | Nigerian
In the context of the University of Oxford, we hope our names; faces and stories will emphasise that there is a place for everyone at Oxford. According to last year’s admissions data, 700 Oxford undergraduates identify as mixed. In 2016, BAME students accounted for 15.9% of the undergraduate intake. Oxford is diversifying, albeit slowly. We hope to empower mixed heritage students at Oxford and foster a community where they can safely share their own opinions, experiences and stories.
My Mum comes from Nigeria and my Dad comes from England. Being mixed-race definitely affects the way I blend into society. In London it isn’t an issue, but in places outside of London there tend to be less people of colour so I’m always conscious of people treating me differently because of it. Since being at university, there have been some comments that have made me feel isolated from my peers, such as saying my hair looked ‘different’. This wasn’t really something that ever been said to me before coming to university. These kinds of comments make you feel othered and more aware of how other people see you as an outsider. I went to a grammar school where a lot of people went to Oxford and I had heard Oxford was just an extension of my school experience, which meant I had a bad perception of Oxford. My heritage didn’t really factor into my decision to attend. I have experienced casual racism at Oxford. It seems to be every week something crops up where a peer or staff member has behaved in a way I would deem as racist. It is quite appalling. I think Oxford can be welcoming and inclusive with the right friends, but as an overall student body I don’t think this is the case. My experiences at Oxford has made me way more aware of the negative connotations of being not white in the UK, not specifically mixed heritage. I didn’t really know how racist the world was until coming to Oxford. Things that had happened to me lead me to reading more articles and watching documentaries about institutionalized racism, which did cause me a lot of distress. This was very different to the environment I grew up in where being from different places was celebrated.
Being a part of Oxford’s Mixed Heritage Society has been lots of fun and I have made some friends. It is wonderful knowing that there’s a group of people who are able to understand what I could be going through and sharing interesting articles/ideas about being mixed currently in the UK has been excellent.
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