Good Things About Being Brown

This whole being brown business is quite good isn't it?

Growing up and going to school in London in the 1980s meant that I witnessed a fair bit of racist tendencies; the rise of the National Front and a few racially lead riots and skirmishes.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I witnessed any of the riots first hand, god no, we were far too middle class for that! But there was a bit of "racism" at school, which people grew out of after they matured a bit. They're now all politicians, heads of police forces, newspapers and those other places where racism, bigotry and corruption just don't exist.

Since those days though I can honestly say I've always felt quite glad to be a brown fellow.

It's not one of my favourite colours though. I like a decent pair of brown shoes, preferring them over black except when the need to be very formal crops up. I do own some miscellaneous brown clothes, but I can't see myself ever buying a brown car. Red, as far as cars go, and usually they do, is my most bestest favouritest choice.

In as much as skin colour goes I'm pretty pleased with the brown option. Black is nice. I prefer the look of brown but I'd quite like the natural rhythm of a black person. Instead most of us brown people are born with a natural ability to dance like a pissed up Sri Lankan Uncle at a second cousin's brother's wife's daughter's wedding. Which is a bummer. On the other hand we don't have the big nostrils, which is good.

I fail to understand why some people buy and use all these products to make themselves whiter. Seriously, what's all that about, we've got the perfect tone already, why do you want to look white?

I see white people sunbathing, working on their tans and spending days and weeks trying to look more like us. And, though some health freak will no doubt comment and say that we should do, we never have to use all that sunblock and whatnot, because we don't get orange in the sun. Not that we sit in it for hours anyhow.

The other day, which is why I started to write this in the first place, I saw a friend, of the white variety. It was in January and she'd just returned from a Christmas holiday in Goa. She'd evidently spent a large part of this holiday doing some of that aforementioned sunbathing (which means I mentioned it before).

How do I know this?

Well I'll tell you how I know this.

I will so.

She was bright fucking orange.

I kid you not.

Bright luminous intense orange. I mean so bright and so orange that if I was looking for a nice juicy orange to play the part of a nice juicy orange in an advert I was filming for some new orange juice made from special genetically modified orange oranges, then I'd use her as an example of how orange I'd need him (or her) to be. Then I'd day, well actually we need him (or her) to be about half that strength of orangeness.

And she was clearly proud of the colour too. I shook my head in that bemused fashion.

It's good to be brown. Even if we can't dance.