Sitting, waiting, watching.
I’m sitting in the waiting room of my local hospital about to see my neurologist. She's running late so I'm observing the hospital’s inner workings. My neurologist is from the middle east and arrived here to work three years ago, thankfully she decided to stay, otherwise I would probably still be getting fobbed off with “she’s hysterical".
The staff are diverse, with a range of ethnicities and accents. Black, brown and white all working together to provide care for my community. Sitting here feels like a salve to the xenophobic and racist views I hear online and unfortunately even from my father.
Sitting here highlights the disconnect between what anti-migrant rhetoric tells you and what is real. And what is real is that at ground level we are all getting on with each other, working together, co-operating and coming together as a team, regardless of the colour of our skin, our accents or how long we have lived in the UK.
Anti migrant rhetoric aims to divide us, it makes us look at people who don’t have white skin with fear and suspicion. It wants us to fear our resources are at risk instead of recognising the abundance of qualities and potential that migrants bring with them when settling in a new country.
Sitting in the hospital waiting room is a perfect way to take a temperature check on the reality of migrants in the UK, and the thermometer says “migrants living in the UK? That’s healthy for all of us”
Photo - sitting, waiting, watching for roots to grow on cuttings.