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Why I've Thought Twice About Wearing A Poppy This Year

There are many things that brings this Great British nation together. Let's be honest, most of us reading this tuned into for the Royal wedding and I am willing to bet most of you reading this read at least one story on the birth of Prince George.

Then there is sport. Everyone remembers that unforgettable feeling on Super Saturday; the 8th day of the London 2012 Olympics when we witnessed Great Britain win six gold medals in a single day. The standout moment will always belong to Jessica Ennis, Greg Rutherford and Mo Farah, who each won gold in the space of 46 minutes, and was one the most thrilling experiences I've had in front of my television screen.

Then there are unfortunate cases where a disaster strikes a cord with people, that no matter your differences you're brought together in that strange place of despair and hope.

There is no other annual event that is supposed to unite us quite like Remembrance Day. The day we as a nation come together on the Sunday closest to the 11th November and pay our respects to those who have sacrificed their lives in the line of duty by wearing poppies old and new and holding moments of silence on days where appropriate. I remember the first time I wore a poppy - it was actually a sticker. My father bought it for me, as he wasn't keen on the idea of me running around primary school with a pin stuck to my coat. Every year since I have worn a poppy - unprompted and never even questioning why, as it was obvious. I was paying my respects to a group of people that had been armed and died to ensure my safety and my freedom.

However, my automatic instinct to buy a poppy wavered last year with the Charlene White debacle. In case you don't know, the newsreader refuses to wear a poppy each year on screen not because she doesn't want to, but because it is against ITV's code of conduct for any newsreader to visibly show support for a charity. So she feels that by wearing a poppy, she is being unfair to the organisations she is a patron of. However, last year she was hit with horrific racist and sexist abuse. This year she took to the ITV website to explain her decision, but I was perplexed as to why she needed to explain herself again, and felt the need to take precautionary steps to ensure she wouldn't experience the same backlash. There are probably some ignorant viewers of all races sitting in front of the screen hurling insult upon insult at her decision. It made me think; so men gave up their lives for our freedom, but yet when someone make a choice of their own free will, the first thing we do is attack them on their gender and race?

And as a black British woman, that's the problem - Britain wants me and everyone else to come together in unity, but if I or anyone of a different race makes a decision that doesn't quite fit into mainstream ideals, then I'm not British. I refuse be British when it suits the mainstream. Wearing a poppy is not a loyalty test if you're not white and when people ask me 'where's my poppy', I refuse to be cornered into feeling a sense of embarrassment or shame. A poppy does not change the fact that I am beyond grateful to those who did fight in the World War I and II.

To add to my concern over wearing a poppy this year, I find it startling that the large majority of images that flood my social media timelines and TV screens of old war veterans seem to be of white men - and I had no problem with that until a few years ago, as I believed it to be the truth. That was before I realised that Britain went to war with men from Africa, Asia and the West Indies.

It's frightening that in this day and age, the overriding narrative is that World War I and II saw only strong, brave and noble white men run across the battlefield and now, decades later, the country is being flooded with people of different colours who don't appreciate this land. This is and has never been the case. Its hard for me as a young black woman to wear a poppy with pride at times when I live in a country that doesn't acknowledge the heroic efforts of brown skinned people. For my forefathers who gave up their lives for the liberty of the country to be told they don't belong here by the public and politicians alike (see Enoch Powell in his Rivers of Blood speech below) at the time, it's heartbreaking and unfortunately in some incidents not much has changed.