Picture this. A warm summer's day right at the edge of London, the 'I’ve got a built in pool' friend in the group has offered up her home in service of much needed respite from the heat. Deep into the day, the sound of teenagers splashing about in newly purchased high street bikinis is punctuated by a conversation about showering habits and you begin to calmly explain that in your household: “We have bucket baths.”
Ten minutes pass as you try – unsuccessfully – to explain why they are superior in nature for the planet and dry skin avoidance and as the conversation tapers off, a friend, one of the few black girls in your friendship group, quietly whispers, “you can’t be telling these white people about bucket baths, they’ll think you’re weird.”
Years on and with a number of similar cultural difference exchanges under my belt, thanks to parents who both physically and ideologically would shut the door on Britain at the end of the day – food, bucket baths and a firm understanding that rinsing your plates in a washing up bowl isn’t a universal experience aside – the differences in my understanding of how to navigate life verses my white friends and peers feels wider than ever.
Although I no longer fear or care about proclamations of my ‘weirdness’ when sharing my experience of the world with non-black people, as early twenties life begins to fill with conversations about careers, romance and plans for the future, the pressure to assimilate ideologically with a culture that favours an individualist approach is everywhere. Marriage and ambition were of course factors in my home growing up but now, when sifting through the reasons behind some of the now ‘adult’ decisions being made by myself and others around me, it has become more than apparent that at mass in the UK – self is king.