David Lammy’s article about clothing and prejudice (Race, the hoodie and me, 13 February) brought vividly to mind a conversation in the late 80s with one of my son’s school friends, which taught me – a white, liberal, Guardian-reading feminist – more about racism in two minutes than I had learned through my life experience to that date.
Sunjeev, my son’s friend, is black British, of Mauritian descent. He told me he encountered more prejudice and racism when he went out wearing his baseball cap. I couldn’t fathom this, until he explained: “When my hair is covered I look more Afro-Caribbean, so I get more trouble.”
That a 15-year-old should be so pragmatic about having to bear in mind such awful factors when making the simple choice of what to wear shocked me profoundly. Why am I not surprised things have got no better?
Fiona Collins
Carrog, Sir Ddinbych
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