8-year-old boy stopped moisturizing and scratched lines on his skin to 'look whiter' after he was called the N-word by bullies in school
An eight-year-old boy, whose father fled Uganda during Idi Amin's murderous regime and came to the UK, has told the heartbreaking story of how he's been relentlessly racially abused at his school, and also by adults on the street while living in Cornwall.
Finley Sullivan now lives with his family in Par, near St. Austell, according to Cornwall Live, but his story could have turned out a lot more different if his dad didn't have lady luck looking over him. When Finley's father was just 20 years old, he fled the murderous Ugandan regime but ended up in Rwanda - just when the horrific 1994 genocide that left around 1,000,000 dead was unfolding.
He was one of the few who managed to escape, with the Red Cross eventually helping him get to the UK, where he met Finley's mother Colleen Robinson in Eastbourne. Finley was born in Kettering. The family has lived in the UK for about 25 years.
However, being a mixed race hasn't exactly been an easy run while living in rural Cornwall.
"I like being mixed race," Finley told Cornwall Live. "It’s when people are racist to me I don’t like it, it makes me feel I don’t fit in. People stare at me and touch my hair without asking too."
Finley has not escaped vile racist abuse from those around him in school, and in some cases, those on the streets as well.
"People say the N-word and that I should go back to Africa where I belong," he said. "The first time it happened, I was in year one. A kid called me a stupid African and hit me."
"Sometimes I feel sad and angry," he continued. "I stopped moisturizing so my skin would go dry and dusty and I'd look lighter for school. I scratched white lines into my skin, too, to try and look whiter."
His mother Colleen said they noticed kids looking at the eight-year-old, laughing and whispering, adding that she was "sick of people not evolving" and that living in Cornwall "is like going back in time."
She revealed it's not just the kids who abused Finley either, and that on one occasion when her son was six, a car slowed next to them as they were walking home from the train station and a group of men hung out of the car windows making monkey noises.
"I had a new-born in a pram," she said. "I told the kids to keep walking, that the men were making noises because mummy looks silly. Fin said, 'I know they were making the noises at me because I look like a monkey'."
“It seems Brexit has given everyone an excuse to bring out their worst side. We want to leave (Cornwall) but my husband has a business down here so it isn’t as easy as that. One boy who is 13 has been prosecuted. I went to his mum and told her I was going to the police and she said that she was glad because he’s out of control,” Colleen said, adding there is a need for more black history teaching in Cornish schools to try to combat racial intolerance.
She said it was important for her family to speak out to let people who are racially abused to know they are not alone.
“We’re hoping by speaking out that others who are the victims of racial abuse down here will stand up and know they’re not alone,” she said.