In Rishi Sunak: Up Close - Tonight which airs on ITV1 & ITVX at 8.30pm, the prime minister opens up to Anushka Asthana about the racism he experienced as a child, and talks about his mother being keen for her children not to speak with an accent: "You are conscious of being different…. And obviously I experienced racism as a kid”. Report by Blairm. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00 I mean one of my memories as a kid was that there was quite a lot of racism at football.
00:04 I found that being Indian was just so dominant in my life and I'm just wondering if you felt
00:10 that way when you were a kid?
00:11 Yeah, I, as you say, you're conscious of being different.
00:15 It's hard not to be, right?
00:18 And obviously I experienced racism as a kid.
00:22 What happened?
00:23 I was with my younger brother and sister when I was with them in town at a restaurant, a
00:28 fast food restaurant, and people were saying some awful things.
00:31 And I, the thing about racism, it stings you in a way that few other things do, right?
00:38 And you probably appreciate that.
00:40 My parents felt it acutely because they were so keen for us to be able to fit in.
00:46 One of the things my mum was obsessed with is that we didn't speak with accents and we
00:51 would speak properly and so she was keen for us to try and do some extra drama and things
00:56 like that.
00:57 So that is a certain thing.
00:58 Because you wouldn't have dreamt that there would be an ethnic minority Prime Minister
01:01 in your lifetime when you were a kid?
01:02 No, I probably, no, because you didn't have role models like that when I was a kid in
01:07 politics in quite the same way.
01:09 Of course there are and there are people who are breaking barriers.
01:11 [BLANK_AUDIO]