08 Mar 2025
A third-generation Bangladeshi Muslim living in St Albans, Anisha Kashim confronts the harsh reality of growing up in the city which members of her community still experience today…
St Albans may be a picture-perfect city, but for its Bangladeshi Muslim community, the scars of racism, both past and present, tell a different story. Despite its small-town charm, the hidden undertone of discrimination still lingers beneath the surface.
Today, first-generation Bangladeshi immigrants recall the raw racism of the ‘70s and ’80s; every piece of verbal abuse, physical attacks and outright exclusion from the white community.
For many Bangladeshi Muslims in St Albans, racism was once blatant and aggressive. In the 1980s, one man still remembers being chased through Clarence Park by a group of skinheads who unleashed their dogs on him.
At Verulam School in 1985, students faced relentless abuse, being called “P*ki” day in and day out, their teachers turning a blind eye.
“What do you want us to do about it?” was the standard response when victims reported their tormentors.
Some teachers even joined in, mocking Bangladeshi students’ names and referencing a beer advert, jeering “Abdul La BulBul” in exaggerated accents.
The abuse wasn’t just verbal; it was physical.
Older boys would routinely beat up Bangladeshi students, steal their dinner money, and subject them to the dreaded ‘bog wash’, where their heads were shoved into toilets and flushed. Every single Asian boy in the school suffered this humiliation.
By the 1990s, racism didn’t just exist in schools; it followed them into their workplaces.
Bangladeshi restaurant workers were frequently mocked by customers who called them ‘poppadoms’ and refused to learn their names, instead referring to every waiter as ‘Abdul’. The abuse was normalised and shrugged off as part of daily life.
Fast forward to today, and while the violence may have faded, the racism hasn’t. It’s just taken on a new, quieter form. A Bangladeshi man recently walking near Morrisons had someone stick their head out of a passing car and yell “Oi you P*ki!” at him.
In restaurants, native Bangladeshi servers are still ridiculed, their accents mimicked by customers until the owners have to step in and ask them to leave. Racism is now coated in microaggressions, casual comments passed off as jokes, and sideways glances when a Bangladeshi person drives an expensive car. On his way home from work, one man was pulled over on London Road simply because the police didn’t believe he could legitimately own a luxury vehicle.
“A city that never welcomed us”
During the ‘80s at STAGS school, racist abuse was a daily occurrence, even inside the classroom, right in front of teachers who didn’t care.
One former student recalls being just 12 years old in 1984, sitting in the canteen when a 16-year-old girl from Year 11 started hurling chips at her.
“Butt Butt Ding Ding,” the older girl taunted, mimicking a South Asian accent as the cafeteria erupted in laughter. When the younger girl finally found the courage to confront her, the response was immediate: a slur, a fist in her hair yanking it back, a can of Coke emptied over her head, and a full-blown attack in front of everyone. No one stepped in to help. “Racism was everywhere you went. It was normal. At school, at work, on the street,” she recalls.
“You couldn’t even walk down Hatfield Road without someone calling you a ‘P*ki’”.
The fear of violence loomed over every aspect of life. In the ‘80s, an eight-year-old leaving Fleetville School and her friends were chased by skinheads on bikes, who tried to run them over while spitting out slurs.
Her mother was too afraid to drop her off at school afterwards, knowing that her daughter would be stepping into a minefield every morning.
The only brown face in the room
That was the ‘80s, but how does that compare to today? In 2025, a Bangladeshi student at Sandringham School said he feels like he “sticks out like a sore thumb”. With almost no other ethnic minorities in the school, the isolation is palpable. A teacher even warned his parents that Sandringham might not be the “right fit” for him. But what does that really mean? Would he have fit in better if he were ‘less brown and more white’?
The teachers reinforce the divide. One Bangladeshi pupil recalls being repeatedly told off for hanging out with other ethnic minority students at lunch. There were only a handful of them, but teachers insisted they “looked like gangs” and demanded they separate. Meanwhile, white students sat together in large groups, 15 or more at a time, without being asked to move.
Eventually, the school forced the minority students to break apart, placing them in different ‘zones’ to ensure they wouldn’t gather. In a school that prides itself on excellence, one question remains: Does that excellence extend to students of all backgrounds or only those who “fit in”?
Casual racism at Beaumont: A daily reality
Even in modern-day classrooms, discrimination still lurks, with 85 per cent of Bangladeshi-Muslim students from St Albans reporting that they have faced racism within a school setting.
At Beaumont School, racism wasn’t always loud or obvious, and it slipped into everyday conversations so casually that students didn’t even realise what had happened until it was over.
A passing comment about being “too dark”, “too brown”, or just “too different” to fit in. It was constant, normalised, and impossible to escape. One boy recalls that being called a “curry muncher” was just part of life when he was there.
Another, after growing facial hair, was repeatedly mocked and told he “looked like a Muslim terrorist”. During Ramadan, fasting students became the target of cruel jokes, and white classmates would dangle food in front of them, laughing as they tried to tempt them into breaking their fast.
Respect was never an option; belittling their beliefs was always the priority. Speaking up wasn’t an option either. The moment you protested, you were dismissed, labelled as “complaining again”. So, like many others before them, they learned to laugh along, pretending it didn’t hurt.
For Muslim students, the alienation went beyond words. One girl, one of the few Muslims in her year, refused to drink alcohol due to her faith. But instead of respecting her decision, her classmates turned it into a twisted game. At birthday parties in 2018, they would attempt to spike her drink, thinking it was hilarious to try and force her to break her religious beliefs. They did this at every party.
At Beaumont, racism wasn’t just a relic of the past. It was woven into the everyday experience of minority students, disguised as jokes, peer pressure, and “just a bit of fun”.
Racism doesn’t end when school does
What’s my experience with racism? As a woman in my early twenties, I find myself in a strange transition phase, caught between the casual racism of school and the microaggressions of the working world.
I never fit in at school, always the odd one out, trying to navigate my religious and cultural identity while dodging the offhand comments and stereotypes. I clawed my way through it, only to realise that leaving education didn’t mean leaving racism behind.
Now, in the workplace, the same microaggressions follow me. I’ve worked multiple jobs, but the feeling is always the same: I take up too much space. I’ve watched my white coworkers speak out and be praised for their confidence, yet when I do the same, I’m labelled as “aggressive” and “argumentative”. I’ve been warned to “keep my mouth shut” about racism because it “looks bad for business”. It’s a constant battle, one where racism is sneakier, disguised as jokes and double standards.
But then, there are moments when racism isn’t subtle at all. It’s in the boss who once called me a “silly little brown girl”. It’s in the customer who sneered “incompetent P*ki” at me. And sometimes, it’s so brazen that it catches me off guard, like last month when a stranger casually threw the slur “Taliban Tosser” my way.
St Albans is now staring down the new face of racism. It may not be as loud, but it hasn’t disappeared.
As one local said: “People are too scared to be openly racist, but you can feel it. The microaggressions are everywhere.”
It’s in the way people look at you, the subtle exclusions,
the way some still see you as an outsider. It’s just gotten smarter and quieter but no less damaging. According to a recent survey taken during the summer of 2024, 95 per cent of Bangladeshi Muslims stated that they have experienced some form of racism. While the threat of physical violence and bodily harm has lessened, the community’s younger generation now faces workplace bias and social exclusion. Looking for promotion opportunities? If you’re a Bangladeshi Muslim, they’re harder to come by, as 75 per cent reported being mistreated at work. Many feel that in their local area, they feel like outsiders, as Islamophobia spikes after global terror incidents.
It’s no longer just slurs and violence; it’s being passed over for a job, left out of social events or facing judgment for wearing a hijab.
Schools and local authorities have failed to adequately address racism, allowing it to continue in different forms over the decades.
Real change requires real action from local institutions. This includes schools enforcing zero tolerance on racial bullying, businesses committing to genuine inclusion, and local leadership prioritising diversity.
Until then, racism in St Albans won’t disappear; it will keep evolving.
