A black woman, born and brought up in England, set up a GoFundMe page after she encountered racist attacks from people who told her to "go back" to her country. Jordene Phillips set a target of £5,000 (nearly $6,500) for the racists to pay for her ticket to Jamaica, her ancestral country.
Phillips, a native of Barking in east London, explained in the GoFundMe post that she hated living in the city because of the racist people who told her to go back to her country. The 20-year-old also said that she will "happily leave" after they sponsor her return to Jamaica.
"The British Government brought my ancestors here and lied to them. Now I'm born in this c**p," she said in the post, which she created on Friday. "They see my island as a holiday destination but tell my people it is violent and evil. They have convinced young British born Jamaicans that there's no opportunities there. Listen, I'm done talking init."
What set Phillips off was a phone call with a call center worker who was "really rude and disrespectful" to her. "I was quite angry, it's anger that's built up over time. I was on the phone to someone trying to sort my phone bill and although he couldn't see me, I knew he could tell I was black by the way I was speaking and he was really rude and disrespectful to me," she said, according to the Daily Mail.
The product design student said that she felt "alien" in her home country because of racism. "Sometimes the racism is just blatant and sometimes it's institutionalised because people get opportunities that I wouldn't get. The anger has been built up over time, I see other people getting racist abuse and it hurts because I know that's how they'd treat me."
Jordene Phillips hails from the family of the Windrush Generation
Phillips explained that her grandparents were from the Windrush generation, who arrived in the country with the hopes of having a better quality of life. However, she said her family faced racism and were denied jobs.
The Windrush generation refers to the immigrants who arrived in the United Kingdom between 1948 and 1971 owing to the shortage of labor at the time in the country. The immigrants were from Caribbean countries such as Barbados, Jamaica, Tobago and Trinidad. They are called the Windrush Generation because the ship MV Empire Windrush brought about 500 Jamaicans to the United Kingdom on June 22, 1948, in Tilbury, Essex.
"A lot of my family members did return to Jamaica because they couldn't handle it but my mum is still here. A lot of people think racism is disappearing but it's not, it's in a different form. Racists don't need to call you the N-word to your face, they can message you online," Phillips reportedly said.
So far, Phillips raised £287 ($370) with the help of 28 donors. The fundraiser was shared over 500 times and people commented advising her not to leave England but instead go on a trip with the money she raised. "Don't use the money to leave your home country. F**k the racists. Go on holiday," wrote one user.
