Emeli Sande says she first suffered racial abuse at the age of five

Singer says racism ‘seeps into the consciousness of its victims’

Emeli Sande has revealed she was just five-years-old when she first suffered racial abuse.

In an opinion piece for the Radio Times, the “Next to Me” singer opened up about her experiences with racism, saying she first became conscious that people could judge her by her skin colour at school.

The 33-year-old said she was “five and in the playground at primary school in Scotland, and two boys shouted ‘monkey’ at me”.

“I was upset and didn’t know what to do because, if you’re already different from everybody else, you don’t want to cause a bigger problem,” Sande said.

“But my friend told the headteacher, who then told my parents.”

Afterwards, Sande said her parents told her that: “Sadly, this is how the world works.”

“That was the beginning of my version of ‘the talk’, the conversation many black and mixed-race parents – my father is black, my mother white – are obliged to have with their children,” she explained.

The “Read All About It” singer went on to say that she hoped there had “been some kind of awakening and understanding of what black people may have been suffering silently” because of the Black Lives Matter protests.

The movement received global attention earlier this year following the murder of George Floyd by white police officer Derek Chauvin.

“Racism is so pernicious that it seeps into the consciousness of its victims,” Sande said.

“It breaks my heart when you see brown children sit in front of a brown doll and a white doll, and when asked which doll is bad they go for the brown doll.

“This is something that is being taught to them everywhere they look in society – how else could they have that kind of low self-esteem and self-image?”

She added: “You might argue that we need a version of ‘the talk’ for all children, white and black.

“Perhaps the better way is just for everybody to learn more about each other. That’s what I hope Black Lives Matter has achieved.”

You can read the full interview is in this week’s Radio Times magazine, out now.