The prime minister shared that he faced racism as a child and that his parents used to send him to extra drama classes so that he could “speak properly,” The Guardian reported.
Rishi Sunak on the programme Rishi Sunak: Up Close – Tonight shared that he faced racism as a child and that his parents were so keen for him to fit in and speak without an accent that they sent him to extra drama lessons.
Sunak talks about how it hurt him to hear insults directed at his younger siblings, and adds that racism “stings” and “hurts in a way that other things don’t,” adding that “any form of racism is simply unacceptable.”
He also shared that his parents were careful to ensure that he and his siblings to “fit in and not for it to be, in any way, shape or form, a barrier,” and his mother paid special attention to how to speak properly: “One of the things my mum was obsessed with was that we didn’t speak with accents and we would speak properly,” he said.
“So she was keen for us to try to do some extra drama.”
Rishi Sunak admitted that he never dreamed that a member of an ethnic minority could one day become prime minister of Britain, “because you didn’t have role models like that. It hadn’t happened yet.”
