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PICTURED: Malorie Blackman

MALORIE BLACKMAN has said she’s noticed an increase in racist comments since the Brexit referendum.

The best-selling author of the Noughts and Crosses series says since the vote three years ago, attitudes have gone backwards and people feel like they can say whatever they want.

Blackman told the Sunday Times Magazine: "I've heard more racist comments in the past three years than I've had in the last 30. There's now more open hostility; it's like people feel they can say whatever they want. I've had people deliberately barging into me while shopping — stuff I haven't had to put up with for years.

"There are times when I wake up and think, 'Have I woken up in the 1970s again?' Maybe I became too complacent. I thought we've dealt with that, it's over and done with, we've moved on.”

The author also discussed microaggressions, which is defined as small instances of racial discrimination that over time fester and accumulate.

She referenced an incident on the train, which took place five years ago. Whilst travelling first class on the train - for the first time in her life - a ticket inspector spotted her through the window, got on the train, and demanded she showed him her ticket.

She explained: "Then he went to get off the train. I said to him, 'Aren't you going to check anyone else's?' And he looked at me and said that wasn't necessary."

The former children’s Laureate told The Times that in the early stages of her career she was unprepared for the racist abuse that was hurled her way.

“I’d never experienced that amount of hatred thrown at me. It was an incredibly stressful time.”

Yet Blackman maintains there had been a stark increase in the multitude of casual blatant racist comments since the referendum in 2015.

“It was very instructive to me that the day after the result I tweeted, ''I'm really sorry that we voted to leave because I think that it’s a huge mistake,’ and someone tweeted back at me: ‘Yeah but you’re not really British, so you would say that.’ And I thought to myself, I haven’t had anyone say to me ‘You’re not really British’ since the 1970s. I tweeted underneath, ‘And thus it begins.’ And unfortunately, it has.

The author has now completed the latest book in her Noughts and Crosses series, Crossfire, and her first novel will be adapted into a BBC show starring rapper Stormzy.

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