I was shocked, frustrated but overall deeply saddened to hear this coming from a young, British Pakistani, male friend.

After not having seen my friend for ages, I suggested we meet and have a catch up session, and boy did I have I lot of catching up to do.

"What do you mean, whilst I'm in this country?" I replied.

After an hour-long discussion, his conclusion was that at the end of the day, this is not our country and we will never be allowed to forget that. So what is the point of trying to do well in anything; only to return to being undermined for being different?

I tried to convince him that things were changing and that we have to be a part of that movement. I explained that there is a very big difference from resigning yourself to the sideline to someone else pushing you to the sideline.

"Yeah I hear what you're saying Raz, but I think you just don't live in the real world."

He was lucky we were good friends otherwise I just might have been offended.

As we conversed, I remember feeling sorry for my friend, wondering what will become of him if he continues to see the world so pessimistically.

On the outside, I desperately tried to understand and appreciate what sounded like a defeatist, defensive attitude but from the inside I was close to tears. However, it wasn't until Monday night that I actually did start crying. After a long day at work, I came home, curled up on the sofa and switched the telly on.

As I waited for the blank screen of the TV to catch up with the speakers, all I heard was a blaring voice say something along the lines of: "If a dog leaves his kennel he's still a dog."

The television, eventually, presented me with an image of a white, trainee policeman, and as he continued, I suddenly found myself being faced with the "real world".

"So then a Paki born in Britain is still a Paki."

The clip was an excerpt from a 2003 programme, The Secret Policeman, when a BBC reporter Mark Daly went undercover at a police training college in Cheshire – following the screening 10 officers resigned from the Greater Manchester force, 12 were disciplined, four who train recruits were given written warnings and seven constables and a sergeant received formal advice from a senior officer. It was being shown as part of a BBC Panorama programme The Secret Policeman Returns which discussed the problems of racism in the UK police force.

I remember watching the original documentary about the secret policeman but I don't ever remember being this devastated.

Perhaps what my friend was telling me was too close to the truth for me to bear.