Even to this day, I still remember the smell of the smoke because it stayed in the house for years afterwards. It's just …..it's one of those things that you never forget.

Today, we’ll hear how a shocking act of cruelty shaped one woman’s life. And how she’s now driven to lift up those around her.

I am a British born Pakistani Muslim. I'm originally from Bristol, but I now live in London.

This is Dr. Zainab Khan.

And my parents came to the UK back in the 60s. My dad’s got a fairly typical British Pakistani migrant story in that he came to the UK when he was 15, with a couple of quid in his pocket, worked in factories to establish himself and my mum followed a few years later.

Like her mum and dad, Zainab is no stranger to working her way up. She trained as a barrister, and has a PhD in law. Zainab’s won a load of awards for her advocacy work in race equity and inclusion. Oh and she’s also a massive Man United fan.

Today we're going to be talking about some difficult topics. But I would say that football has provided me with escapism. It's given me a sense of belonging outside of the reality of our daily lives, where for 90 minutes, we can escape and be part of something really magic.

These days, Zainab works in academia.

I'm the Pro Vice Chancellor for learning and teaching at London Metropolitan University, which is one of the most diverse universities in the UK.

And that’s not the only way Zainab is making ripples in the world.

The second way in which I really tried to advance change is on a personal level. So taking my lived experience of what it was like, and what it is like because it's not like I've reached the point of where learning stops, learning never stops. But, you know, as a person of colour, as a woman of colour, as a Muslim woman, all these different parts of my identity, I feed that into supporting other people from all different backgrounds. But particularly, you know, I care about those of us that are first generation, working class, ethnic minority.

Of course, it’s a patchwork of experiences that influence Zainab’s work. But there was one terrible incident from her childhood that ricocheted through her life.

It was an all-white neighbourhood, we were the token ethnics. Not just on the street, but probably in the whole postcode.

This was Bristol in the mid-90s. Zainab was 11, facing down her last few months of primary school. The Khans lived at the bottom of a hill, in a typical boxy, 1930s-style house.

But it was our home. And it was the only home I'd ever known because I was born into that house and we know we lived there for the majority of my childhood.

In the winter of 1995, Zainab was with her parents and brother, breaking their Ramadan fast at a friends’ house. The family was driving home late at night – when the unimaginable happened.

I remember my dad turning the corner in the car, and there was so much smoke going across the road. And as we turned into our street, we saw loads of fire engines and we thought, oh, gosh, what’s gone on here?

And I remember just seeing the fire engines and thinking oh, something's happened, but not for one minute thinking that it would have been our house. And then I remember my dad just letting out a cry, that oh my god, that's our house.

And then suddenly realised that the smoke was billowing out of our family home. And the whole place was alight, just the whole upstairs story of the house had like giant plumes of black smoke and flames

The house. was. ablaze. Firefighters were swarming the building, trying to put out the flames.

As we got out of the car, we were immediately taken into a neighbour’s house. And those people I don't even remember their name, and we didn't even know them very well, but they offered us a comforting blanket and a cup of tea. My, my dad, who isn't in very good health, he sort of went into shock.

Seeing him in that state, and he seemed so scared. I don't think yeah, I just don't think any child should see their parent in that state at that age.

The firefighters managed to get the blaze under control.

But because she was only a kid,,, in that moment Zainab didn’t fully grasp how bad the damage to her home actually was.

But the house was completely vandalised by what was not just an arson attack, but also it had been burglarized as well. And, like they had soiled the whole house and trashed everything that was dear to us.

I remember my immediate concern was my brother was doing his GCSEs at the time and all his GCSE artwork was all on the floor in his bedroom. And so I was just worried about what was going to happen to his coursework, which was obviously all ruined.

Just imagine, of all the things she could have cared about most…her computer games, her favourite clothes , even her dolls. None of this mattered. She cared deeply, more than anything else, about her brother’s schoolwork. How beautiful and poignant a thing to consider.

The next day the police came to investigate. They said that it was a racially motivated arson attack.

And it emerged that they had created a bonfire in one of the bedrooms from all of our clothing in order to create a much more intense fire and had defecate… they had defecated all over the house.

It was.. it was truly awful.

The Khans tried to get on with their lives – but it wasn’t easy. They had to live in temporary accommodation for months. Zainab was taking her entrance exams for secondary school at the time.

And I remember my mum turning up to pick me up from the exam. And she was holding carrier bags full of the possessions that she had been able to salvage from the rubble that had been thrown out by the firefighters. And she had literally just trawled through rubble, salvaging photographs, important documentation. Looking for anything of value. And we lost… we lost everything.

The attack left a deep psychological impact on Zainab.

I became very withdrawn. I was very quiet for many months.

This particular incident that happened for me, it was so significant because it was a loss of innocence. Because you assume that your home is always going to be a safe space.

I remember feeling incredibly afraid that individuals were never caught. You know, we never saw a successful prosecution for our arson attack. So that also sort of promulgates that fear that they're going to come back and it was this person or they knew that there was an Asian family living in this home where they're going to victimise us again.

I sort of became incredibly paranoid about my own safety for years afterwards, which I probably didn't grow out of until I started university when I was 18.

On top of fears about her safety, at such a young age, Zainab also grappled with deeply complex and confusing feelings.

I remember an overriding feeling of shame and embarrassment. Having grown up in an all white neighbourhood, having attended an all white school, I think there was one other Asian kid, one black boy in the school. I remember being very aware of my skin colour, and often being quite embarrassed about my skin colour. I had friends at the time that were really petite blonde girls with blue eyes. And I remember wishing that, you know, I wasn't so different. And so then when bad things happen, as a child, it wasn’t always easy for me to understand that that is someone else's… as a result of someone else's behaviour, which you have no control over, or have played no part in.

Race quickly became a very dominant focal point for me at that point in my life.

When Zainab was reflecting back on her life – thinking about what it’s like to work, travel, just exist as a Muslim woman – she realised something.

A lot of the events that I've experienced have sort of simmered under the surface of overt racism, but collectively, when taken together, paint a really clear picture of a very distinct experience in society, because of my ethnicity, because of my gender, because of my faith.

There was one incident in particular which stands out. To tell that story, we have to fast forward, beyond Zainab’s childhood. She was in her early 20s, driving home from work one afternoon …. in her happy place… the stereo playing full blast.

Bruce or U2 or Coldplay, it would have been something of that sort, don't judge! But you know, feel good music, that I would have been singing from the top of my lungs whilst I was stopped at the traffic light on my way back from work.

It was then that Zainab noticed two teenage boys next to the traffic light. They must have been on their way home from school – they were wearing white polo shirts and rucksacks.

I remember feeling really uncomfortable. And often that happens from time to time when you're – you become suddenly very aware of your ethnicity; you feel unsafe. You know with lived experience you become, your radar in terms of sensing when a situation is slightly turbulent or unstable it sort of develops with age. And I remember looking at these two thinking oh god, they don't like the look of me.

Zainab’s radar – sadly – was bang on.

They were sitting against the wall and then they spotted me, picked up some excrement and threw it at my car.

And thankfully, it missed the bit where the window, where the jar–where the window was ajar, and it just landed on the window.

The kids were shouting racial slurs at Zainab. All those old feelings from being a kid came flooding back.

I felt humiliated when that happened, I felt ashamed, even though they were the ones that were doing the name calling, using the racial epithets. I then drove to a petrol station and wiped it off. I was appalled. And I was shaken. And I didn't even have it in me to go into the petrol station and say to the person like the the attendant that this has happened, and I'm upset, I don't know what they would have been able to do about it, because it didn't happen on the forecourt but you know, just to be able to share with another individual about something that had happened to you.

This is one of the horrors of being subjected to repeated racial abuse. It becomes … almost ordinary.

I remember that staying on my mind for some time, for a couple of days, but then you normalise it, because you, you know, you just expect these things to happen. But actually as I’m telling you about it now, I feel really uncomfortable about the fact that that happened. And I didn't do anything about it at that time. Because if someone told me that they had been subjected to a racist incident, they'd experienced some form of harassment or assault, you know, I hope that I would offer compassion and support them towards taking action against this.

Zainab has had coins and stones thrown at her, she’s had people call her names and chase her.

None of these events have ever been reported to the police. And you know, I need to be kind to myself as well in that and I understand why I didn’t bother going to the police about it, probably because I would have thought the instances are so small in themselves that you know, what are the police going to be able to do. Also, I don't want to have to go through the whole process of entering witness statements then going through what could also turn into quite an unpleasant experience.

For those of us that experience racialisation as a minority, we end up growing these sort of thick skins where we can quite easily exchange stories of oh, d’you remember the time when this happened.

Her own ordeals have made Zainab question just how widespread racism is – and what lasting effects it has on people. They also motivate her.

I hope that I'm part of the solution, more so than being part of the problem. But it's a question that I repeatedly asked myself, am I making a difference?

From where I’m standing, the answer to that question is pretty clear.

As well as being Pro-Vice Chancellor at London Metropolitan University, Zainab is also the director of the university's Centre for Equity and Inclusion.

In my current role, I'm responsible for advancing equity and inclusion for all of our staff, all of our students.

Her work has been recognised by the Guardian University Awards and the Inclusive Companies Awards. Plus Zainab got a high commendation at the Asian Women of Achievement Awards for her service to the public sector.

I want as many people as possible to also have fulfilling careers.

So Zainab focusses a lot of her energy on mentoring and encouraging others to have faith in themselves — – recognising the impact that her mentors had in her own career.

That brings me a lot of joy, because it can’t just be about personal salvation. It's also got to be about ensuring that you extend the ladder down. Everyone deserves opportunities. I don't believe that there's a scarcity of chances. I think there's enough to go around. But people need to stop gatekeeping information and really start being much more transparent about the stories that they've got to share about how they reached the top.

I wouldn't be here today without the help of some really fantastic individuals

Zainab’s story is difficult to listen to due to the injustice and viciousness of the acts of racial hatred she has faced. The way in which a person, or group of people, could so easily dehumanise Zainab and her family is disturbing. What kind of person takes it upon themselves to purposefully defile and destroy a family’s house and worldly possessions? The fact that their only motivation was racial hatred shows how deep the threat runs for racial minority individuals. Zainab has been strong enough to face these threats and to use her experiences to help others. Knowing how painful racist abuse can be, she has helped to provide a support network for others who will have to experience similar abuse. One hopes there will come a time when those from racial minorities will not have to suffer in the way Zainab has. But, until that time arrives, she is playing a vital role in offering much needed solidarity and support.