As we watch what’s happening in the USA right now it is easy to dismiss it as America’s problem, intrinsically linked to their own particular history of slavery and segregation. Certainly, there are issues specific to the US, but their history is intertwined with that of much of the world. From Australia’s treatment of its aboriginal people, to prevailing inequalities in South Africa, to disadvantaged black populations in Brazil, to the dehumanization of the Chagos Islanders, to the heartless, immoral Windrush scandal in the UK. Sadly, racism is a worldwide concern.

Over twenty years ago the police response to the murder of Stephen Lawrence in London was labelled as “institutionally racist”, a term that captured the prejudice and racial stereotyping afflicting British society. This should have been a wake up call, but has anything changed fundamentally since then? Just this week it was reported that the Metropolitan Police are twice as likely to fine black people over lockdown breaches.

As white people, we often fail to understand what racism really is, not because we don’t see evidence of it, but because we haven’t felt it and we never will. We may believe that white people can experience racism too, but we cannot. Having lived and worked in Africa over many years, I have experienced being treated differently because of the colour of my skin. But I have not experienced racism. I have, in fact, been treated overwhelmingly favourably because of my minority status. Even on the handful of occasions when I have been discriminated against in a negative way, this was not racism in its true sense. Why? Let me explain.

Many years ago, a Gambian academic changed my understanding completely. Up until that point I had thought that racism was simply discrimination against someone of a different ethnicity, which can happen to anyone, including white people. However, what he explained, and what we often fail to understand, is that racism is not simply about racial differences, it is ultimately about notions of superiority and inferiority. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines racism as a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race.

The response to ‘Black Lives Matter’ with ‘All Lives Matter’ completely misses this point. Of course, all lives matter, but how can this be realized until the lives of those who are treated as inferior matter and are given equal value? As Derek Chauvin exerted his body weight on George Floyd’s neck, did he consider that Mr. Floyd’s life mattered and had equal value to his? The answer is a resounding ‘no’.

Can you, as a white person, honestly say that you have never thought of a single black person in a negative way because of the colour of their skin? Can you, as a black person, say that you have never experienced discrimination because of the colour of your skin? The honest answer in both cases is a resounding ‘no’.

Our societies are shaped by our histories of immigration, colonialism and slavery. But we learn these things as we grow older, we do not feel them intrinsically. This morning I watched my children interacting with their classmates at the school gate: black children, brown children, white children. They are aware that they look different but our children do not see one child as inferior to another because of the colour of their skin. This is learnt behaviour and we need to break the chains that allow such attitudes to propagate.

One way to break these chains is to ensure that those who display racist opinions or actions are held accountable, as the murderers of George Floyd must certainly be. But we must also speak out, we must question ourselves and others, we must act without prejudice in our own spheres of influence, we must ensure that our children do not unlearn their natural instincts of equality.

We all like to believe that race relations have improved in our societies in recent decades, but have they? What is without doubt is that they have clearly not improved sufficiently and racist leaders such as Trump have simply emboldened those who have always harboured racist views, such as the killers of Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia. There are also less obvious offenders among us, such as Amy Cooper in Central Park, a so-called liberal who seems to be unaware of her own inbuilt racism and was happy to exploit the racial profiling rife amongst the police.

It is clear we still have a long way to go. Protest is not just entirely legitimate; it is essential for change to occur. Politicians will not lead the change, the police will not lead change, the judiciary will not lead the change. It is only us, the people, who can and must lead. We must own racism individually and crush it together. In the words of Don Delillo, ‘the future belongs to crowds’. Let our voices be heard!