All sorts of potential issues are raised by the recent publication of Home Office statistics covering racist murders in Britain over the last decade.
I’d like to focus on one: the surprising – to me at least – number of white people who were apparently murdered because of the colour of their skin.
Between 1995 and 2004 there have been 58 murders where the police consider a racial element played a key part. Out of these, 24 have been where the murder victim was white.
It’s certainly not how the media have reflected things recently. Compare and contrast the attention given to the murders of Stephen Lawrence in London and Kriss Donald in Glasgow if you need proof.
Peter Fahy, the Chief Constable of Cheshire and a spokesman on race issues for the Association of Chief Police Officers, said it was a fact that it was harder to get the media interested where murder victims were young white men.
But why might that be?
Politicians and the authorities often face difficulty in raising the issue of racial attacks on white victims for fear that far-right extremists will try to exploit such events to stir up racial tensions.
What a lousy excuse. Neglecting to report the extent of racist murders of whites is a godsend for the BNP. Their traditional claims that working class Britons are being treated as if they didn’t count is actually given evidential support by this sort of attitude.
Any serious challenge to the politics of race hatred must involve politicians and officials being honest with us and not trying to sugar bitter tasting pills. In a world of freedom of information legislation, easy access to foreign newspapers and widely read blogs information can no longer be ‘managed’ to the extent it was in the past.
The BNP are Neanderthal throwbacks who deserve to languish in obscurity – let’s not help their recruitment drive by attempting to avoid reality, no matter how unpalatable.
