The post #Brexit rise of racism and ignorance

A young, disabled black reader of The Barnet Eye emailed me to explain his distress at two recent incidents of racist abuse. He told me that following the #Brexit vote, for the first time on his life he has felt scared and vulnerable due to his race. Below is my response to him.

When people are racist, you should try not to get angry or upset. It simply means that person Is not properly educated. They clearly do not know that Muslim scholars invented modern maths,Romans invented our alphabet, Greeks invented democracy. They have not twigged that as the Jewish people originated from the Middle East, Jesus and all the Jewish prophets were not white. 

St George, the Patron Saint of England was a refugee from Palestine. Jesus himself was an asylum seeker in Egypt, fleeing persecution by Herod.

Racists have not realised that humanity started in Africa and people are only white because of a genetic mutation. 

We are all the same apart from a tiny number of genes. 

Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Ghandi and Martin Luther King are perhaps the most respected figures of the 20th century.

So when people make racist comments, don't be upset. Don't feel anger. Feel pity for them, at their poor education. But don't let this pity deter you from reporting their behaviour to the authorities. Sadly that is the only way to break their cycle of ignorance.