Let's not repeat racist mistakes

It will be 40 years ago this Friday that America’s great civil rights leader Martin Luther King was gunned down on a motel balcony in Memphis.

That tragedy came five years after the reformist US President John F. Kennedy had half his head blown away in Dallas, and shortly before his brother Bobby’s bid for the White House came to a bloody halt when he was assassinated in Los Angeles. Partly because of the horrified reaction to these events, things have changed out of all recognition. And not just in America but here in Britain as well.

True, we didn’t have the racial segregation that disfigured large parts of the US. But we did have real race hatred — remember the signs on boarding house doors, saying “No blacks, Irish or dogs”?

Except for mentally disturbed people, like the activists of the British National Party, open racism has all but vanished. But we cannot afford to let our guard down. There is still deep prejudice just below the surface in many aspects of life here. And it is fed by the speed of change, which brings insecurity and uncertainty to life in 2008.

And at a time when the pundits are talking up our economic problems and creating an atmosphere of fear of the future, it is even more important we learn the lessons of the years since the Rev King told us “I have a dream” — a dream of a society free from divisions based on skin colour and race.

We need to understand and combat the fear that comes with economic belt-tightening. We must also tackle head-on those that will be whipping up division in the run-up to local elections in a month’s time. And while we should never attempt to live in the past, we can learn from it in order not to repeat old mistakes during today’s comparatively minor difficulties.

The message echoing like a gunshot from history is clear. Race hatred, and even unthinking pronoucements, are more dangerous than ever when insecurity threatens. That is why this is a time for care in everything we say and do.

David Blunkett (writing in the Sun)