Man Who Only Has A Hammer Sees Nothing But Nails

Something is happening, and we see it on both sides of the Atlantic. On the surface, it is about flags, identity and political allegiance. But to me, as an American living in Britain, recent events reveal something deeper: both our societies are normalising hate ​and othering in ways that corrode not only our politics but our souls.

Nothing better than a foreigner come to tell us where we are all going wrong, eh? Good old 'Guardian'! But maybe I shouldn't be hasty, maybe he has something valuable to s...

Oh.

The something is aggressions and micro-aggressions: a coarsening of everyday encounters. I have snapshots. Recently, at a celebrated creative hub in London, I twice endured blatant bias. My guests and I – the only all-Black table in the room – were left in the dark, literally. As night fell, every other table was given a lamp except ours. When I raised it with management, I was interrupted, dismissed and told it was an oversight. A Black staff member was sent to smooth things over​. An official later told me that while they had “a different view of what happened”, they accepted that this was “how [I] experienced it” and admitted it “fell short of [their] usual standards”. My Blackness was overlooked, diminished and dismissed – while whiteness was appreciated, affirmed and celebrated, in a space that loudly markets itself as a home of “belonging”.

The thought that there could be other reasons for this failure to supply a lamp doesn't appear to have ever crossed his tiny mind; maybe the staff were working to a rota of tables and that one was last? Maybe all the other tables were polite and appreciative, and his was loud and racous and demanding, so naturally the staff left him to last? 

These are not minor indignities. They are signs of a culture where suspicion and prejudice are no longer whispered but weaponised.

Of course they are, dearie.... 

Martin Luther King Jr warned: “Let no man pull you so low as to hate him.” Hatred, he knew, corrodes the hater as much as the hated. Love, by contrast, is the only force capable of transforming both. This is not abstract philosophy. It is lived truth.

That you can use MLK as an example, when he'd be utterly horrified at what modern day 'black culture' represents is enough evidence for anyone to immediately dismiss your chip-on-the-shoulder whinge. 

Societies cannot thrive if they are built on grievance. Empathy must become a public practice woven into our schools, workplaces and laws.

The black movement itself is built on grievance.  

Here in Britain, empathy would mean confronting racism where it hides in plain sight: in private clubs that celebrate whiteness while ignoring Blackness, and in everyday encounters where bias is excused as banter.

I've thought about this and decided: nah.