Who's who?

I'm having to get used to a whole new way of thinking. And I hope it's temporary.

We now have to judge people on whether they look foreign. If they do (because they are too dark-skinned, too blond, have slanty eyes, talk funny) in the UK we are now free to insult them. A teenage boy on a Manchester tram did that the other day. He didn't like it when he was challenged for swearing by a man who looked Chinese/Thai/Singaporean - who knows? - and he went on the attack when challenged for his racist views. I'm glad to say the passengers were quick to react against him.

Not that racism is all one way. My niece in law (my way of explaining relatives who - poor souls - have married my nephews) was abused in a shop in the southside community where she lived at the time. Why was a Muslim woman with a white man? asked the man serving her, a Scot of Asian descent. She's not a Muslim or for that matter in any way connected to communities that might be Muslim. She's from South America and, if pushed, she would say she's a Catholic. But she looks foreign. She and her Scottish partner made a big thing of it. With luck, that shop assistant may think twice about accosting another customer.

Foreigners are now a bad thing, it seems.

When you think about it - thinking not being a strong point among the - I hope - small racist part of the UK - we're all foreigners. I've travelled around the northern hemisphere and a bit of the southern hemisphere. I've been a foreigner in India, Nepal, China, South Africa, Swaziland, Mozambique, Singapore, most of Europe, Japan, the USA and Canada but no one has ever pointed out how foreign I am.

I've avoided racist incidents, apart from the one in South Africa in apartheid days where a nice wee white man told me how sad it was that 'we' no longer got to enjoy sports like golf and rugby and I had to say: No problem! Stop discriminating against black people and we'll be happy to play you at any game you like!

The awful racism will, I hope, die down in days to come in the UK. But it would be good for politicians and newspapers to understand their responsibility in stirring up bad feeling within communities.