Dr Peter Moore: Multiracial marriages in a multiracial country - hopefully we will get there in racism battle

Also, who has heard of Nahel Merzout? Both were black men killed by police officers and both events lead to widespread riots. So why are they not equally famous? Will there be a new black lives matter after Nahel Merzout? Will we see footballers taking the knee in memory of Nahel Merzout?

One occurred in Minnesota, three thousand seven hundred miles away, and one in France, twenty miles away. Cherbourg is closer to Torbay than Bristol.

Because we almost speak the same language, use American social media and watch American TV and movies we often think that we have more in common with Americans than fellow Europeans. I have seen British people tweet pictures of Donald Thump with the line “not my president” which is true but in a different way to Americans. Most British people know more about US politicians than any in France, Germany or even Ireland.

One UK University copied and pasted their policies about race from an American University. Unfortunately, this included a section suggesting that we should give priority to “indigenous peoples”. That works in America but here the indigenous people are generally white. This policy might be popular for some far-right political parties but inappropriate for the rest of us. I am not sure that the university meant to encourage priority treatment for white people.

Britain, France and America all have problems with racism, but we have a different history. Most American black people are descended from slaves kidnapped in Africa. Although the British, along with the French, captured these people and transported them across the Atlantic, we did not systematically use slave labour in our own countries. This does not take away any of the guilt but does affect our history and racism today.

In France many of the black people are descended from Algerians when it was a part of their empire. Because France is strictly secular and espouses “Liberte, Egalite and Fraternite” they refuse to even record anyone’s race on official forms. Although well-meaning it means that they have no record of any underlying problems. They do not know whether racial prejudice can be seen in employment, education or housing. It is difficult to tackle a problem without knowing the scale of the problem.

British history is more complicated. There were several thousand black people living in London in Georgian times and many were successful. In the past historians wondered where these people went but now DNA has shown us that they did not go anywhere. The black Georgians married white people and, several generations on, their descendant are white.

We then had the influx of the Windrush generation 75 years ago. Post war Britian desperately needed these people to fill vital vacancies, but they often faced appalling racism. The expulsion of Asians East Africa between 1968 and 1972 led to another major change. Suddenly we found shops open on Sundays. Many of the descendants of these people have been massively successful and now achieve some of our best academic results.

Unlike America we have far better racial integration. The 2021 census found two million British people with parents from different ethnic groups. Only nine in 1,000 Americans have a mixed-race heritage while in the UK the figure was 13 to 1,000. A black person is four times more likely to marry a white person in the Britian than in America.

We need to look at the tragedy of George Floyd in the same way as the tragedy of Nahel Merzout. We can learn but we are not America or France.

Sadly, there is still racism in the UK. When some black English players missed in the penalty shoot-out during the Euro 20 (in 2021) they received revolting racial abuse online. We’re not there yet but with multiracial marriages in a multiracial country let’s hope that a century after Windrush in 2048 the whole idea of racism will seem as alien as prejudice against fair hair or left handedness.