I couldn’t agree more with Prince Harry’s comment in the Netflix documentary series Harry & Meghan that unlearning racism is a lifelong journey. As a 50-year-old provincial white man, I only hope I live long enough. Nels Abbey (A white lens sees Harry and Meghan as villains – through a Black one, they’ve done Britain a favour, 9 December) is right that Britain needs the catharsis of a serious discussion about racism and our colonial history.
Just as the US has yet to come to terms with the horrors of native American genocide and slavery, the UK has never addressed its role as a builder of the slave trade and brutal conqueror of a hundred or more nations. I love my country, but that love is tainted with the myth of a noble imperial history taught with equal enthusiasm by family, school and jingoistic media that reflect society only too well.
