“I live on the border now to a whole area of them… that’s why I am moving further away from them…I don’t want my son to be mixing with them at all”

It is shocking to be confronted with outright racism; as horrible as this is to say, I’m used to racism being quieter – more discrete, less openly confrontational. However at lunch today, all of the above was said openly, by someone I considered a friend. Such is her blindness to her own prejudice, she said all this to two people in inter-racial relationships. When confronted and asked if she would feel the same about black people, she no, off course not. Only ‘Asians’.

When pushed that this view was really quite awful, the justification was that she is entitled to hold her own opinions. Which is entirely true. Just as I am entitled to neither share those opinions, nor to give her any more of my time.

I wonder if humanity will ever overcome its petty tribalism, its fear of the other. On my more cynical days I think that this will only occur once we have another other. Maybe robot swarm. Or an alien invasion. Which is something to look forward to.