Having grown up in a country where, as a child, various forms of racial abuse were everyday chat - from someone who was apparently not so bright being labelled 'a bit Irish', to a completely unprovoked comment in the town of Warminster that "Blacky needs a wash" - we were then clearly much less sophisticated people than the polity we apparently - or hopefully - comprise all these liberal years later. Post Thatcher; Major; Blair; Brown and in the first flush of Cameron; there is a lot to be praised.
Perhaps it is counterintuitive to praise a system that was originally responsible for the wrongful acquital of at least 2 of those guilty of Stephen Lawrence's murder. It probably seems odd to use the word praise within the context of Mrs Lawrence battling for 18 years from the first bungled and failed prosecution against a gang of overtly Racist Thugs, to a private prosecution, which also failed, to finally a guilty verdict (18 years later) against two of the neanderthals who were amongst the number of those responsible for Stephen's death that evening in Eltham in 1993.
It is appalling that the Police originally seemed determined that the crime must be a result of 'black on black' violence despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. It is, or at least was, a massive endictement against our Society that those accused gave the impression of such impunity as they were entering the court all those years ago. Their pugnacious demonstration that day - itself almost tantamount to a boast of responsibility; the footage of which is seared into our national consciousness - took nearly two decades of Mrs Lawrence's tireless work to be righted.
All this is a terrible indictment of how things were. Are things perfect now? Far from it. Is the Metropolitan Police Force no longer 'institutionally racist'? I don't know; but we do know that laws were changed post enquiry and for a large section of society beliefs were modified as a result of the suffering of the Lawrence family. One of the most significant public enquiries of the last two decades found incontrovertible evidence of terrible institutional prejudice amongst the very body charged with the protection of us all. However, those findings led to massive - unprecedented in fact - change within the Metropolitan Police Force. The fact that such change was required is an indictment within itself but, sadly, every society has its racist thugs, their victims and examples of police incompetence or even complicity. Stephen Lawrence was not the only person to have been killed because of his colour; but his is the only murder in living memory to have had such a seismic effect on the institutions that govern us all. That the body politic and society in general could, albeit at such a cost, respond in this way deserves some praise. Cold comfort but hopefully some comfort at least?
