Why are we never greeted with headlines which are entitled with negative connotations around European, US or UK white folx.

The article mentions that four Iranian nationals plotted to instigate an horrific crime in the US. Now I’m not suggesting that we ignore the severity of the crime or even that we change the title of the headline.

I am, however, questioning why we rarely see headline in which UK nationals do bad things and are associated with their nationality?

Because their nationality doesn’t matter? I supposed it could be argued that in this case it does as a journalist critical of Iran was targeted… but does it? And how many times do we even acknowledge the crimes of white people in the media. I’ll write about this another time.

Why are we so quick to conflate and use the synecdoche with the good with our nation.

‘We won in the football’

But we are quick to distance and reject ourselves from the negative.

‘We benefit from the slave trade’

‘We fought two illegal wars and 500000 civilians died as a result’

This leaks into everything we do. The lesson we teach and the way we see ourselves and others in the world.

If we aren’t willing to accept as a nation we did some bad things then we aren’t ever going to see ourselves as anything other than superior to others.