Michael Jackson got to the heart of racial friction issue 30 years ago

How the mighty have fallen. Al Jazeera, June 10:

The police killing of George Floyd has triggered anti-racism protests around the world. A number of monuments with links to colonialism and slavery have either been defaced or pulled down in Europe and the US as protests continue for racial justice.

The temperature is rising – but to Fahrenheit 451? The Weekend Australian, June 13:

A civic statue is a work of art. Don’t works of art merit some protection, or do we allow the statue-thugs to break into an art gallery and cut the nose off a portrait of a long-dead person? As for the city library, why not set fire to offending books?

Well, not burn, just don’t buy them. The New York Times, June 12:

The (National Public Radio) piece … refers to an NPR story published on June 6, titled “Your Bookshelf May Be Part of the Problem”. But the NPR story says nothing about book burning. Instead, it implores white people to examine their bookshelves and see if they are only reading authors that look like them.

Of course, Britain’s just as bad as the United States. Grazia Daily, June 3:

The UK is slowly waking up to the fact that racism exists here and the truth is, we have just as much of a race problem as the one so prominently associated with the United States’ past and present.

In a copycat sort of way. The Guardian, June 5:

“It was surreal to see Black Lives Matter marching down Oxford Street … with their hands in the air, doing the Black Lives Matter thing of ‘hands up, don’t shoot’, all escorted by unarmed British police officers,” (Douglas) Murray exclaims.

The minister, of Nigerian descent, is not for marching. BBC, June 4:

A minister has hit back at claims “systemic injustice” is the reason ethnic minorities are more likely to die from coronavirus in England. The Equalities Minister told them: “This is one of the best countries in the world to be a black person.”

So just how racist is Britain? London’s Daily Telegraph, June 11:

Britons with a Bangladeshi background typically earn 20 per cent less than whites. But those with Indian heritage are likely to earn 12 per cent more. For black Britons, it’s 9 per cent less; for Chinese, 30 per cent more. It’s hard to put these differences down to systemic discrimination based on skin colour.

Why do we have statues of people who killed “millions” of Aborigines? Former Victorian MP Lidia Thorpe speaking to 3AW’s Neil Mitchell on June 11:

Thorpe: We wouldn’t see a statue of Hitler in the middle of Tel Aviv.

Mitchell: You put it on the same level as Adolf Hitler?

Thorpe: Oh, absolutely, absolutely. You know millions of people were either murdered, or …

Mitchell: Millions? Millions?

It’s a long way from the killing of George Floyd. The Spectator, June 11:

As the daily marches have continued, their agenda has advanced to ending “structural racism” — which, being ill-defined, is also insoluble. Ergo, these convocations can carry on indefinitely.

Michael Jackson, Black or White, 1991:

It’s a turf war on a global scale
I’d rather hear both sides of the tale
See, it’s not about races
Just places, faces
Where your blood comes from
Is where your space is.