Susan McKay reports on a problem that the judiciary seem to have been slow to act on, that of race crime. She tells the story of the death of a man who’s killer was given a 17 month sentence. She’d interviewed the victim, Brij Sharma, during a season of riots a few years ago:
He described constant, casual, racist abuse. The ones in Celtic shirts called him an Orange Paki bastard. The ones in Rangers shirts called him a Fenian Paki bastard. The British soldiers just called him a Paki bastard. He laughed it all off, and served everyone with unfailing courtesy. He deplored the way sectarian strife was destroying the area. Children used to play in the local park, he said. “Now there’s a wall through it to keep the sides apart. There are friends who can’t speak to each other. Some of the people who attack me are my childhood friends. Now their children are calling my children racist names.”
Mick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest and speaking events across Ireland, the UK and Europe. Twitter: @MickFealty
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