Absolutely agreed and very sensible, Azizi. Some day all people will think the same way but, unfortunately, just at the moment in the UK, any crime committed against a person of race other than English is under scrutiny of whether it is a racist crime. I must add that NOT all crimes against person of diverse ethnic origin are upheld to be race crimes but there is an awful lot of this getting through and casting perfectly good intentions in a bad light.

I fully understand the difference between racial and racist abuse - My Jewish daughter-in-law often refers to me as 'Cossack Scum' - racial but not racist (and quite light hearted of course!) On a more relevent issue when I was at school - pre 11 that is - My surname was Polakow. I got a fair amount of stick for that, but even then I knew which was a racial comment and which people were taunting me simply because I was different. I learned to steer clear of the latter.

I also remember, in my teens, an older lad commenting 'It must be sunny down there' when we were in Manchester and a crowd of black people were coming up the street. I had to have him explain it to me because I don't think I even noticed the colour! It was probably my first experience of anyone even mentioning differences in race - and I was about 14! I don't know to this day if it was a racist comment or not!

Cheers

DeG