This article and quiz is from the US context, but most of the questions could be applied to our society in the UK. It's point is to show that "anti-Blackness is deeply rooted in American culture, extending far beyond the most egregious examples of racist aggression. Racism manifests in laws, in advertisements, in economic policy, in media portrayals, in criminal justice, and in general society. We have all been steeped in it, and that you as a person have been unaffected by it is highly unlikely."

The legacy of slavery is an issue that needs to be recognised and tackled by our whole society – the descendants of those who benefitted, and continue to do so, as well as those who suffered, and continue to do so. Are we prepared to admit that racism is not sustained by hate groups? It is sustained by "everyday, good-hearted people who do not realize how deep anti-Black biases can be planted in our minds and our culture." These questions may help us to reflect more deeply.

This article in Premier Christianity magazine explores how the majority of UK churches are split on racial lines and asks: "Can we re-unite a segregated Church?" While there are a few notable exceptions, today's situation of most churches and Christian Festivals being mono- rather than multi-cultural is a legacy of racist attitudes going back 70 years.

"The tragedy of the Church’s racial divide is that much of it could have been avoided were it not for the racist attitudes that often prevailed in Britain and its churches in the mid-20th century. The first Windrush generation of Caribbean immigrants to the UK in the late 40s and 50s brought their Christian faith with them. But they failed to find a welcome in British churches, frequently being told that they were not welcome to attend. So, they began their own churches."

How much does the Church simply reflect wider society and how much does it demonstrate another, better way of relating to each other? If Martin Luther King's words “It is appalling that the most segregated hour of Christian America is eleven o’clock on Sunday morning” apply here too, it would seem that there is work to be done on justice and reconciliation among the people of God. Read the full article here.

An interesting article in today's Independent by Jame Moore is titled: "I used to love ‘Swing Low, Sweet Chariot’ – until I found out what it meant". With rugby's Six Nations tournament currently being played, this song will be sung by many, but the New York Times has suggested that "it might actually be grossly offensive to turn a spiritual from the slave-owning era in America into something as trivial as a sporting anthem." It consulted a number of academics about the use of the song and one commented that: "a group of people seemed to be free-associating with imagery largely disconnected from its history." Considering the lyrics are about the release of death for a slave who has been cruelly mis-treated, Moore reflects on a recent trip to the American South: "The ugly legacy of slavery was everywhere. Some of what we saw in museums about how it operated was truly horrifying. Set against that, the use of the song in a sporting context? Well it makes me shudder, anyway."
Read the full article here.

Trans-Atlantic slavery was just one aspect of the process of European colonialism, and a new book by Indian MP Shashi Tharoor has been described as a "blistering critique of our colonialist past". The themes of 'Inglorious Empire: What the British did to India' are said to have echoes today. In this interview with Channel 4 News and in this article Tharoor speaks of the legacy of empire as a British problem because of "historical amnesia about what the empire really entailed". Colonial history is not taught in schools and there is "no real awareness of the atrocities, the fact that Britain financed its Industrial Revolution and its prosperity from the depredations of empire."