I wonder how many readers have ever heard of the name Kriss Donald? The young Glaswegian was just 15 years old in 2004 when he was kidnapped by a local gang of Pakistani men. The group selected him because he was white and they had some beef with a group of white men with whom Donald had no connection at all. After driving around for hours, the gang – led by one Imran Shahid – stabbed Donald repeatedly before dousing his body in petrol and setting him alight.

I also wonder how many readers have heard of the name Tony Timpa? The white, unarmed Texan was 32 in 2016 when he suffered some sort of mental breakdown in public. Instead of assisting him, police arrived at the scene and restrained him in such a way that he died. Bodycam footage released three years later – thanks to pressure from local journalists – showed officers kneeling on Timpa as he complained that he couldn’t breathe and mocking him as he lay dying.

Some cases seem to be selected for us as learning moments or opportunities to push a wider societal point

Some cases seem to be selected for us as learning moments or opportunities to push a wider societal point

I ask these questions because I can predict with a high degree of certainty that neither Kriss Donald nor Tony Timpa are household names. By contrast the names of Stephen Lawrence and George Floyd have been in our collective consciousness for 33 and six years respectively. There was a period after the death of both when it was heavily implied – to put........

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