From my article in The Sunday Times today:
“Mr Souleymane has been killed in the street. We are supposed to reserve judgement on the motivation of the killing until the police determine who did it and why. Of course we know the police are almost certainly not doing any such thing. Whether because they do not know how or because they could not be arsed, this will be one more crime we never get to the bottom of.
“That way we can also continue to think we are not capable of racial crime. Of course that also means that all those pedestrians on Triq tal-Ġebel will continue to live in fear that they are next. They are black and they are vulnerable. But nobody cares.
“There is this mistaken logic that ‘integration’ means that somehow immigrants mimic our language, accent, gestures and lifestyles. That is not integration. It is assimilation. If we had an integration policy, our police would be recruiting immigrants, getting training in their languages and cultures, understanding their needs and protecting their safety.
“The old saying is the police will not get out of bed if there is no blood on the floor. Scratch that. Make it a white man’s blood on the floor.”