Black History Month started a few days ago and every year it represents the opportunity to have a focus on the culture as well as the impact of people in the UK with African roots. I love it. It’s brilliant.

Before I came into prison, I’d eat African and Caribbean food, listen to music of black origin and try to learn more about African and Caribbean countries. I would also reflect on society’s changing attitudes towards race because in my lifetime, there has been a huge improvement although there is still work to be done.

Of course we are facing issues around migration but the existential threat to the human race caused by climate change will mean that the equatorial band of the planet will become uninhabitable within a few decades so we’d better change our attitude to migration pretty quickly. Mass migrations north will happen and it is our human duty to cast away political divides and be open and welcoming to new influences on the way we live.

Full disclosure time: I do not know the current ethnic mix statistics of Scotland [96% white, #6]. However, I have lived here all of my life and it is clear that the vast majority of people in Scotland are not of African roots so why oh why was the first prison I was in not representative of that mix?

If I was a Daily Mail journalist, I would write that this demonstrates criminal tendencies but I won’t say that because there is another detail and it is colour related – Red and Blue. In my first prison, remand prisoners had to wear blue and convicted prisoners had to wear red so people often arrived wearing blue and it is pretty inevitable, given the grotesquely unbalanced legal system making it almost impossible to fairly defend yourself, that they would turn red (ie be convicted).

So I am troubled by my observation in the exercise yard that many guys in blue were of African origin or, indeed, Asian or Middle Eastern but the mix isn’t the same for guys in red. To put it another way, it is my observation that non-white guys are remanded more than white guys. They have their liberty taken away from them whereas white guys don’t as often.

But that they don’t progress to red means they don’t become convicted – ie they were innocent all along. Let us just pause a second to consider this: my personal observations suggest that non-white people are more likely to have their liberty taken away from them despite being innocent.

I wrote at the beginning of this article that there have been huge improvements in social attitudes towards race but in here, I’m far less certain. Clearly, some work needs to be done but I bet it won’t because nobody gives a damn what happens in here.

NaN.