A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far way, an actress was cast in a Star Wars film.
Kelly Marie Tran had a starring role in The Last Jedi and yet what was the biggest success of her career to date was soured by the racist abuse she suffered from some demented so-called fans online.
She deleted her social media accounts and only opened up about the events this week, revealing she fell “down a spiral of self-hate” due to the harassment she suffered.
Writing in The New York Times the Vietnamese-American actress described the insidious effects of the abuse sent her way.
She wrote: “It wasn’t their words, it’s that I started to believe them.
“Their words seemed to confirm what growing up as a woman and a person of colour already taught me: that I belonged in margins and spaces, valid only as a minor character in their lives and stories.”
Scotland, as a country, likes to think it is largely beyond racism. The far-right exist only on the fringes of society while the independence movement has promoted of Scotland as a “modern, international and civic” country.
For the overwhelmingly white majority of the population that is undoubtedly true.
For people of colour, less so.
Last week Monifieth and Sidlaw councillor Ben Lawrie revealed how his girlfriend Mariam Mahmood was verbally abused in Dundee bus station by a stranger, solely because of the colour of her skin.
Mariam’s comments should shame us all.
She told The Courier: “I’ve grown up with this throughout my life when people use racial slurs almost as ammo against you but Ben has never witnessed it so the bus station incident was shocking for him.”
The incident should have been shocking for Mariam as well.
No child in Scotland should grow up being victimised because of their skin or be taught that they belong to the margins and spaces.
Nobody should ever have to get used to such abuse.
Racism may be less overt than it used to be but it still exists and must be condemned and fought wherever it raises its head.
If we fool ourselves into thinking it is just the preserve of idiots online or spittle-flecked neo-Nazis, then we become part of the problem, not the solution.
