Black person
According to Sunday Herald journalist Rachel Edwards, black people in the US used illegal drugs at about the same rates as white people, but were ten times as likely to be jailed for using them. She observed that black churches tended to be harder on drug use than any of the white churches, precisely because of the disproportionate damage it did to their communities, not wanting to see another generation of their young men condemned to hard labour in what amounted to a continuation of slavery under another name. (PROSE: Head of State)
Martha Jones was shocked to hear William Shakespeare describe her as a "delicious blackamoor lady." (TV: The Shakespeare Code)
Segregation of black people was rampant in the United States of America in the 1950s, in which black people were required by law to use separate facilities to the whites, particularly in Southern states like Alabama and Mississippi. These policies were in place from at least 1943. On 1 December, 1955, while travelling home from work, civil rights activist Rosa Parks famously refused to give up her bus seat when the bus became crowded, leading to her arrest, an event that the Thirteenth Doctor, Ryan Sinclair, Yasmin Khan, and Graham O'Brien witnessed. Her arrest lead to the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and a further chain of events that would result in the abolishment of segregation a year later. (TV: Rosa)
As well as segregation, black people suffered racial violence in the 1950s. After Ryan Sinclair attempted to return the glove of a passerby, Lizzie, he was slapped by her husband and ordered to get his "filthy black hands" off his wife. The husband alluded to Ryan being lynched were he to disturb a woman in Montgomery. After Rosa Parks calmed the man, she explained to the Thirteenth Doctor, Ryan, Yasmin Khan and Graham O'Brien that outsiders were not safe in Montgomery. Having read about the death of Emmett Till in the newspaper, she explained that the northern Till was found dead in a river after a "couple words to a white woman" while he was on vacation in Mississippi. (TV: Rosa)
In 2008, America was led by a black President. (TV: Rosa)
In the 21st century, Sheffield, racism existed on a lesser scale than that of the 1950s, bearing a massive difference. While not physically assaulted as he was in the past, Ryan Sinclair still remarked he would be stopped by the police more often than his white peers. (TV: Rosa)
In 2020, George Floyd, an American black man, was murdered by police, an act which was caught on film and quickly circulated. His death sparked mass protesting and rioting across America and the United Kingdom, in spite of the COVID-19 pandemic. In Bristol, a statue of Edward Colston was toppled by protesters and dumped into the river, with the same subsequently happening to other statues across the UK and America. Lucy Wilson's outlook on racism completely changed upon watching the video of Floyd's death, prompting her and Hobo Kostinen to join a peaceful protest in Ogmore-by-Sea, where everybody wore face masks and stood two metres apart. (PROSE: 8.46) Bill Potts also attended a socially-distanced march in Bristol. (WC: The Best of Days) "Black Lives Matter" was a phrase that had become synonymous with these protests. (PROSE: 8.46)
By the 79th century, there were still racists such as Krasko who expressed a desire to alter the history of Ryan Sinclair's "kind", attempting to prevent Rosa Parks from the arrest that would begin the Montgomery Bus Boycott and lead to the end of segregation. (TV: Rosa)
Trask assured Grey that a Highlander would do twice the work of one of his "black slaves". Perkins added "at least twice". (TV: The Highlanders)
