danieldwilliam | On Not Being Born in the USA

There's a lot written about American politics. Two issues seem to consume the British commentariate like no other. The state of race relations and gun control. Both issues have had major talking points in recent months and the murders in South Carolina have brought both together.

And it's not that I'm not interested, curious, fascinated. I am It's not that I don't think the issues are important or that the people affected aren't important or deserving of the right answer to their problems. They are. It's not that I don't think there are answers. I certainly do.

But they are also issues, people and political solutions in a foreign country, no more or less important than similar issues in other countries.

Often I think that commentators in the UK are more excited about US race relations or US violent crime than they are about those issues in the UK. Dozens of British citizens have been murdered in a religiously motivated attack using uncontrolled guns in Tunisia and judging by the way my social media accounts are spinning you'd think it hadn't happened.

So, I'm interested and concerned but also trying not to say too much about and I'm looking out for blogs on the experience of Eastern European migrants to the UK, or how UK hindus experience hindu nationalism in India, and also on the subject of Australian boat people, gun control in Russia, land rights for indiginous peoples in South America, the experiences of white Zimbabwians or any of the experiences of not the US.

Just a friendly reminder to myself that the US is not the UK and the US is not the whole of the world.