I WENT walking around Handsworth in Birmingham the other week. And do you know what? Not one of its many residents made me more comfortable by ‘whiting up’.

It wouldn’t have taken much. Just a little gesture of friendliness to make me feel more at home in an unfamiliar area of the country. Foundation in Caucasian shades was available in the shops, I checked.

After all, it’s not like we didn’t do the same for them. In the 60s and 70s, when we had many new black faces on the streets but none were yet presentable enough for television, we whites made them feel represented and ‘seen’ by blacking up.

In the spirit of friendliness and brotherhood, we applied boot polish and sang traditional spirituals on The Black and White Minstrel Show on prime time BBC1. And if it were necessary we’d do

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