Sam Smith Tweets About the Moment He Learned Racism Was Still a Thing

Robert Kessler
·Editor
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Sam Smith (Photo: Getty Images)

You don’t have to know a whole lot about golden-voiced wunderkind Sam Smith to know that he is white. With that comes a certain amount of privilege and a blissful ignorance; an ignorance that, for Sam Smith, was shattered Wednesday.

“Just experienced my friend getting verbally abused racially in London,” Smith tweeted. He says he was “speechless” and that he “never ever ever ever thought [racism] would happen here.”

However, a 2015 report by the British newspaper the Evening Standard found that the rate of racially- and religiously-motivated hate crimes rose by 28 percent in London between 2013 and 2014, from 9,965 reported incidents to 12,749. So he probably shouldn’t have been so surprised.

However, Smith’s worldview would soon shatter even further.

Police indifference to the struggles of racial minorities is certainly a larger problem in America than in the United Kingdom. However, in 2013, the Metropolitan Black Police Association, an organization founded to improve working conditions for minority officers in the London police force, declared the Metropolitan Police Service to be “institutionally racist.”

“Institutional racism is not about labelling individuals racists but rather police practice and procedures that bring about disproportionate outcomes for black and minority ethnic communities and police personnel,” MetBPA Chairman Bevan Powell said at the time.

Smith didn’t specify the race of his friend who was harassed and no further details of the incident have been reported. Anti-Semitic and Islamophobic attacks are increasing most quickly in London.

Racism is inexcusable, and speaking out about it is a step in the right direction. Smith just received his first Oscar nomination — for writing the Spectre theme song “Writing’s On the Wall” — amidst massive backlash about the Academy’s failure to nominate any actors of color for the second year in a row. To be surprised by the unique dangers and prejudices that minorities and people of color face on a daily basis is an ignorance in and of itself.

UPDATE: In response to backlash about Smith’s seeming incredulous at the concept of racism, he posted a statement on Instagram. It reads:

For the record, I was merely sharing an experience I had in the hope it would draw attention to how ridiculous it is to be racist in 2016.

This is not about me in any way, it’s about a deep rooted issue we have in our society that should now be extinct.

I don’t profess to know or remotely understand what it means to be on the receiving end of racist abuse, but having been bullied my whole life for being gay, what I do know id that it is wrong and completely unacceptable.

Here’s to people being allowed to be people.