The killing of George Floyd also generated a climate of hysteria over race. Suddenly, 'white privilege', 'unconscious bias', 'decolonisation', 'critical race theory' and 'cultural humility' were phrases we all began to hear. As a black woman journalist and commentator, I experienced this myself. At one point, when I dared question some aspects of the BLM movement, I was maligned as the worst kind of racist and even - absurdly - called a 'black Nazi'. Derek Chauvin, whose very name is synonymous with racist evil, is like the hate figure Emmanuel Goldstein in George Orwell's novel 1984, designated by the state as an enemy of the people. But given the backdrop of turmoil in America in early 2021, it is now legitimate to ask whether he really received a fair trial. The willingness even to pose such a question would provoke outrage among liberals and would be seen by some as an act of racism in itself....read