On the evening of the 29th of July, 2005, Anthony Walker, aged 18, was attacked in an unprovoked racist hate crime that proved fatal the next morning.
On the evening of the 27th of July, 2020, a BBC film about the life he could have led moved viewers to tears over racial injustice.
After an evening babysitting his nephew, Walker and his girlfriend Louise Thompson walked to the bus stop with his cousin Marcus Binns when they were admonished with racist abuse from cousins, Michael Barton (17) and Paul Taylor (20). Barton and Taylor followed the three in their car and ambushed them in the park. Binns and Thompson managed to escape to get help but Walker was fatally struck in the head with an ice axe and left to die. The killers were eventually convicted and sent to prison.
The film explores what Anthony’s life might have been like. He could have saved his friend from homelessness. He could have married the love of his life. He could have had a daughter. He should have lived.
It is Barton and Taylor’s disgusting violence that meant both the film and this article are littered with ambiguity but there is only one certainty that matters: he was black. So they killed him.
The next time someone says to you ‘but racism isn’t really a UK problem’ tell them to watch this film and educate themselves.
Written by Coco Clelland
Artwork by Zara Masood
Comments