After occupying the front pages of the world’s media for about four months, the Covid-19 pandemic has finally handed the spotlight over to the eruption of nationwide riots in the US this week. The scenes of civilian protests turning into flimsy grounds for explicitly racist state violence are a sobering reminder that the US is no land of the free and equal, especially if you are black or a coloured minority. However, British, Canadians, Australians and Europeans too quick to put themselves on a pedestal must remember the anti-blackness endemic in their own societies, and understand that their own law enforcement agencies also manifests this prejudice with violence and impunity. It is not just the white Americans who need to change.