Mal Fletcher comments on racism in the UK

Should we simply ignore these small-scale actions of a few fevered football fans?

There is definitely a case to be made for not over-reacting.

In an age where there are cameras on almost every building and in almost every hand, it is possible to get caught up in the minutia of such stories and lose sight of the bigger picture.

We must keep a sense of perspective and not allow reasoned discussion to give way to hyperbole and hysteria - or party political arguments that focus on fear at the expense of reason.

That said, failing to challenge racially-inspired incidents can seem to suggest, to those already so inclined, that we condone them.

Last summer, the Community Security Trust (CST), a charity set up to protect Britain's Jewish community, recorded its highest-ever monthly total of anti-Semitic incidents.

The CST said it was aware of 302 such events in July 2014, compared to 59 in July 2013. A third of the incidents reportedly related to imagery and language relating to the Holocaust.

Reports are also emerging that other ethnic minorities are suffering abuse. Today I learned that some Chinese groups in the north of England are noting rising levels of abuse.

On their own, some of these racial events might seem insignificant to anyone who is not directly involved. They are not meaningless to the people who endure the abuse.

If we ignore such events, however apparently small, we miss the opportunity to uncover patterns.

We don't need hysteria, but we do need an athletic determination to stamp out racism, as much as it is in our power to do so.

Incidents like the one on the Metro station may seem to suggest that racism will always be with us. They may seem to show that racism is linked to something fundamental within human nature.

Fatalism is not the answer, however, and being realistic about the insidious nature of the problem does not necessarily preclude the pursuit of an ideal.

This is powerfully demonstrated in the movie Selma, based on the life and work of Martin Luther King and his fellow civil rights activists.