I RECENTLY had the temerity to wonder out loud on social media what the Labour Party intended to do about the racism exposed in the recent publication of the long-awaited Forde report.

Doing this on social media, without putting in place strict protocols about who can see your posts, is always a dicey thing to do of course.

You run the risk of coming up against one of those people who spend their lives searching for an opportunity to insult someone.

For me it was a complete stranger, a white bloke who decided that I had no right to raise the issue because I was, apparently, “a far-left crank.”

To be honest it’s not the worst thing I have ever been called — even on social media. The most disturbing thing about the intervention of this troll is the idea that anyone, white or not, has the right to tell me when and where I can raise concerns about how racism is going to be dealt with.

At the root of this insult is something more serious. It is the worst kind of racism that says you are a less of a person because your role in life is to accept your inferiority without ever questioning it.

The more I have thought about this the more I can see a long-standing pattern of behaviour going right back to my childhood.

How dare I believe that I should grow up with any ambition that my role in life was anything other than to carry out the most menial of tasks? How dare I think that as I broke into well satisfying and impactful jobs that I could aspire to even more?

How “uppity” of me to think it was OK to break barriers and stand for election even though — apparently — I might be splitting the vote for a since-discredited candidate or because I, allegedly, “wasn’t quite what was being looked for.”

I have written extensively about racism over the years, including how some on the so-called left need to face up to their own racism.

In future I will write about my disappointments with other black people who only appear concerned to challenge racism in a way that benefits them.

I have no doubt that many black people reading this will have their own stories about being told not to complain because it might rock the boat — and when you go ahead anyway being labelled the problem yourself.

I still hear from black workers across the country who tell me of the difficulties they face getting support from some unions to deal with the racism they experience in their workplaces.

So when I ask the Labour Party what they are going to do about the racism that has been exposed in its ranks I am also saying the same to trade unions.

Obviously, the Forde report refers to the Labour Party but the trade union movement is facing its own challenge as they move closer to the publication of the TUC anti-racism task force report.

I’m certain from my time sitting on the task force in a previous role that everyone came to the work in a serious way, looking to make changes that would fundamentally change the experience of black workers in the workplace as well as their relationship to trade unions.

Patrick Roache, the general secretary of the NASUWT, is the chair of the task force and I know him to be a long-standing and serious champion of race equality without ever particularly courting any headlines on the issue — something I have been accused of in the past.

I know Roache and his colleagues on the task force will be working hard to make sure the outcomes are impactful and will make a fundamental difference to the movement.

In the end reports, whether it be Forde or the anti-racism task force’s, provide us a path to walk down — but we all have to choose to take the walk in a positive way and to make sure that people coming after us can see a clear pathway to follow.

Like many black people, I have experienced too much racism, heard too many fine words and seen too many reports to get over excited by someone waxing lyrical about how much they are against racism.

I am much more impressed by practical actions against racism — and not just when it’s convenient to do so.

Far too many people who were tripping over themselves to include a line in any available speech about how much black lives mattered to them a year or two ago are rarely heard mentioning it at all these days.

Imagine what it feels like to know that to many people your life is little more than a fashion accessory to be worn when it suits?

Black lives still do matter. Our right as black people to assert our humanity also matters as does our right to question what people in power intend to do about the racism they have so often chosen not to confront.

I will never stay quiet in some corner and just tolerate racism — regardless of whether I’m a crank or not.

My speeches for the last decade or so have often ended with me talking about organising because, in the end, reports won’t bring change but organising will.

Most of these speeches have ended in the same boring way — and may I take this opportunity to apologise for that.

It goes something like this: we can’t rely on other people to make change for us. There is no knight in shining armour who will come to our rescue at the last minute. In the words of the late great poet and activist June Jordan: “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.”

Roger McKenzie is a journalist and general secretary of Liberation — www.liberationorg.co.uk.