I HAVE a thing about statues. And white men. I blame Captain Cook, famous son of Teesside, the local legend I grew up with.

My rite of passage is forever linked to him — drinking cheap cider in my local churchyard where his dad resides. I was enveloped in his heroism, even choosing to visit Cooktown in Australia because of our shared past.

He was also my awakening. Cooktown was the place in Australia where his ship the Endeavour was wrecked and repaired, where he sailed from to claim Possession Island and plant the flag for the crown.

It’s also where I met my white privilege, where I stood beneath Cook resplendent in bronze and realised Neighbours, another childhood staple, was not a true representation of the Australia I was in.

That’s the thing about statues and white men. Representation. To the white settlers of Australia, Cook represents the birth of their nation. To the indigenous Australians he represents their destruction, their torture, their rapes, their murders, the continuous erasure of their culture, traditions, language and right to exist.

I learnt through my childhood hero that everything I thought I knew about the world was a lie and everything about my education was tinged with white.

Fast forward to 2020 and the world watches as a black man dies under the knee of a white man. George Floyd’s death triggered a series of protests around the world. Black Lives Matter took the streets in the middle of a global pandemic and it seemed to signal a collective understanding that something had to change, that black lives did matter.

Statues of slave owners, of white heroes, were targeted, defaced and destroyed. The statue of slave trader Colston, in Bristol, was toppled and thrown into the river. Bristol listened. Schools and other institutions removed his name.

Then the discomfort kicked in. The white discomfort. “Counter-protesters” protected the statues, police protected the statues, the government protected the statues. Flags appeared in press conferences; the narrative started to spiral around protecting Britishness. The question of representation was lost.

Now, with the nation weary and weakened from a year-long stop-and-start lockdown, nationalism has hit its peak and when nationalism is used as a tool to silence it descends into something sinister like censorship or punishment.

The government has threatened to introduce a 10-year prison sentence for damage to a statue. Not a person. A statue. What is it about statues and white men when bronze is worth more than blood?

How can Britain call herself great when the possessor continues to oppress and the symbolism of our statues scream of white male supremacy?

Government gaslighting cannot change that fact or that representation matters. That’s why I have a thing about statues and white men.