Anguilla’s Silence After Kenny Mitchel’s Death: A Family Betrayed, A Community Still Waiting for Justice Share More than six years after the killing of Anguillian hotel worker Kenny Mitchel , the island remains shrouded in a silence that many residents describe as unbearable. Mitchel, a young father and beloved member of the West End community, died after a violent encounter with American tourist Scott Hapgood at the Malliouhana Resort in 2019. What followed, or rather, what didn’t follow, has left a wound that has never healed. For many Anguillians, this case has become a symbol of how quickly justice can evaporate when power, privilege and international politics collide. Hapgood was charged with manslaughter and initially appeared in court, but he later stopped returning to Anguilla, claiming he feared for his safety. Authorities insisted those fears were unfounded, yet no trial ever took place. No verdict. No accountability. No closure. Inst...
The outrage over Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo being called the N‑word on national British television today is understandable, but the shock? That’s the part we need to interrogate. This wasn’t a live broadcast. It was taped, reviewed, edited, approved, and still aired. That means multiple people saw the slur, had the power to remove it, and chose not to. So the question isn’thow did this slip through? It’s why was it allowed through? Was it carelessness, cultural incompetence, or something far more revealing about the way Black people are still positioned in British media spaces?
John Davidson, a Tourette’s syndrome activist and inspiration for the film I Swear, was identified as the audience member who shouted expletives and the N‑word while Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo were on stage:Image Credit: Getty Images.
Earlier this year, ALL ANGLES UK examined this very pattern in our piece on Nick Buckley, where he publicly declared that “no one cares about being called racist anymore.” That sentiment didn’t come out of nowhere — it reflected a growing boldness, a confidence among some that racism has become socially negotiable again. Today’s broadcast feels like a continuation of that same cultural shrug. When a slur as historically violent as the N‑word can make it through an entire production pipeline without anyone stopping it, it tells us something uncomfortable: racism isn’t being dismantled; it’s being normalised.
Britain loves to congratulate itself on being “post‑racial,” yet incidents like this expose the myth. The shock many people feel today is less about the word itself and more about the realisation that the systems meant to protect marginalised communities simply don’t. If a global superstar and a veteran Black British actor can be publicly demeaned without intervention, what does that say about how everyday Black Britons are treated in workplaces, classrooms, and public life? The message, intentional or not, is that respect is conditional, and dignity is negotiable.
We can debate whether this was a mistake or a message, but the impact is the same: it reinforces a hierarchy Britain still refuses to confront. Racism here isn’t hiding in the shadows; it’s flourishing in plain sight, woven into decisions made in rooms where no one feels compelled to say, “This is unacceptable.” And until that changes, the shock will keep coming, not because these moments are rare, but because they reveal a truth many would rather ignore.
