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Why Do Some People Feel Threatened By An Ethnically Diverse British History?

Over the past week or so, the country has been divided over a Facebook post on white supremacy made by black trans model Munroe Bergdorf. As we all know, she was fired just days after being hired for a diversity campaign by cosmetics company L'Oréal, and has faced a torrent of abuse over her comments which were misrepresented in the media. Black women in the public eye can experience unbelievable levels of abuse. White women speaking out about racism, or even black history, are also not immune to this. 

At the beginning of August, Mary Beard, Cambridge University classicist and television presenter, faced a torrent of online abuse after posting comments on  the ethnic diversity of Roman Britain. Her comments were in defence of a BBC schools cartoon which featured a family in Roman Britain where the father, a high-ranking Roman soldier, appeared to be black. An alt-right commenter had objected to the cartoon saying, ‘The left is literally trying to rewrite history to pretend Britain always had mass immigration.'