Episode
Chine McDonald
- Podcast
- Thought for the Day
- Published
- Jun 18, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 186
- Processing state
not_requested- Canonical source
- http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0nspq49
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Summary
Good morning, There’s much discussion over flags and marches and what it means to be British at the moment. This has meant the legitimate concerns of some have led to my own legitimate concerns for my family’s safety. As an immigrant and a visible ethnic minority in the town in which I live, I can feel a sense of dis-ease and fear about whether or not I’m welcome in the nation which I have called home my whole life. It’s within this climate of hyper-vigilance that I boarded a local bus and braced myself for some racist words from one particular man – someone I had judged based on the colour of his skin. To me, he looked like the type of person who might not like me. I thought he might shout some abuse, or tell me to go back to where I came from. Instead he showed me kindness. He held my son’s buggy for me as I struggled with mine and my kids’ belongings, giving up his seat so we could sit down. I could have wept at the simple humanity of it. And the shame of me pre-emptively judging another based on a perceived difference. All around us we see evidence that our society is fractured and fragmented and polarised. The horror of the scenes in Northern Ireland, and the sadness as we remember MP Jo Cox’s murder 10 years ago this week. We’re told time and again that we have more in common than what divides us. But I wonder whether this suggests we need to find our commonality before feeling a shared humanity. Maybe it’s recognising our difference and choosing decency, kindness, and even love despite those differences that we should value. The Christian tradition can help us here in the example of the early Church – people from many different backgrounds and cultural and religious traditions – came together, sharing everything they had, not because they were the same, but beca…