The statues are a neat distraction from our own hearts

It's laughably shameful that permanent tributes to the men who organised and carried out the shipping of millions of black human beings across the world still exist in the UK, let alone that they are being described as "sacred" by our government. Edward Colston was a man who orchestrated the removal of around 84,000 people from their homes and moved them across the ocean in such squalid and vile circumstances that around 19,000 of them are estimated to die before they even reached their nightmarish destination. The outrageous amounts of money that people like him made from this heinous profession is why these people have permanent monuments to themselves that have far outstayed any welcome some gave them. Now when do we topple Oliver Cromwell, say the Irish?

Nevertheless, the fact that the conversation around race has now shifted to debating the merits of these people and whether Little Britain should be on telly is a downright disappointing shame. We obviously need a serious overhaul of what is considered acceptable (I would absolutely argue that David Walliams in blackface is not), but yet again, any chance we had of actually getting into the uncomfortable dialogue that underlies this is gone - shunted out of the way by Cecil Rhodes' bust.

We were getting into awkward territory for a moment; many white people are starting to grapple with these issues for real for the first time. Self-reflection and checking of privilege is occurring. Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race shot to the top of the Amazon book charts. People are owning their lack of understanding and seeking to get educated.

As I've spoken about before, any progressive dialogue about why black people are still treated as second-class citizens in this country, and how we can change that, has to start with ourselves and our own heart. Racism is not a binary; you are not either racist or not racist. We all have the capacity to be prejudiced and we all have to own our (unwitting or witting) contribution to the systemic racism that still chokes the life chances of millions of people in the UK.

The trouble is, that doesn't feel good. It really doesn't feel good to me that I have literally never considered, until this week, whether my buying power goes to supporting black-owned businesses. It doesn't feel good that I haven't even noticed that my kids' school has barely any non-white staff members.

We are all fallen human beings; the Bible says we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. None of us, I hope, would pretend that we'd want our life streaming on Netflix for all to see. It's easy to admit that in broad brush strokes, but actually confronting the fact that I as an individual have contributed to the oppression of black people in this country? No thank you. It's hard work to dismantle this way of thinking and many are recoiling at the prospect.

So what makes it easier to side-step this discussion while still pretending that we really care about Black Lives Matter? A nice distraction over statues of dead men, that's what. The national conversation and the newspapers have now rushed, like bees to a honeypot, to pontificate over how good and how bad Winston Churchill was and avoid the screaming elephant in the room.

Spoiler alert: all human beings are good and bad. Churchill was a great leader who led us to the end of the Second World War. He was also unequivocally a white supremacist who proclaimed that the British were a "stronger race, a higher-grade race" than "Red Indians" and the "black people of Australia" and that he didn't think any wrong had been done to them. The reason the slave traders have had such a visible legacy in cities across the UK is because they poured money into them. Never mind the fact that that money was bloodied with the wounds of black people whose descendants now live in the UK.

If we keep running from the darkness in our hearts, we can never change it. Pretending we are getting this right by looking at people who were worse is not the answer. It's hard to swallow the humble pie we all need to eat to actually get anywhere dismantling current white privilege. Those conversations need to start at a personal level, not with tweets about Cecil Rhodes' stoney-faced imperialism.

The good news is that once we do face up to our own culpability, there is grace. God promises in the Bible that when we say sorry for our wrongdoing, he is faithful and just to forgive us. His forgiveness gives us spiritual peace, but it doesn't mean we can escape from the complex consequences of racism, or injustice in any shape or form. But it does mean we can stop hiding behind statues and get to the crux of the issue: our own hearts.