Paulette Wilson, 61, came to Britain from Jamaica in 1968, when she was just 10, to live with her grandparents. She never left, living legally in the country for the next 50 years—attending school, serving meals at the House of Commons and to the homeless at her church, and becoming a grandmother. Then, in 2015, Wilson received notice that she was an illegal immigrant and would be sent “back” to Jamaica—a country where she didn’t know anyone. She was taken to a detention center, and only a last-minute legal reprieve kept her in the UK. “I wondered what was going to happen to me. All I did was cry, thinking of my daughter and granddaughter; thinking that I wasn’t going to see them again,” she told a reporter from The Guardian.1

From the Oklahoma bombing to the massacre in Norway it is always the same. In the immediate aftermath of mass murder, the initial hypothesis is that it must be a Muslim. And so it was on Monday that, within minutes of a van mowing down pedestrians in Toronto, a far-right lynching party was mobilised on social media looking for jihadis. Paul Joseph Watson, of conspiracy site Infowars, announced, “A jihadist has just killed nine people”; Katie Hopkins branded the Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, a “terrorist shill”.

One of the most tragic aspects of writing about gun deaths in America is hearing black parents make the case for why their child should not have been killed. They will impress on you that their children were not gang members, even when you don’t ask. They will make sure you know their kids had never been in trouble with the police, even when it is not relevant. In short they want to make it clear their child was a casualty worthy of your grief and empathy.

On 4 April Prince Charles opened the Commonwealth Games in Australia’s Gold Coast with a brief reminder of the historical ties that bind. “The ancient stories told by the indigenous people of Australia remind us that, even though we may be half a world away, we are all connected,” he said. “Over the years, these Friendly Games have shown the potential of the Commonwealth to connect people of different backgrounds and nationalities.”

On 15 January 1998, what would have been Martin Luther King’s 69th birthday, James Farmer was awarded the presidential medal of freedom in the White House’s East Room. “He has never sought the limelight,” said the then president, Bill Clinton. “And until today, I frankly think he’s never got the credit he deserves. His long overdue recognition has come to pass.”