With Rhode Island’s politics-watchers all atwitter and fainting over a white woman’s expression of regret about a lost friendship that seems to her to have been related to differing races, the need for context seems urgent.  For comparison, consider this story out of London:

The attack, which took place at 7.20pm on December 2, happened as the victim left West Hampstead Underground Station after work. His alleged attacker was desecrating a public menorah, erected to celebrate Chanukah, when he approached his victim and asked: “Are you Jewish?”

He added: “I want to find a Jew to kill.”

The attacker chased the victim into a local store after the police told the latter that his situation “did not warrant a priority response.”  In the store, the attacker beat the man expressing his intention to murder him.  It appears he pulled out a knife, and the police eventually were persuaded to travel to the scene, although the order isn’t clear.

Whatever those details, we should keep this incident on the board for comparison with the outrages of the day in Rhode Island.