Race is a social construct. But we must now confront the fact that it was constructed, in part, here, by so-called “great men” – our great men – whose legacy continues to shape our country and institutions. And their legacy still causes us harm.

This harm is not abstract. In 2024 alone, Police Scotland recorded 4,794 hate crimes under the new Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act. Black and minority ethnic people are 60% more likely to live in the most deprived parts of Scotland than their white counterparts. Black and minority ethnic workers have poorer outcomes than white workers when applying for jobs in our public sector organisations.

These are reverberations of a legacy born in Enlightenment philosophies that theorised racial hierarchies – ideas presented as science, later used to justify enslavement and colonialism. These narratives of white supremacy negatively affect us all, and they continue to endanger and blight the lives of Black and Brown people.

What happens next must therefore go beyond apology and symbolism. It must be structural, sustained and fiercely imaginative. Education is key. Not just to correct the record, but to transform how we imagine and create a better nation. Within our schools, reform is under way – initiatives such as Education Scotland’s Building Racial Literacy programme and collectives such as The Anti-Racist Educator provide vital resources and training.

Such efforts must be scaled, funded and politically backed if they’re to meaningfully reshape how we understand ourselves, how we embed anti-racism within our institutions and how we teach Scotland’s history.

Edinburgh council’s Slavery and Colonialism Legacy Review, endorsed by councillors in 2022, included a public apology and the creation of an implementation group, chaired by Irene Mosota, to guide reparative action. This included initiatives such as the Disrupting the Narrative project, which has formed the main body of my work as Edinburgh makar (the city’s poet laureate). The meetings of the Scottish BPOC Writers Network’s writers group at the University of Edinburgh, and the important work of mentorship and support from We Are Here Scotland are also living examples of this reparative work. This work is not symbolic – it is foundational. It allow us to rebuild from the margins, and write ourselves back into the story of Scotland, and into the story we tell.

This is a live, unfinished conversation – one that must embrace intersectionality, mobilise solidarity and resist the far right’s weaponisation of pseudoscience and historical denial. Opposition to anti-racism is often framed as resistance to “political correctness”, and calls for decolonisation are frequently mocked or deliberately misunderstood. Silence, however, is complicity.

History is not settled. Our story is not finished. We are capable of confronting ourselves honestly and critically. We can take pride in our history of social justice movements – but this pride must also own and acknowledge the truth of what and who built this nation. That means interrogating our past and the reasons for our collective amnesia. It means listening to voices long silenced. The time has come, Scotland. The time has finally come.

Hannah Lavery is a Scottish poet and playwright. She will be appearing in Disrupting the Narrative – a Performance, at the Edinburgh international book festival