utrage at the killing of George Floyd by a police officer in Minneapolis has spread across the world in recent weeks. The horrific images of a man killed by a knee to his neck have resonated with cases of lethal injustice closer to home. In Britain, among the names that come to mind is that of Stephen Lawrence, the black teenager whose murder by white youths and the bungled investigation into it exposed the racism of our most powerful police force. But earlier this week Neville Lawrence, Stephen’s father, spoke publicly to remind us not only why that case was so important, but also of the danger of losing focus on what it taught us. It is not surprising that many of the most important moments in US and UK race relations in the last 50 years have been triggered by racist mistreatment of black people by police. Interaction with the police – where life itself can be at risk – is where the most vivid, tragic and incendiary incidents often occur. Despite that, there are still some who mistakenly suggest that events in the US have no relevance to the UK. They will point out that while black deaths from police contact occur often in the US, they are comparatively rare in the UK. But that analysis misses the point: black people in the US and UK share very similar experiences of policing and racism, in the context of racial profiling, disproportionate stop-and-search, and excessive use of force. Just as importantly, they also suffer as a result of the perception in wider society that black people are threatening and dangerous. It is an ugly, deeply entrenched stereotype that blights the lives of black people in both places. For those white British people who look at George Floyd’s death and think, “That’s tragic, but it’s nothing to do with how black people are treated here,” just look at the thousands who have attended marches in London, or ask some black British people and see what they say. They will tell you that his death means something here because the problems in the relationship between black people and police in both countries is similar and is in urgent need of resolution. One of the great legacies of the Stephen Lawrence case is that now, when issues of racism gain public attention in the UK, many of us reach for what we learned from the Stephen Lawrence inquiry. It was chaired by Sir William Macpherson, and concluded in 1999, six years after Stephen’s death. It gave us a new vocabulary and a new way to understand how “institutional racism” permeated the police, many public bodies and much of modern British society. It taught us that what happened to Stephen, both at the hands of the racists that murdered him and the police who failed in their investigations, was actually part of a much broader problem with society as a whole. But perhaps in a well-intentioned effort to put those lessons into effect, British society’s reaction to George Floyd’s killing has moved almost immediately from what should be a call to action on tackling accountability and racism in the context of policing to a much wider, broader discussion about racism in all its forms. On TV, radio and online, George Floyd has prompted general conversations about diversity and inequality. Following the toppling of the statue of notorious slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol, debates on the monuments of empire and colonialism have resurfaced. In contrast, conversations about racism in policing, and specifically how it affects black people like George Floyd in the UK, are in danger of getting lost. Going quickly to the bigger picture can feel like a sophisticated understanding of the wider implications of the Stephen Lawrence inquiry. In reality, it misunderstands how the inquiry approached its task and what made its findings so powerful. The inquiry only got to those broader issues at a later stage. Its first priority – that remained a touchstone throughout – was to focus on the investigation of Stephen’s death and racism in the specific context of black people and policing, before moving on to wider issues of racism in society as a whole. Its detailed recommendations, that led to lasting change, only occurred because of that initial focus. Neville Lawrence spoke out this week, as both he and Stephen’s mother Doreen Lawrence have in the past, on why it is so important to remember the lessons about policing that the inquiry taught us. The truth is that there has not been sufficient change to policing since then. If we do not seize this moment of exceptional public concern over racism and police accountability, we will miss an extraordinary opportunity. The risk is that after much hand-wringing and general discussion, the specific problem of racism in the context of police mistreatment of black people will simply continue. The death of George Floyd, like the death of Stephen Lawrence, obliges us to recognise what makes this moment important. People of all ethnicities did not start protesting in Minneapolis because of the usual general concerns about people of colour – or in UK terminology BAME people – suffering various forms of discrimination. They took to the streets because they saw that, yet again, a black man had been killed in public by police flagrantly using excessive force, and no one was being held accountable. That clarity over the convergence of race and police accountability should be the focus for our discussions. The Stephen Lawrence inquiry had it right: begin with attention to the narrower, specific issues that require immediate action, before opening out to the wider issues that affect society as a whole. Similarly, the organisers of the recent Black Lives Matter marches in the US and the UK put at the centre of all their activity the names of black men and women who had died or suffered through police and state violence, and the need to achieve justice for them. Of course, those involved in the Black Lives Matter movement understand, as most of us do, that all aspects of racism are connected. You cannot fully address one particular manifestation of it without eventually looking at the broader issues. But if we jump straight to talking about racism in all its forms without remembering where our focus is, we will fail to address the specific injustice that has prompted our concern in the first place. Right now, our conversations and our action on racism should begin with police accountability, how black people like George Floyd are perceived by society, and how their lives are affected by that perception. We need to maintain that focus and stay on that topic to work out specifically how we will tackle that problem. That is how we honoured Stephen Lawrence and that is how we should be honouring George Floyd. Matthew Ryder QC is a barrister and represented the Stephen Lawrence family in their claim against the Metropolitan police