Katie Hopkins and the Mail on Sunday, quickly followed by others in the mainstream media, last weekend picked up on tweets posted on my personal social media. The headlines made allegations that I believe all individual white people “are racist”, insinuating that I support violence against white people because of this. The newspapers claimed that I supported specific behaviour from protesters in Dalston who “lit bonfires and hurled petrol bombs at officers”. There were reports I believed that white people had “colonised” Dalston. This is supposedly all the more shocking because I am a student at Cambridge University and president of its BME (Black and Minority Ethnic) campaign. The Mail on Sunday quoted a Conservative MP, Bob Blackman, who said I should be prosecuted for inciting racial hatred.

These papers misconstrued the meaning of my tweets and stripped them of proper context. Much focus has been placed on my claim that “all white people are racist”. This had been pulled out of a discussion I was having in which I addressed how racism is often portrayed as the sole preserve of the working class – and has been used to further stereotypes of working-class people as uneducated and brutish, which I reject.

I simply meant to observe that racial prejudice, where it exists, transcends gender, class, sexuality and age. Hence my statement that “white middle class, white working class, white men, white women, white gays, white children” are racist, while rhetorically hyperbolic, was a clear reference to the fact that racism is not an exclusive characteristic of any one demographic. My experiences as a black gay man facing racism from white gay men have taught me this.

Cambridgeshire police swiftly dropped an investigation because they clearly saw what the press decided to ignore: that in no sense was this an incitement to racial hatred. No news organisation that ran my story sought to clarify what my comments actually meant before publishing. Newspapers decided to use a picture of me where I was frowning, perhaps playing into a repetitive media stereotype of the “aggressive black man”. I was also reported as Cambridge’s “head of equality” rather than an elected president of a campaign group that advocates for the specific liberation issues of students of colour. The discussion mentioned was tweeted separately to others in support of Dalston protesters, which reflected my continued support of those who seek justice in the face of inequality and, in some cases, brutality.

Separately, I also expressed my concern for how often working-class black (and white) communities in certain corners of London find it difficult to survive when faced with the arrival of a richer class of people with a significant stock of capital. I have friends and family who have experienced the demolition of social housing as London becomes more and more a playground for the elite.

We should all reflect on what biases we internalise. Overt displays of racism and other forms of discrimination have become less acceptable in Britain. One index of that change is a decline in the press’s use of racist language. However, this has gone hand in hand with two things: the persistence of more coded forms of racism and the development of narratives that refuse to recognise this. A British Social Attitudes survey in 2014 showed that more than 30% of people admit to being “a little” prejudiced. Its data shows that openly admitted prejudice persists in all segments of British society.

The events of last weekend have led to significant personal consequences for myself and my family. I have received death threats, rape threats and racist insults. My family, and especially my mother, is still dealing with the recent death of my father and have now had to face journalists doorstepping and harassing us. Some of these encounters with journalists have led to fictitious comments stated to have come from my mother and even a report of me being “smacked”. I was attacked as homophobic because of my observation that racism does exist in gay spaces, as has recently been explored in an episode of Queer Britain on BBC3. To defend myself against such accusations, I am having to come out in the national media as a gay man in full knowledge this had been information I had not yet chosen to disclose to relatives.

The press often attacks members of the public, often with character attacks on students of colour, as they believe that such people are unable to defend themselves. They are aware that this has an intimidating effect on other people, who see the treatment and public take-down of those who are outspoken or politically active in ways a paper may disapprove of. Such attacks attempt to clamp down on the free speech of minorities and silence dissent. Tactics include distorting words and insinuating what cannot be proved, as well as publishing personal information and private, embarrassing or unflattering photographs.

Finding ordinary members of the public whom they have selected for attack or ridicule is a core part of the press’s modus operandi. The advantage of picking on relatively unknown people like myself is that our attitudes and actions can be selectively and misleadingly described, with little fear that we have the public profile to fight back in the media or the money to challenge them in the courts.

The torrent of abuse and death threats you receive as a victim of this treatment makes you reluctant to speak out against the press, for fear that you will just provoke them more. But commitment to social change means challenging ideas and thought structures and continuing to in spite of barriers and backlash.

The events of last weekend have highlighted the dangers of speaking out, but, more significantly, the importance of speaking up for social justice, particularly from the perspective of a minority. Freedom of speech is viewed as a core value of British society and this must extend to instances where it is criticised or called in for scrutiny. Without challenge and diversity of thought, there can be no progress.

The author is president of Cambridge University student union’s Black and Minority Ethnic campaign