The world is rioting right now. Fires are burning, in the streets, in countries across the world, within people who have been discriminated against for centuries.
We all have a responsibility. To ourselves, to our neighbours, to our families and to our futures, to fight for what is just and important to us. How we fight is personal, and it will be different for everybody – that should not be forgotten. Not everyone can take to the streets with posters and signs! The blind community will fight with audiobooks to educate their souls. The chronically ill will pick up books and call relatives, passing on petitions and offering supplies to those who need it. The young will love, love so passionately without discrimination and prejudice, when they are guided to. Students will put down their coursebooks, watching educational videos, listening to the voices of those who have been silenced in the past.
We fight for Black Lives Matter, #MeToo and the Climate Emergency movement most memorably in recent times, but there is so much more we must fight for. We must stand up to the bullies in the classroom, the corporate demons increasing the price of medications in America, the governments denying free speech and holding their people as slaves. As a person of privilege – whether that’s able-bodied, white, male, heterosexual the list goes on, we must continue to fight. Until our bookshelves cannot hold any more material, our voices are hoarse from the names of those wrongly murdered and abused, until we live in a world of equality.
Right now, as a young woman born into white privilege, I use my voice and my body to fight for people of colour. I cannot begin to understand the pain they have been through, or even try to fully understand the extent to which racism underlies Western society. But I will try. I will read, and listen, and put my body in front of those who’s bodies have been so quickly murdered, abused and degraded. I will sign petitions and pay bail. I will make signs and say their names.
Mark Duggan. Sheki Bayoh. Christopher Alder. Smiley Culture. Jimmy Mubenga. Michael Powell. Leon Briggs. Ricky Bishop. Brian Douglas. Joy Gardener. Sean Riggs. Leon Patterson. Cynthia Jarrett. Cherry Groce. Derek Bennett. Kingsley Burrell. Sarah Reed. Roger Sylvester. Azelle Rodney. Habib Ullah. Faruk Ali. Adrian Thompson. Jean Charles de Menezes. Demetre Frazer. Aston McLean. Seni Lewis. Anthony Grainger. Rocky Bennett. Alton Manning. Mark Nunes.
UK police have killed 1500 people of colour, and counting, including those listed above. In America, 1 in 1000 black men will be killed by the police – that’s 2.5 x higher than white men.
I must fight. Right now, for our black friends, community members and the whole black community. Because I can. Because, as a white person, I am less likely to face consequences. Because I have opportunities to earn money to afford to. Because I am lucky enough to be able to make signs, and stand in a protest.
Here are some educational resources I have been recommended, to educate myself on systemic racism:
Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change The World and Become a Good Ancestor by Layla F Saad.
Why I’m No Longer Talking To White People About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge
This web-page has links to many useful petitions to sign: https://www.capitalfm.com/news/black-lives-matter-donate-support-uk/
We can make change happen. Be safe.
M x
Living Powerfully 