I wasn’t going to write anything about the current Black Lives Matter protests because, although I support them wholeheartedly, I would never pretend for even a second to understand the struggle that people of colour face on a daily basis. However, I have been sharing things on social media and watching videos of police brutality and I just cannot believe how oblivious some people are. Therefore, I wanted to put my thoughts forward on a few of the key issues.
“All lives matter” – This is obviously true, but also entirely irrelevant. The reason people are fighting for Black Lives Matter is because black lives are threatened by the issues being protested about, not white lives. BLM doesn’t mean that only black lives matter, it means that they should matter just as much as any other life. If you somehow manage to get offended by this statement, I suggest you take a long hard look at yourself.
What about racism against white people? – It doesn’t exist. Some people genuinely seem to think that calling a white person a cracker is the equivalent of calling a black person the N word, which is so misguided it would be laughable if it wasn’t so terrifying. Racism is the systematic & institutionalised discrimination that people of colour encounter in all walks of life, the criminal justice system being the most obvious example. According to the latest figures I could find, white people make up 64% of the US population but 39% of the prison population, whereas black people make up 13% of the US population but an eye watering 40% of the prison population. This is racism.
Lee Rigby – I have seen several posts on Facebook asking why there were no riots when Lee Rigby was murdered in the UK several years back. I mean no disrespect to the memory of Lee, but this is an ignorant argument to make. Lee Rigby was murdered by terrorists who were swiftly brought to justice and there was an outpouring of grief and sorrow throughout the entire country. George Floyd was just one of hundreds of people of colour who have been murdered by the police departments who are supposed to protect them. To compare the two is ill-informed, disingenuous and frankly offensive.
Hypocrisy – I’ve seen plenty of people whinging that there’s no need to be violent or destroy property. Firstly, more often than not the protests are peaceful until the police decide to make them violent – if you do your research, there is a wealth of evidence out there that proves the police instigate the violence. I’ve seen countless videos of police destroying food, water & medical supplies, destroying their own property, using unnecessary force (unsurprisingly, usually against black people) etc. Secondly, where were you with these concerns when armed groups of white people stormed legislative buildings a few weeks ago with zero repercussions? I literally cannot think of a more glaringly obvious example of white privilege.
White privilege – A lot of white people seem to take the term ‘white privilege’ as a personal insult without bothering to even try and understand what it means. White privilege is not to say that you must be successful if you’re white and it does not mean that no white people face issues such as poverty, homelessness etc because they obviously do. What it does mean is that white people do not face the obstacles that black people do purely because of the colour of their skin – by being born white, white people automatically have certain advantages over people of colour because they will never suffer the oppression of institutional racism. Educate yourself on white privilege and use it to fight for BLM rather than assuming that it must be a form of reverse racism.
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