I attended the Black Lives Matter march on Sunday the 7th of June when stricter lockdown rules were still enforced.
I feel very passionately that marching in unity across the world will help create change that will benefit the black community and other minorities.
I and my boyfriend went together and when we arrived at the protest we saw thousands of people standing and walking peacefully with signs of prominent messages whilst holding their fists in the air in support. Chants you could hear from a mile away from people of every race, all together in unity. As it was still lockdown I hadn’t told my mam about me going but, when I texted and told her she said she was proud. I felt a sense of togetherness, something I haven’t felt before, something that’s hard to feel in such a divided country. At the protest, I felt love, passion and strength the entire time.
The fact that the biggest protests since the 1960s were going on made me feel that I couldn’t just sit back and be on the wrong side of history. I went because I felt committed to helping my community strive for equality; which is difficult as the country I live in is governed by politicians who have no goal but to look after the few, not the many.
I blame the government for the limited education we have had on the history of the black community in this country. They talk about a few significant black figures in history and yet continue to censor; systematic racism, Britain’s involvement in the slave trade, the evil that was colonialism and the fact the black community were here when the Romans came over.
They have no notion in helping the BAME community. Anything they do to help is primarily to make them look good, when in reality over the last ten years of austerity, the devastating cuts have hit BAME communities the most in many different ways, along with Brexit, that has made the racists braver and feel more powerful in this country.
In fact, I wasn’t shocked at how the media presented the protests. The media are biased and profit from creating drama. Of course, they pushed the narrative that the protest I attended wasn’t peaceful. But I know the truth. We walked around London in the protest for over 4 hours and saw nothing but peace.
We all need to educate ourselves. I am sympathetic with the BAME community as I discovered the devastating history of my own heritage. Irish people were sold as slaves and for hundreds of years denied worker and human rights in their own country. I won’t go into detail but, I can understand that all of this hate, discrimination and false sense of English superiority stems from the evil that was British colonialism.
I am disgusted by racism and discrimination, no one should be disadvantaged because of the colour of their skin. My family are Irish immigrants, my nan and grandad faced discrimination from the English in the 70s. Irish people were looked at as terrorists because of the acts of the IRA. As a result of this, my family have faced discrimination, I have thankfully been raised to never discriminate.
There are so many things we can all do to help the BAME community, starting with not forgetting about it all after it disappears from your timeline.
White people who do not recognise or deny their white privilege confuse and anger me. This period has opened my eyes to how ignorant some people are. I encourage white people that feel disconnected from this to please educate yourself.
To all the white people being blinded by their racism, no one is attacking you! No one thinks you don’t matter or that you don’t have your own problems, but would you go up to a sick person and say healthy people matter too? To the generation of ignorance that turns a blind eye, looks the other way or doesn't think there are any issues because back in their day the black community were treated a lot worse, please do not think the fight for equality is over. Racist jokes are not funny, police brutality is not funny and the blatantly racist attitudes of our government that takes away so many innocent people’s lives are not funny.
Gen Z and the millennials are not dealing with “attitudes' '; we are dealing with the fight for racial equality and we won’t stop until we achieve it.
Our second feature writer is Regan Cook!
Regan reached out to me on Instagram following my post 'My Experience with Racism' and empathised immensely with what I wrote. She shared her own experiences and lessons learned from her Irish heritage with me and opened up my own perspectives.
Have a story to share? DM me on Instagram @platform_blog or comment down below to get in touch.
Comments