Black Lives Matter | June 2020
This entire year has forced humanity to see the depths of our existence. But, the Black Lives Matter has come to the forefront of headlines, social media and our lives in the past few months. I've always seen the racism and the brutal attacks and deaths online of Eric Garner and Michael Brown to name a few. I agree, as a young, white woman I am extremely privileged, but it is our time, our generations time to make the change now. We need to use our voices, and make sure the conversation continues. In America, you have a racist and misogynistic President, who literally is the least intellectual man in the world it would seem. With Donald Trump in power, it reinforces the white privilege and narrative that is embedded within America's society.
I watched a video recently on Instagram, a young, black woman was commenting on the fact that the police force in America was created after the American Civil War, after which most slaves were freed. The police force were primarily created to protect white property and white people. Nearly 200 years later, it doesn't seem like we have moved away from that narrative. Black people are more likely to be followed around a shop because they're perceived to be criminals. I've seen it happen before. I've worked in a shop and black people and minority ethnic groups have been singled out because of society's ideology that they are criminals, or are more likely to shoplift. The notion that black people are more likely to be criminals dates back to the study of phrenology. The view that black people were studied and compared, due to different skull sizes is embedded within the racial history of their race also. They were seen as the 'other', they still to the white power and privilege. But that has got to change. The inequality that we see has to change, black people and their history deserve to have justice. Their people created modern America, for example; Dr Shirley Jackson who created the touch tone telephone and caller ID. Otis Boykin contributed to the creation of the IBM computer, Elijah McCoy helped to created lubricators that revolutionised steam engines, which further helped to make the railroad industry more efficient and boost the economy and industrial era. Frederick Douglass, Martin Luther King Jnr, W. E. B. Du Bois, Angela Davis, Patricia Hill Collins, Kimberle Collins, Barack and Michelle Obama, Malcolm X. Those are just a few thinkers, inventors and intellects that have created and help shape the modern world, yet the white narrative still dominates. This is why we need change. Their injustice needs to be changed, and we need to change it.
A lot of white people take their privilege for granted. Peggy MacIntosh highlights several ways in which white privilege is taken for granted, one of them being pale skin coloured plasters, which are suited entirely to the Caucasian race. She also suggests that the white privileged individual carries around a 'special knapsack' that contains everything the privileged individual might need. This white privilege is an advantage and most white people don't even realise they have it. Especially by coming from a largely white area of the UK, people are blindsided by what they have had put in front of them versus the reality of the discrimination that other races face.
The covering up of statues such as Winston Churchill in London, and the removal of Edward Colston in Bristol is a symbolic notion of change. By removing the statue in Bristol, they have started the upheaval and the part that the UK played in the slave trade and the mistreatment of black people hundreds of years ago. Some people say that was hundreds of years ago, why is it still relevant. History lives on. History is embedded within our roots, it is as important as the present day. After all our present would not be the same without the history of our ancestors. Black history has not been widely educated, that is why people do not understand the injustice and the equality the protesters are trying to gain. I think some people are ignorant to the fact that the UK has done wrong, and the Nazi salutes in London at the weekend shows how in some ways the UK has never moved on from fascism. The power of Enoch Powell and Oswald Moseley is still ingrained in Britain; all in pursuit of maintaining the white power, privilege and narrative.
We still have a long way to go, but with our voices we can make change. We want equality, we want a society where everyone is treated the same. A society where black parents don't have to teach their children what to do when the police pulls them over. A society where black people are attacked and killed by the police. The police who are supposed to be an institution that protects us from criminals, but they are in fact the criminals themselves. This injustice cannot go on.
#BlackLivesMatter
Rose x
I watched a video recently on Instagram, a young, black woman was commenting on the fact that the police force in America was created after the American Civil War, after which most slaves were freed. The police force were primarily created to protect white property and white people. Nearly 200 years later, it doesn't seem like we have moved away from that narrative. Black people are more likely to be followed around a shop because they're perceived to be criminals. I've seen it happen before. I've worked in a shop and black people and minority ethnic groups have been singled out because of society's ideology that they are criminals, or are more likely to shoplift. The notion that black people are more likely to be criminals dates back to the study of phrenology. The view that black people were studied and compared, due to different skull sizes is embedded within the racial history of their race also. They were seen as the 'other', they still to the white power and privilege. But that has got to change. The inequality that we see has to change, black people and their history deserve to have justice. Their people created modern America, for example; Dr Shirley Jackson who created the touch tone telephone and caller ID. Otis Boykin contributed to the creation of the IBM computer, Elijah McCoy helped to created lubricators that revolutionised steam engines, which further helped to make the railroad industry more efficient and boost the economy and industrial era. Frederick Douglass, Martin Luther King Jnr, W. E. B. Du Bois, Angela Davis, Patricia Hill Collins, Kimberle Collins, Barack and Michelle Obama, Malcolm X. Those are just a few thinkers, inventors and intellects that have created and help shape the modern world, yet the white narrative still dominates. This is why we need change. Their injustice needs to be changed, and we need to change it.
A lot of white people take their privilege for granted. Peggy MacIntosh highlights several ways in which white privilege is taken for granted, one of them being pale skin coloured plasters, which are suited entirely to the Caucasian race. She also suggests that the white privileged individual carries around a 'special knapsack' that contains everything the privileged individual might need. This white privilege is an advantage and most white people don't even realise they have it. Especially by coming from a largely white area of the UK, people are blindsided by what they have had put in front of them versus the reality of the discrimination that other races face.
The covering up of statues such as Winston Churchill in London, and the removal of Edward Colston in Bristol is a symbolic notion of change. By removing the statue in Bristol, they have started the upheaval and the part that the UK played in the slave trade and the mistreatment of black people hundreds of years ago. Some people say that was hundreds of years ago, why is it still relevant. History lives on. History is embedded within our roots, it is as important as the present day. After all our present would not be the same without the history of our ancestors. Black history has not been widely educated, that is why people do not understand the injustice and the equality the protesters are trying to gain. I think some people are ignorant to the fact that the UK has done wrong, and the Nazi salutes in London at the weekend shows how in some ways the UK has never moved on from fascism. The power of Enoch Powell and Oswald Moseley is still ingrained in Britain; all in pursuit of maintaining the white power, privilege and narrative.
We still have a long way to go, but with our voices we can make change. We want equality, we want a society where everyone is treated the same. A society where black parents don't have to teach their children what to do when the police pulls them over. A society where black people are attacked and killed by the police. The police who are supposed to be an institution that protects us from criminals, but they are in fact the criminals themselves. This injustice cannot go on.
#BlackLivesMatter
Rose x
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