My take on the whole Black Lives Matter/All Lives Matter debate. It’s a long ramble, but here goes:
TL;DR – Racism bad.
The killing of a black man suspected of using a forged $20 note by a white policeman who was told by both the victim and several witnesses that his breathing was being restricted by the officer’s knee on his neck is appalling, deplorable and indefensible. Nobody deserves to die for trying to buy cigarettes with a forged note.
The outcry since this happened has been less about the actions of a police officer and the death of a suspect in custody and more about the fact that the officer was white and the suspect black. Had they been the other way round, would it have been so widely publicised? Who knows, but I suspect the answer is no, because it has lit a touchstone under a group of already disenfranchised people, who know that the police are likely to be more suspicious of, and aggressive or even violent towards, black suspects.
This is far from the first case of the death of a black person at the hands of a white police officer. It is worryingly common, particularly in the US, but even in the UK there have been multiple well documented cases of police officers being more aggressive to non-white suspects, and in some cases, that has resulted in death although, to my knowledge, no UK police officer has ever faced charges for that.
I fully accept, and in no way seek to refute or undermine, the depth of feeling within the bIack community following the killing of George Floyd, but there are elements of the aftermath that I have trouble processing.
I am used to social media “whataboutery”. As soon as something is reported about the mistreatment of a non-white and/or non Christian person, someone always pops up to cite a case of something a non-white/non-Christian person did to a white Christian person, as if one somehow cancels out the other, or somehow justifies racism or religious intolerance. Such logic escapes me.
One piece of whataboutery that I found sickening was people I know posting memes asking where was all the rioting when Lee Rigby was killed by two black men. Reading those turned my stomach, and even Rigby’s own family issued a statement condemning his name being misused in that way. They had done so in the past, of course, when his memory and image was misappopriated by racist far right groups such as Britain First, pointing out that Lee was not a racist, and happily served and worked alongside people of different skin colours or faiths, so would have hated being used as the poster boy for racists.I have mixed feelings about the rioting, wherever it is happening.
I absolutely understand the anger, the frustration, the need to vent, but I don’t understand the destruction of private property or looting. I understand standing outside a police station and yelling out protests. I don’t understand the connection to that and breaking into a shop to nick a telly. It is a sad fact that there are always those opportunists who take advantage of genuine protest to engage in cynical criminality or to further their own pre-existing political agenda.
I have given my own thoughts on the media before. I hold out the rather optimistic belief that there are still genuinely committed passionate and impartial journalists out there, but they are in the minority, and are not the ones pontificating in the redtops, or their more modern clickbait offshoots, plugging deliberately divisive sensationalism, spin and propaganda, which has added fuel to the fire, enabling views once considered extreme to be expressed openly and become even mainstream.
During my working life I have travelled internationally and have worked alongside people of many faiths, cultures, backgrounds and skin tones, from over 50 different countries. In my lifetime I have experienced both religious intolerance and racism, although interestingly not at work. Having an everyday multicultural surrounding perhaps shapes one’s attitudes.
Far from the conception that racism is confined to inner cities where there is much mixing of cultures, some of the worst racists I have met have lived in areas where non-whites are rarely even seen. I have met many a racist who has never even had a conversation with someone of a different ethnicity or religious background that didn’t take place in a kebab shop.
This tends to lead to the often quoted “white privilege” argument, that postulates that, as a white person, I am incapable of conceiving what it feels like to experience racism. I find this insulting. Of course I know that racism happens. Of course I both recognise and acknowledge that, for some it is an everyday experience. Of course I know that some are judged everyday by nothing more than their skin colour or clothing. To say that because of the colour of my skin I am incapable of appreciation or empathy for that struggle is ludicrous. The white privilege argument borders on being a form of racism in itself, being a sweeping generalisation about a whole group of different people with a shared characteristic.
The protests that are happening now are being labelled, mainly by the mainstream media but to a lesser extent by social media, as a polar struggle, of blacks versus whites, poor versus rich, people versus the State, oppressed versus Police. It is not any of these. This struggle is about racism. People of all backgrounds are standing up against it. This is about everyone else versus racists.
Racism is wrong. All racism. This why I cannot align myself with those defending either the Black Lives Matter or the All Lives Matter argument, as they are not opposites. Both statements are true.
I condemn bigotry in all its forms, whether it be based on skin colour, faith, sexual orientation or any other reason. Racism is always wrong, regardless of to whom it is targetted, or who is expressing it.
middleagedaydream 