{"id":494,"date":"2020-06-17T12:09:38","date_gmt":"2020-06-17T11:09:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vroamam.com\/wordpress\/?p=494"},"modified":"2021-12-31T18:08:07","modified_gmt":"2021-12-31T17:08:07","slug":"200-years-have-we-learnt-nothing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vroamam.com\/wordpress\/blog\/200-years-have-we-learnt-nothing\/","title":{"rendered":"200 years – Have we learnt nothing?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

On\n26th<\/sup> May, I watched a video on Twitter where I saw a policeman\nkneeling on the neck of a detained person who was complaining that he couldn\u2019t\nbreathe. Another policeman was doing his absolute best to prevent the filming\nof the incident.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It became apparent that the detained person was not well, either unconscious or dead and I posed this question on the platform \u201cdid they kill him\u201d \u2013 you all know what the response was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In\nthe following days I shared a number of videos on twitter that showed\nindiscriminate violence or racial discrimination and profiling from a variety\nof police forces. I saw people being tasered in cars, people injured permanently\nby the indiscriminate use of rubber bullets and pepper pellets. I saw peaceful\nprotesters being extracted from crowds, police vehicles driven at crowds,\nsenior policemen punching and shoving innocent people and the press being\narrested in what can only be deemed an attempt to stop legitimate reporting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\nchanged my twitter profile to contain text that I thought would show support\nfor this abomination that was happening in front of me and I continued to share\nvideos showing some of the worst and the best of humankind. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not\nlong after I was approached by a friend who showed me that my words were\noffensive to some. I hadn\u2019t realised that what I\u2019d written would be at all\nhurtful, so I checked what she had said, and I started to learn just how\nuninformed I was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The text I had used on my twitter profile included the phrase \u201cAll Lives Matter\u201d. In my ignorance I had no knowledge that this had been used by opponents of Black Lives Matter. That it had been used to water down the message and to intimate that all lives are equally at risk. To me, in my ignorance it made sense, all lives do matter, even just reading one article made me see that I genuinely had made a terrible mistake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\ndon\u2019t want to be like my parents and grandparents generation, I do want to see\nchange happen, so I read some more and learned some more but it was the image I\nsaw an image of a little girl holding a sign that gave me the simplest\nexplanation:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We\nsaid Black Lives Matter,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Never\nSaid Only Black Lives Matter,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\nKnow All Lives Matter,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\njust need your help with #BlackLivesMatter<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For\nBlack lives are in danger<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Born to white working-class parents in Stoke on Trent, England, I was brought up with racism. It was rife throughout my childhood in the 1970\u2019s and I do, without a doubt, still carry some of the prejudices that I learnt during that time. There was a black family that lived three doors down from us. The communal commentary about how they lived, about how they avoided prosecution for planning and building violations \u201cbecause they are black\u201d still stick with me today and I suspect my language, even in this article isn\u2019t as correct as it should be and when I dated the daughter of that family, her parents were as uncomfortable with me as I was with them. I thought that was normal. I never once questioned why.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At fourteen maybe fifteen, she was the most beautiful person, inside and out, I felt very lucky. I saw no colour, what I did see was that her parents were wary around me and didn\u2019t like me in their house. I saw my parents allow her into our home, but their tone was never the same or as welcoming as it had been and would be with other (white) girlfriends and I am certain that I learned some of that behaviour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over these past days I\u2019ve read and watched and read some more about black history and particularly black American history. A history of slavery that was removed from private individuals under the guise of abolition but that covertly and cleverly keeps people of colour in slavery and strips them of their citizenship through the penal system. A history written predominantly by white corporate America to ensure there is sufficient free or low-cost labour to keep the economy on track.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had not understood or linked the abolition of slavery to the criminalisation of black people. The conversion of open segregation to mass incarceration. I had not understood that they are stripped of their citizenship, prevented from voting for life, ultimately preventing any significant change through democratic means.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the opening of the musical adaptation of Les Mis\u00e9rables, Inspector Javert hands Jaen Valjean his probation notice and says <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cthis\nbadge of shame you\u2019ll show until you die, it warns you are a dangerous man\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nearly two centuries later America are still making people carry a badge of shame by asking if they are a convicted felon on job applications. They need to feed their for-profit penal system and maintain a stream of cheap labour, and continue to impose their dominance over a group of people that have never really been free, despite the thirteenth amendment – or maybe even because of it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The book Les Mis\u00e9rables , from 1845, was not a racial commentary, but it did address the poverty and penal systems of the day. It ended in a popular uprising, in a revolution. A revolution that was crushed by brutal military intervention. Why are you so surprised that the same behaviour and poverty today is bringing its own revolution? History is repeating itself fed by the same oppression, greed and inequality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\nquoted an adaptation of that novel earlier, the fact I know of it and have read\nsome of it, is likely in itself a product of my white privilege, but this quote\nfrom the author I thought was quite poignant. Of the book he is quoted as\nsaying:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c\u2026It addresses England as well as\nSpain, Italy as well as France, Germany as well as Ireland, the republics that\nharbour slaves as well as empires that have serfs. Social problems go beyond\nfrontiers. Humankind’s wounds, those huge sores that litter the world, do not\nstop at the blue and red lines drawn on maps. Wherever men go in ignorance or\ndespair, wherever women sell themselves for bread, wherever children lack a\nbook to learn from or a warm hearth, Les Mis\u00e9rables knocks at the door\u2026\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s close to two hundred years since Hugo wrote the book and nearly as long since the thirteenth amendment was supposed to abolish slavery and yet misery and death are still knocking at the door.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\ncan\u2019t change what I\u2019ve done, how I\u2019ve acted or what I\u2019ve said in the past. I\ncan promise that it has never been done through obvious and determined malice\nbut from a place of ignorance. If I have hurt or offended people along the way\nI am sorry, I apologise openly and vehemently. I am determined to educate\nmyself and do better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I see why we need to say Black Lives Matter, I see why “All Lives Matter” dilutes that message. I hope I can do better and continue to learn. I hope some of you reading this will to. If we can bring about true change and true equality then all lives will benefit, but we have to remove the fear, poverty and discrimination that puts black peoples lives at risk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Below I have linked to some easily accessible and informative pages on Wikipedia and YouTube that anyone can access if you are reading this blog. I would also urge you to do your own research, read some more detailed information and watch some films and documentaries, educate yourself even if it makes you uncomfortable. It certainly made me uncomfortable watching, learning and publishing this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n