George Floyd Protests

It does.

What happened in Minneapolis and I have to say it is one of the worst things I have ever seen, along with people jumping for their lives at the World Trade Centre, a citizen executed in the street, by the very people employed to keep them safe. Especially as the citizen hadn’t committed a crime, that makes it even more appalling and abhorrent.

if this wasn’t caught on video, the 4 officers would have likely been suspended on no pay, then when all the mayhem died down the all powerful American Police Federation would have campaigned to have their job back, which going on past history would have very likely been successful and their lost pay would have been backdated.

As it was caught on video - 4 policemen got sacked.

If people didn’t bother to protest then the cop with the knee on the neck, probably wouldn’t have been charged with third degree murder, then if the protesters didn’t continue to protest then the 3rd degree murder charge wouldn’t have been upgraded to second degree murder and the other officers charged with aiding and abetting.

This isn’t the first time a major injustice has happened against the BAME community in the US and has also happened in the UK, hence black people have died in Police custody, that is why the protests have spread over to here and just shows how furious and passionate people are if they are willing to protest and catch Covid.

The US police are what our police were pre Stephen Lawrence and that is institutionally racist.

And yet you don't seem to care that we've all been pushed back out there again way too soon to help the precious economy with little regard for human life.

If people have to cram themselves onto public transport, go back to work and send their kids back to school, then they have the right to protest in the street.

If we were still in lockdown fair enough, but we aren't.

And yes we should be protesting Cummings, every single day non stop until he is gone. Not on the streets, but we should not let the story die.

I'm not sure the people who are taking to the streets because the level of oppression they face on a day to basis is a greater risk and detriment to their lives than the risk of catching coronavirus will agree with you.

This one has certainly been different, it definitely feels like 'a moment'.

The moron in the White House and continuing police stupidity has certainly helped the cause that's for sure.

I was at both too and I wasn’t sneering at anyone.

Wow...just wow.

EXTRACT from a letter sent from Birmingham Jail by Martin Luther King on 16 April 1963:

I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate.

I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season."

Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and that when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress.

I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that the present tension in the South is a necessary phase of the transition from an obnoxious negative peace, in which the Negro passively accepted his unjust plight, to a substantive and positive peace, in which all men will respect the dignity and worth of human personality. Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive.

We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.




I am torn on these protests, we are definitely at a dangerous phase which will determine whether we get the virus under control and similarly we need to find the opportunity to shine a light on the racism that still exists in society which continues to manifest itself during this crisis. BAME people are 15% of the UK population but received 22% of the coronavirus lockdown fines and in London this rose to 41% and have twice the death rate from coronavirus.

Sometimes we cannot wait for a more convenient season.

It was good to see that masks were common and hope that when to protestors go home they do their utmost over the next 14 days to distance themselves the best they can from vulnerable friends and family.

It was lovely to go for a walk yesterday with a friend I hadn't seen for 10 weeks. We went to our rather enormous local park and, among other things, she was telling me about how the lockdown had gone for her (she's a councillor at an inner London Borough).

We got to near one of the duck ponds and there was a bit of a crowd - I thought they were there to see the new ducklings but it turned out it was a BLM meeting. A woman with a loud speaker started talking to the group of about 40-50. Anyway, we stayed a few minutes and walked to the walled garden which was impossibly lovely.

About 40-minutes later were were at the other side of the park (it's so big it literally has rolling hills, yes in London) and the BLM group started to come around the side of this little hill, but way over the other side. It kept coming. About 800m later it reached where we were, and it was still coming around the hill.

As they passed we could see there were a lot of family groups, everyone in little groups or couples or singles, and socially distancing (which partly explained why it was such a long march). They walked past a bit, stopped had another rally with people on the loudspeaker, and we left. Maybe 400 or so people.

It was my third inadvertent march in eight days - all local, I had no idea abut any of them, just randomly bumping into them. This is south London and none of these local marches went into central London.

I've seen dozens and dozens of marches over the years - the humongous Iraq inc. - and this one certainly had its own vibe. It was so young and family orientated, so sincere, and so desperate for a better future. There was a different energy. Comfortably over half were schoolchildren - I presume on their first march, everyone had homemade signs/messages, families walking 4 and 5 abreast holding hands ..no police at all.

I think there is also a stronger understanding now - white people with signs saying things like 'end white silence' which wouldn't generally have been as understood before. It's a long way from the 'institutional racism' message/slogan that we as a country accepted after Stephen Lawrence to silence equals complicit and seeing knife crime as a symptom. The issues and debate has absolutely moved to another level, but those debates will still have to be had elsewhere in the country and for years to come.

It does look like generational change. New hope. Convincing rhetoric. Sincerity. My friend, as a local councillor, is usually notified of these events but she had no idea about this park march, but she did cry a little. It was beautiful. This was the grassroots of the grassroots. People just want things to be better, and mostly for the children. They had no ambitions other than to share their feelings,be with like-minded families, support each other by showing solidarity. Not digital *likes* but smiling human solidarity on a cold windy day. My friend was far from the only one weeping a little in our local park.

But it's the tiny minority who get the attention and that starts to undermine the message. There are hard-right groups in the US who are using the violence to try to misrepresent the protests as organised attempts to unseat Trump rather than a genuine demand for change, and that could sway some of the moderate right who are undecided.

I think we already have all the awareness we're going to get out of this. People aren't going to forget the moment the protests stop. And let's not forget that this is not a zero-cost event: it's putting lives at risk, and there must be a point where the gain of awareness is outweighed by that risk. I think we're already past that point. It's not as if there's anybody unaware of the situation who needs their awareness raised.

There are more protests today. Will the situation be any different at the end of the day than it was at the start? If so, how? If not, then what did the protests achieve today?

What's needed is continuous pressure for change over a period of years, not one huge protest that can't be maintained and wears down its participants. The protests can't continue forever. If they gradually fade away it'll weaken the overall position, but if there's a hard stop then it creates a far stronger message: we're standing down because we choose to, not because we can't go on.

Play Classic FM to wake up to in the morning. Dreamt Titchmarsh opened his show yesterday with... 'here's one for all you protesting today, it's The Marseillaise' and me thinking 'ooh Lynette is not going to like that. Officially dreaming of you now Lynette 

I couldn't disagree more with almost every word of your post, and you are still judging the protests on a daily basis, which is a very narrow way of viewing them and really not the point.

As I've said before, it isn't about what is achieved in one day, or about what the minority of people at the protest do, it is so much more than that. You are choosing to write a narrative that focuses on the negative minority and puts an arbitrary, self-determined cut off and measurement of efficacy. That is not helpful.

And as for when the protests are no longer effective and any "gain of awareness" is outweighed by other health risks, I'll defer to those who are the ones suffering from the oppression against which they are so validly protesting.

If you don't want to take the risk of protesting that is your prerogative, but everyone can judge their own risk. It is not your place or mine to tell them they have said enough.