Black And White

Hello, dear readers!

And welcome to the first blog of the new regime.

Yes, as I mentioned on Sunday, this will be the new day and time for all your bloggy needs Every Wednesday (checks calendar) at 6pm BST (Checks watch). The reason for this uprooting and replanting are made clear in my last post which you may find here.

All that being said, we do still have a blog to navigate, so why don’t we do that?
Annus Horribilis
2020 is proving to be an eventful year. It sometimes feels like it’s some kind of disaster movie. A full on, no holds barred Towering Inferno of a year. And, as with such films, just when it seems that hope is blooming, a beam collapses and our intrepid heroes are thrown into fresh jeopardy .

I am, of course, talking about the tragic death of George Floyd and the global uproar which it has inspired.

I almost didn’t write this post. The subject of racism, and how it has become institutionalised in our modern, liberal culture seemed too big, too labyrinthine to navigate. The risk of offending someone, somewhere too great to risk, but there lies cowardice. There lies hunkering down and waiting for other people to make a stand, and that seems wrong too.

So here goes, my thoughts on the events of the last two weeks, for all they’re worth.

Question Time
You may have picked up that I’m not an American (I’d hope those who know me personally have, anyway), so when the news first sprang into the public domain I may have been a little guilty of not realising its full import. This is not to say that the loss of a life is in any way unimportant. Of course not. However, in a world where we are given daily numbers of deaths in the hundreds, and school shootings in the land across the pond seem to be coming ever more frequently, I guess even the most idealistic of us can become a tad jaded.

Now since then the reaction to the death of Mr Floyd has gained more and more traction around the world and so have the issues which his death has brought to the forefront of the international psyche. Now, as I mentioned, this is not an easy subject to tackle. I think the fact that it exists is undeniable, but what may be up for grabs is to what extent and in what form it exists. Is it the sole reserve of tattooed skin-heads and Nazi fantasists? Could it be more insidious than that. Could race be a deciding factor in things like poverty, or social inequality? Could it lead to inequality in things like education, opportunity, jobs, and wealth? Is it something which has wheedled its way into our society in such a way that these inequalities become normalised to the extent that, unless you’re subject to them, they become invisible?

Thoughts Of The Day
I think the answer to these and many other questions could most definitely be yes, although as has been brought to my attention in a Facebook discussion, a degree of intersectionality could well play into it too. Like I said, these things aren’t simple. The solutions to them, well they might just be.

It’s easy to ‘other’ people. To treat them as outside the norm. It’s something I, as a disabled person, have experienced many times, and it’s not nice. Now this does not mean I have any special ‘understanding’ of black people. It doesn’t even mean I’m immune for harbouring unkind thoughts based on nothing but a person's race, sex, appearance, sexuality, or ability. I try not to, but sometimes that thought is too damn quick to be caught. Sometimes I think it anyway and am immediately immobilised by shame.

Right And Wrong
Here’s the thing, though. We need to realise these thoughts are wrong. We need to think about them and realise why they’re wrong, and we need to try our best to not allow them more than that iota of time to fester within us. As a white man, I also need to be aware of just how privileged I am. I may get the ‘banter’ occasionally. I may live in a world where the very environment treats me like a second-class citizen in the way of stairs, kerbs, trains, and the countless other things that make it clear this is not my world. I’ve never been stopped and searched because of who I am, though. I don’t have an increased risk of being pulled over when driving too or from my house. My history does not hark back to people being treated as property; things to be bought and sold. The Black Lives Matter movement has been criticised by some because ‘all lives matter’ and although this is undoutedly true not all lives are in as much danger from violence and death. You might think that’s hyperbole, but look it up. Research the stats. Black lives matter because they haven’t always and still don’t always seem to.

So yes, although I’m not a fan of the violence, the destruction, or the mass gatherings in the time of Covid (a disease which itself seems racist), I think the cause is a worthy one, and I’m not sure how else this much attention could have been drawn to it. What matters now though is where we go from here. If we do not build on this. If we don’t find a way to come together as one human race, talk about problems, explore solutions and stamp out this thinking then the violence and the risks will have been for nought.



Until next time…