Black Lives Matter

Today has been a day of blistering sunshine and lightening storms. Happily, the heavy rain stayed away for the duration of my local Black Lives Matter demonstration outside Wallasey Town Hall. 

I was heartened to learn that a peaceful, socially distanced demonstration had been organised on the Wirral side of the Mersey today (to complement those already held in Liverpool), and I was able to cycle down there in under 10 minutes. 

I’m so glad that I went. And I was delighted that a large crowd turned out. Thanks to the organisers for doing such an excellent job. 

Everyone who was able was asked to take a knee for 9 minutes to honour the memory of George Floyd. There were also speeches; an excellent poem by Tanisha (I'm afraid I didn’t catch her second name but you can see her in the first extra photo); and a completely impromptu speech by Dionne Simpson (on the right in this picture) who said she lived round the corner, hadn’t known the event was happening but had come out to see what was going on and had never realised she had so many local allies. I think a lot of people were moved to tears.

The event concluded with a socially distanced march along the prom to the Seacombe ferry terminal.

The song that’s been on my mind today, in particular, is ‘Black’ by Dave, as performed at this year’s Brit Awards. It’s an important and powerful work which I highly recommend to everyone; articulating, as it does, what it means to be Black and British in 2020 - the legacy of slavery still being felt in the Windrush scandal, the Grenfell Tower fire (today is the 3rd anniversary of that shocking event) and the economic and health disparities which are so clearly visible in the impacts of the current Covid-19 pandemic www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXLS2IzZSdg 

Black Lives Matter. And white people must listen more, learn more, step aside more, use our privilege to create opportunities for our sisters and brothers of colour. If all lives mattered equally, the Black Lives Matter movement would not be necessary. All lives don’t matter equally until Black Lives Matter in practice, not just in theory.