© Photo: Ben Doyle
In light of recent events, people have been questioning the purpose of the BLM movement in the United Kingdom. Too many people fail to realise how important the movement is within itself and how important it is amongst people who refuse to realise that, yes, this is happening. Our society is far from perfect; it is far from being safe for many minorities – and that is just the simple truth.
Just in August, there has been a spike in the protests in Britain alone – all relating to the Black Lives Matter Movement. Yes, the UK has gun control (guns were banned due to a school shooting that occurred in 1996) and the UK has more safety laws! But that doesn’t mean that everyone is still safe: our police and justice system is just as corrupt as America’s.
In August 4, 2011, Mark Duggan, a Black-British man was shot and killed by the police in Tottenham, London. The police refused to give his family and the public more information as to why and they refused to let his family get the answers that they wanted. However, the only thing that the authorities did was far more damaging. They made Mark Duggan look like a criminal who deserved it. At first they said that he was involved in gangs, selling drugs, etc., to the media. In addition to saying that he was carrying a firearm that he eventually fired at one of the police officers– this was ruled out to be not true as there was no evidence that it was ever fired. So for a few months after his death, he was given a bad reputation.
People were outraged and they had the right to be. Riots occurred and the tension between the BAME (Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic) community and the police increased. Unfortunately, the riots lost its message. Younger kids organised meet ups in which they would loot retail shops and personal businesses in London – people forgot that it was initially a protest against the authorities on the death of Mark. This added to the humiliation surrounding Mark’s name, as after many trials, the court decided to rule his death as a “lawful killing”. It’s truly disgusting how they see it that way when he did nothing wrong.
In 2012, Sarah Reed, a Black-British woman, was in the middle of a case about police brutality. As shown on CCTV, she was beaten and beaten by a police officer who punched her on the head, dragged her across the floor and continuously kick her. 4 years later, on January 11, 2016, she was found dead under police custody in her jail cell. Nobody who had authority cared for her mental health issues, nobody listened to the cries of her mother asking for help.
And these are just two main examples of how police brutality is a big problem in the UK, too. After all, even police officers who are of minority ethnic origins have declared it themselves – the Metropolitan Police are institutionally racist. Many people do not realise how these things are kept under everyone’s noses – most of the riots in August weren’t even publicised until the BLM UK Movement disrupted Heathrow Airport. Sarah Reed’s name was kept under wraps until people realised the atrocity of it and her situation was kept in the dark for a long time.
We as Britons may be safe from a lot of things, but just by being an immigrant or a non-white person who lives in a non-multicultural area (basically other than London), you are automatically subjected to some form of hate crime. Black people are still statistically disadvantaged in almost every form of society in the UK, and yet, some people still refuse to see that racism is alive and well.
So to all those who refuse to accept it: all Black lives matter everywhere.
