BLACK LIVES MATTER ABSOLUTELY

OK I won’t condemn folks for the ‘all lives matter’ comments, because they do, but the issue is about people being judged by others due to skin colour, race, culture and even their accents.
Racism like any form of discrimination is oppression and nowadays very much diversion.
When I was a young child at what people thought was a fairly good all boys school, which I would argue against, we were taught imperialist history.
Every bit of our pasts was dominated with how Britain ‘civilised the world’ and how we continued to ‘save the world’ we all believed it. We had protected Jews and yes black people from racist fascists. We did not use the word black, if we were being polite it was ‘coloured’ or ‘blackies’ but there were far more derogatory terms which I wont go into, not because I am embarrassed but because I am ashamed at how those words were used by entertainers such as the foul Jim Davidson or Bernard fucking Manning, by politicians, by police officers, by teachers, neighbours and sadly I am sure even us.
In text books white women were always covered but black women were photographed naked with all on show.
I was brought up by very anti racist parents and I am still proud of them for that to this day.
My dad, though English was brought up in Australia and Papua New Guinea, he grew up post war and in an extremely white privillaged society.
I was brought up in Stockport near Manchester, it was predominately white and had a large National Front movement, but I was also lucky that I spent time in Burley, which was multicultural and diverse.
I was able to grow seeing the amazing qualities in people of all races and yes peoples failings too.
At 16 I joined Anti Fascist Action and Anti Nazi League to fight a world of fascism. We took direct action against companies continuing to support appartied and stood next to our fellow humans to fight the oppression they lived under.
In those days your name and postcode would decide your eligibility for a job, for a home, for finance, for a future. Guess what…. That has not changed.
I have worked all over the UK with different communities, and though police officers I worked with and yes sadly other social workers knew to be circumspect around me, when we were together their often blatant racism broke through their so called professional facade.
Many of the black workers would be pulled over if doing a visit in a ‘white’ area. Friends would be stopped and searched for no reason. People who have always lived in Britain were and sadly still are viewed with suspicion if they are walking in an affluent area. Not that it matters where they were born, all are human beings.
This has not changed. And if they kick up a fuss, report it or challenge racism they are accuse of using ‘the race card’ and dismissed and belittled.
People were and sadly still are ghettoised even in the UK, its not just America, and if you live in a predominately black or Asian area your choices and life chances are severely reduced. You often don’t have the choices in education, so getting a degree can be nigh on impossible. This has changed a little but is still sadly true.
Black areas as they are too often called or communities as the more politically correct and morally or as the right wing call them ‘snowflakes’ experience far higher levels of poverty than the equivillant areas that are predominantly white.
Now I cannot pretend to know how being black, Asian or anything other than what is described as white feels. I have not been subject to racism, I have not grown up being oppressed due to skin colour, religion or even the clothes I wear. I am disabled though and know when I am that ill I need my crutches or wheelchair, I will not leave the house. I have been attacked verbally and yes physically due to my disabilities, however I can have days I dont need a stick, I don’t need a crutch and I don’t look disabled. These are the days I choose to go out, these are the days where I am not discounted by officials including police officers. My disabilities opened my eyes even wider to the effects of discrimination, and how the media, education and sadly society disenfranchises people, use differences not to celebrate divergence and enrich lives, but to divert blame from the real threats to us, the true opponents of us living happy lives, and that is not black folk.
All oppression is vile, its called oppression because it oppresses and keeps people down. Yes all lives matter, but when a system has already judged you before you even take your first breath, when a government or even a police officer can take your life without being held to account, when the people in charge can dress up in white sheets or hide behind some nationalistic sentiment to discredit your right to breathe, then you have a right to scream at the tip of your voice that you life does matter.
So yes ‘black lives matter’, if you can’t see why that slogan is important then you have your eyes firmly closed and need to open them quickly.
You are next.