The world watching America - Black Lives Matter

Today, like the last few days, news is filled with stories about the protests in US because of George Floyd and the ongoing decimation of Black lives in the US perpetrated by Police and citizens taking the law into their own hands. And, as I read about the protests all I can think is, "good".

Will these protests change anything? Doubtful, given the current administration full of bullies, sycophants and sadistic narcissistic capitalists. But Black people deserved to vent their anger and fear - the frustration and rage at the racism and murderous intent by institutions that have persisted over the last 400 years. 

Racism is simple: It's valuing the lives, attitudes and culture of one race over another. Police in America continue to value the lives of white citizens and police officers over those of Black and Brown people. Police officers take an oath to "serve and protect", not play judge and executioner. Yet, we know for a fact that as long as you are white and have a gun or a badge, it is completely fine for you to kill a Black person in cold blood. 

Growing up in the US I lived my life encased in that fear - around every corner someone was going to kill me whether I did anything wrong or not. My life was in the hands of everyone but me. And, it wasn't until I left America and learned to live outside of that constant terror that I realised the true impact of it. 

I wonder who I might have been if I hadn't been taught never to go into a shop unless I was actually going to buy something - my mother handing me a $5 bill. Not to spend. It was protection in case someone accused me of stealing. I only learned to 'browse' in shops on a trip to Belgium last year when a friend pointed out that I didn't have to stare through shop windows to assess if I might actually buy something.

What else could I have done with my mind if I hadn't been trained to observe walking down the street as an obstacle course and exercise in artifice - try not to look too threatening to that white lady, but try not to look so weak as to be susceptible to victimisation from people who are so oppressed that they'll look for anyone that they can put down.  

What else might I have accomplished if I hadn't learned to see tragedy as common place, locking my anger away until it festered and contorted itself into a constant anxiety for fear of manifesting any negative emotion lest I be labelled as an angry Black man - a spoiled unusable thing in a society that valued my compliance to preconceptions of brutishness or docile servitude. 

Who would my nieces and nephew become if they didn't have to live with the same burdens I grew up with - Black boys who dress like that are thugs. Black girls who dress like that are hoes. Black skin is a risk to your life expectancy. 

Living outside the US I remember the first time I caught someone staring at me in a shop and I realised they thought I was attractive instead of suspecting me as a thief. Before leaving the US I never had the capacity to accept that other people saw me as anything other than Black and dangerous. And I wondered how many relationships or opportunities I had eschewed because my only experience prior to that was that if someone is staring at me it's because they are afraid of me and will hurt me?

The real thief is the persistent racism in America that robs Black people of the gift of freedom - freedom from the deep personal, mental, emotional and physical shackles that keep a race of people from actualising their potential - a freedom that so many other groups could find simply by anglicising their surnames and blending in if they choose (not that anyone should have to).

Being Black is so much more than pain and suffering. There is joy. There is family. There is food and culture and art and so much beauty. But, how much more could we be as a people if our kids didn't have to learn the painful lessons we learned, that our parents learned, that our grandparents and their grandparents learned over and over?

I've seen literally seen Black people murdered in the street. My parents have too. My grand parents saw them hanged. And their grand parents saw them ripped apart by whips and dogs. What generation will no longer see Black people dragged in the street and killed by 'the law' just for existing in the same space as white people?

I live in Scotland now. And, even as a Black, gay, immigrant with disabilities, I see the opportunities I have here to expand myself and for the country as a whole to do something different - to really change the game in race equality in a predominantly white society. Scotland has the chance to write a new narrative for the ever increasing minority communities that come to these shores. I hope we take every opportunity we're given.

But, I also can't hide from the horror in my home country because every time I turn on the news there is someone dying in horrific and completely avoidable way. I can't avoid it when I close my eyes because I relive the memories of the first time I realised a white person could limit my opportunities simply because they didn't like me based on the colour of my skin. 

The world now sees through social media the reality of relentless evil and dehumanisation that Black people in America have been subjected to every day since that first ship brought "20 and odd negroes" to (what is now) Virginia in 1619.

In so many respects the world is watching the US, previously as a leader and now as a twisted cautionary tale. But, how can it truly be a lesson unless the rest of the world, Scotland included, take action to do something about it?

I was once told that racism is a downward escalator. The racists are actively walking down, being carried along at double speed. Most people are standing still, complicit and carried along whether they want to or not. And, even those who are moving backward are just standing still, stagnating in their efforts because of their slow pace. The only real way to combat it is to work twice as hard to go upwards in the other direction.

How are you fighting to go the other way? How are you helping take us further away from the ultimate evil that will see the continued denigration and eventual destruction of a people?

We need white allies just as much as we need Black people standing up for their right to exist without fear of being murdered. Time to put that white saviour complex to good use! We need to be united in our abhorrence of the treatment of Black and Brown people in America. We need other countries to openly condemn and sanction the persistent and insidious human rights violations that are perpetuated on American soil every day. Maybe the world will unite in this unprecedented time of pandemic fear and death to say to the US powerhouse, "We're not ok with what you're doing to your citizens", so that one day America can really call itself the land of the free, not just for white people.