The struggle is real – for ALL of us

“I’m for truth, no matter who tells it. I’m for justice, no matter who it’s for or against.” – Malcolm X

The times they are a-changing. Bob Dylan wrote this timeless anthem for change in the febrile decade of the sixties, when the demand for civil rights within America reached their zenith. Lest it be forgotten, the sixties were also the decade in which the vast majority of African and Caribbean countries gained their independence from their colonial masters. Anyway, as I was saying, the times they are a-changing or so it would seem, with protests for racial equality increasing and occurring all over the world. Considering that there is a deadly virus disrupting every facet of what was previously considered normal life, to the extent that minimising human contact and proximity are key to maintaining personal health, it is staggering that so many people have taken to the streets to protest all over the world. But what is truly confounding to so many is that the protestors aren’t the ‘usual suspects’. There are of course black and brown people at its core but by and large, significant majorities of protests and the protestors are (young) white. For a middle-aged black man of African parentage who was born in the UK, this was almost beyond the scope of my comprehension. Was this real? Was it sustainable? Were we all going to sing kumbaya around the camp fire now?

Well…no.

If the natural order of white supremacy hasn’t been restored over the last fortnight or so, it’s certainly keen to make a resurgent comeback. Major corporations from the BBC to Premier League football clubs have taken a demonstrably public backward step away from associating with Black Lives Matter, ostensibly because they do not want to be linked with something “that seems to be expressing a political opinion”. Really? Thank God these organisations are headed by people with a better understanding of political nuance than me because I was labouring under the delusion that Black Lives Matter was a statement of fact and hopefully, one of recognition and acknowledgement from those who can actually affect and implement change. More fool me I suppose for daring to be optimistic. After all, social justice movements are always vogue – particularly in this age of social media where ostensive compassion, altruism and race can be and are commodified – until they encroach upon the status quo which they are seeking to alter. Until they stop protesting ‘the right way’ and ‘go too far’.

Or in other words, until protesters insist that their demands are ACTUALLY addressed.

I suppose this was all totally inevitable. From the spectacle of multiple politicians taking a knee a few weeks ago, today we have those same individuals tiptoeing away from Black Lives Matter’s demands. In particular, Keir Starmer’s ostensible reluctance to demonstrably support one of the few black, female MPs, Dawn Butler after her constituency offices were repeatedly attacked due to her visible support for the BLM movement, looks especially cowardly. After all, he bravely took a knee. When everyone else did. Because it looked good and would have been so obtusely insensitive that even our racist Prime Minister, Boris the Liar had to maintain (at least in public) a civil, supportive discourse. The point here though is that the struggle has been revealed to be a little too real for some, if not most of the initial vanguard of supporters. For black and brown people, the struggle is as real as it ever was and in some ways, the struggle feels even harder when you realise that the crowd that appeared to have your back has thinned significantly, citing concern with ideas such as defunding the police and changing too much of the school curriculum. I see. We’ve got your backs but try not to be so provocative. As is always the case, I could go on. But as righteous as the collective indignation of black and brown people is, there is limited value in me cataloguing the myriad, complex reasons how and why white supremacy and its insidious sibling, modern capitalism, continue to be such inescapably influential and destructive forces in the lives of not just black and brown people, but poor people all over the world.

And that’s the key point. It's not just about black and white. It’s about rich and poor. And if we’re poor we’re on the same side.

Don’t get it twisted. As the present-day genius known as Dave said on his seminally instructive track, Black, so eloquently, “we all struggle but your struggle ain’t a struggle like me, well how could it be when your people gave us the odds that we beat?” So even in the depths of despair and suffering of Covid-19, something that has created a collective, international psychosis, long-term consequences of white supremacy and structural racism are unavoidable now the veil covering society has been lifted to reveal a pretty ugly face underneath. Black and brown people can’t treat BLM like an exciting gap year project or a sexy, dangerous hobby. We can’t afford to when so many of us are the glue binding society together. Driving the buses and delivering your packages that are keeping you sane while you feel imprisoned by social distancing. Cleaning, whether it’s offices, streets, trains, factories, hospitals, sewers and everything else. Black and brown nurses would cause the NHS to implode if they all left tomorrow, with hospitals and care homes utterly dependent on them. And because so many of us are doing these thankless jobs (very often being discriminated against and abused in the process) and returning to homes where social distancing is impossible, black and brown people are being afflicted at approximately twice the rate of white people across each identifiable demographic. But poor white people aren’t far behind, and this pandemic has created ‘poor’ people more rapidly than anything in a century.

And this is at the crux of BLM objectives and the essence of anti-racism. If you believe in equality for some, you have to believe in equality for all. I don’t believe in tolerance as it’s a cop out, indicating that you put up with something for convenience. I believe in acceptance because all I want and expect is reciprocity. A few weeks ago, citizens of this country – in fact many countries –had a limited attention span when discussing the issue of BAME (I hate that acronym) minorities being disproportionately targeted by police and the increasingly video-captured crime of…well just being black. Then, suddenly they had plenty of time on their hands which were forced to be idle whilst on furlough or just trying to survive, and they sought to become allies in the fight against injustice. Now that the adrenaline rush and fervour have subsided, some of these onetime friends of the cause now irascibly seek to critique and criticise the movement so that they can get back to their lives with minimal impact. But as I said earlier, for black and brown people the struggle is real and unavoidable. For white people, especially for the younger generation, they see that this struggle is actually far more universal and impactful. They see that blindly venerating the colonial ideology of empire and indolently blaming the world’s ills on dark-skinned people and immigrants is a repeat of the original strategy devised in the infancy of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. This strategy dictated that in order to quell the increasing number of slave rebellions in the former colonies which were multi-racial, the landowners (the original 1% if you will, along with European royalty) created the concept of whiteness, separating indentured servants from African slaves and creating a hierarchy in which those former servants became the overseers and slave catchers, the direct predecessors of today’s American police forces. The opportunity to explore this part of history – ALL OUR HISTORY – will at least ensure that we can start to chip away at the pillars that underpin white supremacist thinking. Churchill is a national hero who defeated the fascists. Churchill also wanted to avoid conflict with the Germans and was content to leave Hitler alone as long as he didn’t get any bright ideas about invading good old Blighty. He was a man of the people who travelled via the underground to show solidarity in the Blitz. He was also responsible for the genocide of millions of Indians and a proud eugenicist. If this is new information to you it merely illustrates the importance of changing school curricula so that history isn’t just written by the oppressors.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. But now, more than ever, there is a collective of people, a literal rainbow coalition of humanity that are focused, determined and full of belief. It’s important to let them know they aren’t alone even if you can’t attend a protest which quite frankly, could end up killing you. But I’m black and everything is conspiring to kill me anyway. For my white brothers and sisters, it may not be as apparent but these leaders are treating you even more contemptuously than us. Because they truly believe that you don’t care enough to continue joining in with the struggle. They truly believe that they can continue lying to you to keep you distracted and indifferent. But I know differently because I know more than enough of you have seen that their inhumanity is boundless. They don’t care about us. And they don’t care about you.

It's not just about black and white. It’s about rich and poor. And if we’re poor we’re on the same side.