Seeing the Black Lives Matter movement take over Instagram this last two weeks has been overwhelming in an entirely positive way.
Yet I haven’t posted anything.
Why not?
Because pathetically my excuse is, I don’t know what to say. I don’t know where to begin.
There is so much wrong with the world right now. 2020 is undoubtedly the shittiest year I’ve had to live through in terms of world politics, the economy and humanity as a whole.
And I feel powerless. What can I do?
I know, I am extremely privileged. I live in an area where seeing a police officer is pretty unusual so the police brutality in Minneapolis feels a long way from home and very detached from me.
What difference does it make if I post a black picture on my Instagram and watch the likes tot up, each one like a badge of validation reassuring me that I’ve done a good thing?
What difference can I make, if my few followers see a post that I’ve put on my story that’s already been reposted hundreds of times?
What difference can I make, from my home?
I’ve been doing some career tests recently, more out of amusement than anything, and various statements have come up saying; I want a job that helps other people.
The options are:
Strongly disagree
Disagree
I have no preference
Agree
Strongly agree.
Each time the question came up I clicked strongly agree.
I want to make a difference.
(My career quizzes came back as special needs teacher, which is a hugely admirable profession but not quite what I had in mind for myself.)
But what can I do? How do we put those words into actions?
Well, we start by educating ourselves. We read books about personal experiences of black oppression, we watch documentaries, we open up challenging conversations with our families, we sign petitions…
I know personally I could and should do more of this, but all these little things do add up.
One of my favourite posts that I’ve seen on lots of people’s social media recently says; "I understand that I will never understand. However, I stand".
The enormity of everything happening is like a tsunami; there’s little one can do when the waves begin approaching but soon they’ve swamped us all.
It’s not enough any more to think, oh well, this isn’t an issue where I live, I’m safe, it’s okay here. We have a responsibility as a human society to fight against injustice in order to make the world a fairer, kinder place.
Yes, that’s an insurmountable task. Is it possible?
The only way we’ll know is if we try.
I know, I don’t have the power or influence to change laws or reach out to millions of people but I have a voice and an audience and that’s enough.
I’ve seen countless videos recently showing the marches in America, showing black people being beaten by police officers, showing black children talking about the measures they are taught to take to prove their innocence when authorities find them suspicious just because of their skin.
It is so devastatingly wrong that people treat people like this. And somehow feel justified by doing so.
I will never understand how those officers in Minneapolis and in so many other places in across the world can justify themselves for treating other people so inhumanely.
I haven’t known what to say about the Black Lives Matter movement because I am lost for words.
It simply does not make sense to me that we can discriminate, beat and murder other people for no better reason other than how they look.
Frustration, anger… No words can explain how I feel in the face of all this.
How can so much have changed in our world and yet still so little?
Why is this still a fight that we are having? Have we not learnt anything?
In a time of such international distress, why are we still incapable of putting prejudice aside in order to unite and respect one and other?
I’m afraid of sounding like a stuck record, saying all the things that have already been said. What can I add as a fifteen-year-old white girl from England? What can I add that is my own message?
Actually, these things need to be said over and over. Because clearly it hasn’t stuck before.
It’s not about having your own original take on racism and saying something unique and individual. I don’t need to say anything that hasn’t been said before, in fact I need to say what has already been said.
This is a message that needs repeating and reposting over and over and over.
We all need to shout. And then shout some more, until the sound resonates into every aspect of our lives, that we become so familiar with it, it makes nothing but perfect sense.
We’ll keep shouting until we become like a stuck record. That’s how it should be.
A chant like a drum beat. A pulse.
Black. Lives. Matter.
Comments