Black Lives Matter

Myself, as well as a huge portion of the world have been truly awoken to the black lives matter movement this past week.

I've always been 'apart' of it, if you will.. always followed the news of black people being shot by police, sharing the news for exposure and appreciating black history month etc. 

It has always broken and confused my heart that someone can look at another human being and notice that they are a different nationality. When I've only ever seen simply another person. I can't say I look at people with different coloured hair or eyes and felt a different way about them, and for me personally it works the same for people with different coloured skin. We are all people in my eyes.

It really baffles me that there are people out there who see different. 

How can ethnicity, race, culture, skin colour, be used as a currency, measuring how much value you have as a person?

I've been hurting and I've been angry this past week. Trying to think of what to say and how to help. I've been educating myself as much as possible, sharing everything I can and informing everyone I know who is not up to date on everything I'm seeing on social media. 

I think it's really hit a lot more people seeing that George Floyd was not an impulse shot, a policeman didn't "make a mistake" "act on impulse" etc. He brutally, physically ended that man's life. Slowly. 

I want to do all I can, I will be partaking in as much as I'm physically capable of doing. I'm still learning, and still ignorant to a lot of things. I'm certain I will say or do the wrong thing, over step my mark and unintentionally make mistakes. If this happens please understand it is coming from a good place, correct and educate me. I want to do this right. I understand it's a delicate subject, I understand I am white and from the UK and that it also doesn't make my voice any less important. 

Here's what I, and others can do to make a stand.

- Listen to black people. Most of the information, advice, and "how to help" tips, I am getting from the people who are experiencing this first and foremost. 

- Remember that this is their fight. You cannot fight for change for your own selfish reasons (as a white), you can't do this because you hate the police, or injustice or whatever. This is solely for aiding black people in having as much rights, privilege, freedom and security as I or yourself do.

- Recognise and admit to your own privilege. I've seen Twitter threads opening my eyes to the fact "skin coloured tights" are white. Plasters, are white. There is so much around us we never even recognised or gave a second thought to.

- Educate yourself on everything. Read books, listen to podcasts, watch youtube videos of speeches and movements. It gets more and more terrifying the more you learn. 

- Share everything. Twitter and Instagram are full of everything blm at the moment. But a lot of my Facebook friends are oblivious, going by what they hear on the news (which I can imagine is a bit toned down compared to the news in America). A lot of people don't see this as our fight, as a white Brit, it is "out of our control" and "down to others at the frontlines of it all". Which is where we continuously go wrong. EVERYONE needs to constantly fight for the injustices, all over the globe. 

- This isn't about an isolated incident. This isn't anger because "another black man was killed by police" this is about enough being enough and change NEEDING to be brought about. So no, this is not a trend. This is not something that we can let die down in  a few weeks, this is a constant fight until something breaks through.

- Sign petitions, donate to organisations (not change.org because it doesn't go directly to the cause) https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/ is a good site to use. 

- Protests. I'm not going to tell people how they can protest, I know a lot of people are angry and I honestly see both sides as to whether they should be angry or peaceful. I don't believe white people should be looting for sure, and I myself will only go to a peaceful protest. But I will not tell you what you should do. 

However, I do believe taking to the streets is important, my town (Leicester) is having one, I know they are going on in London. If you can go to one, then do it. If there aren't any in your area, make one. I believe the Leicester one came about from a group of k-pop fans on Twitter which gained enough attention. People are angry, they want to take to the streets, make your own protest. 

- Stand up, in general. If you see something is wrong, do something. If police are abusing their power, intervene. If you witness any form of racism, intervene. It's not going to stop unless people actually try to stop it. It's that simple. Especially if you're white, we can use our privilege in these situations to protect others. I have seen videos of police backing off once a white person got between them and a black person.

- I'm keeping an eye out on what companies are speaking out and showing support, and will be looking into using more companies (for shopping etc) that support and help black lives, and boycotting the others.

- And God, dear God don't talk about "all lives matter" we been knew sis. We KNOW all lives matter, no one has ever said otherwise, this whole movement is because all lives matter. We're focusing on black lives right now, to build them up so we're all on the same wavelength. Educate yourself on it.

https://blacklivesmatter.com/ This is the official website where you can learn, donate and sign petitions.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/georgefloyd This is the link to the official fund for George Floyd. There are maaaany more links on go fund me that you can help with, and sooo many petitions online. 

https://www.change.org/t/black-lives-matter-en-us This is a link to the general "black lives matter" petitions, a list you can go through and put your name on. If you need zip codes and are not from the U.S here are a few that have been shared and you can use:

90015

10001

90001

91103

91743

06040

71101

29169

Plus many more can be found online. 

https://www.goodreads.com/list/tag/black-lives-matter This one is a link to books you can read on this topic.

I'm going to leave this post here. I really hope it's useful to some people, more than anything I hope it's just getting the word out a bit more that we need to use our voices and fight for change. 

Again, please educate me if I do wrong, as well as others.

Stay safe if protesting, respect all human lives, and stand together always.

Shedding light and positivity to everyone. 

Shan x