This powerful Guardian opinion piece by Afua Hirsh states: "What black people are experiencing the world over is a system that finds their bodies expendable, by design." African Americans have been saying this time after time, death after death – Trayvon Martin, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Eric Garner, and so many more. And now, again. Here in the UK many black people have also been saying the same things because "many of us have been fighting for this all our lives."

Instead of Dominic Raab's wanting to see de-escalation of tension, the British government "could have had the humility to use this moment to acknowledge Britain’s experiences. It could have discussed how Britain helped invent anti-black racism, how today’s US traces its racist heritage to British colonies in America, and how it was Britain that industrialised black enslavement in the Caribbean, initiated systems of apartheid all over the African continent, using the appropriation of black land, resources and labour to fight both world wars and using it again to reconstruct the peace. And how, today, black people in Britain are still being dehumanised by the media, disproportionately imprisoned and dying in police custody, and now also dying disproportionately of Covid-19."

Instead it used George Floy's death as an excuse to delay the report into the disparity in ethnic minority deaths from Covid-19. Even when it appear, a key section, containing information on the potential role of discrimination, was removed before publication.

Black People "have taken what we inherited and had no choice but to make sense of it. We have studied, read, written and understood the destructive power of race. And we are telling you that race is a system that Britain built here. We are also telling you that as long as you send all children out into the world to be actively educated into racism, taught a white supremacist version of history, literature and art, then you are setting up a future generation to perpetuate the same violence on which that system of power depends. We are telling you that we need to dismantle, not to de-escalate."

Read the full article here.   

This article, by Siana Bangura in today's Independent, urges white people to play their part in ending racism.

"Racism is a familiar blade, and for those of us at its sharp end, the killing of George Floyd in Minnesota has not surprised us. However, compounded by the injustice of a Covid-19 landscape in which black people have been, once again, hit the hardest according to data from the Office for National Statistics, this instance of brutality feels like the last straw. Black women in the UK are 4.3 times more likely to die from Covid-19 than white women, while black men were 4.2 times more likely to die. The report went on to say that these alarming disparities seem to be 'partly a result of socio-economic disadvantage and other circumstances, but a remaining part of the difference has not yet been explained'. Spoiler alert: it’s no mystery – structural inequality kills."

Siana notes that once again with the protests in the USA "the onus has been put on black people to dismantle their subjugation themselves and to remain calm while doing so." She then quotes a viral tweet which sums up the dichotomy: 
“My main issue with racism is that it’s a white problem but black people are the experts” and goes on to appeal to white people to get active and get vocal. "Silence is betrayal at best, and at its very worst, it is the foundation of all covert expressions of white supremacy... You may not have directly inflicted physical pain on black people in your lifetime, but figuratively – in many cases, of course, literally – your knees have been pressed on our necks for centuries." To those who say they are afraid of saying or doing the wrong thing she replies: "to create change, you must be humble enough to make mistakes, apologise with your whole heart, and be ready to keep trying. That is truly what is needed now."

Read the full article.

Bishop Dr Joe Aldred of Churches Together in England, and a trustee of MJR, in an interview on Premier Christian Radio has criticised the US Government for its response to protests that have swept the country following the death of an unarmed black man, George Floyd.  Bishop Aldred argues that the protests are a natural response to injustice. Floyd's death was not an isolated incident and people are crying out for change.

"What we've seen is that the black life in the eyes of a racist, white system has been devalued - it tells a tale of a story that has been running for centuries. It is truly sad. There is no peace, without justice. And so, one needs to look not just at the tragic killing, yet another killing, of George Floyd. One has to look at the system, the unjust system within which that operates".

Read more here.

(MJR Trustee Paul Keeble writes)

This opinion piece in the Irish Times gives a perspective on the recent history of Britain (and the USA) is notable because of its viewpoint. Titled "We need to pay very close attention to what is happening in Britain now", writer Una Mulally is writing from an Irish context as a near-neighbour that has enjoyed (or endured?) a long relationship with Britain which gives a unique position from which to observe and comment. It's not a positive picture.

Very critical of the current political regimes in both Britain and the US and the process that has led to the ascent of Boris Johnson and Donald Trump, as both countries "fall apart", a question is asked for others watching on: "we must interrogate how we can prevent falling as far as these two nations. How do we hold on to civility and decency, when it has evaporated elsewhere? What kind of environment gave rise to such toxicity?"

She continues: "The more we know ourselves, the less likely we are to betray ourselves, and each other. A lot of this is about empathy, but it is also about self-knowledge." For both Britain and the US a lack of self-knowledge is a barrier to progress. "If one does not confront the basic truths of one’s national identity, one will not be able to trace a path forward. Everything becomes a fiction, a narrative designed to block any kind of self-examination." For both nations a major basic truth is the "central malady" of racism.

"The toxicity at the heart of America is racism. It’s a country full of white people who have never confronted the fact that their so-called 'freedoms'. and their country’s economic power, were built on slavery. ... Similarly, Britain has never meaningfully confronted its racism, which is colonialism, building an 'empire' on the back of invading and pillaging and inflicting misery on whatever shores its brutal mercenaries... landed on." Including of course, Ireland.

Here I need to declare an interest. I grew up in Protestant Northern Ireland and was taught in school a selective history of the island. It was only in later life that I learned of the centuries of exploitation by the British and found out about Drogheda, The Famine, the Easter Rising and much more, arguably continuing to the present day in the dismissive attitude behind the "Irish Backstop" fiasco. I have lived in England for many years and continue to note the level of ignorance (which to an extent I used to share) about the island to the west... and how often Northern Ireland, a part of the UK, is casually referred to as "Ireland". A small symptom of a bigger problem?

It should give pause for thought that this observation made by a close neighbour is that our main root-problem is self-deception about our racism, an ongoing legacy of a history of colonialism, marked by exploitation and oppression. "The violence of British colonialism is embedded in the fabric of the world, in the horrors of illegal wars, in the consequences of bleeding nations of their resources, in the couldn’t-give-a-toss attitude towards Ireland."

​Read the full article here.