Black Lives Matter - Pt. 1

I am a black Ashtead resident who’s been here just shy of a decade. I felt called to action by Tim Long’s interview and follow-up newsletter. I am inspired by his sacrifice and moral courage in standing up for what was right in South Africa, at significant cost to himself and his family. I believe challenges like those currently faced are likely to be insurmountable, without allies like Tim and so many countless others who take a stand. Due to particular sensitivities around my job I asked not to officially put my name on this article as these are my personal not professional views. However if you’ve already figured who I may be, then great investigative work!

The events of the past month in the wake of George Floyd’s killing and the ensuing global outcry has been a revelation. For the first time, arguably since the Civil Rights era of the 1960s, there appears to be a frank and honest debate about the depth and scale of systemic and structural racism.  This permeates almost every aspect our society, in particular those with significant BAME populations.

For most of us up until this current tipping point it was often pretended that issues of racism in our daily lives largely did not exist. It had to be something else, perhaps a misunderstanding. Or anything for that matter...but ‘just not racism’. Denial of things being race based tends to be a default defensive reaction, especially in school and work settings. The most corrosive aspect of racism is that people who’ve been largely subjected to it (in its many forms and guises), routinely have it dismissed and invalidated as non-existent by people who may never have experienced racism and how it manifests itself.

The tragedy of George Floyd’s death (and countless others before him who died in similar tragic and brutal circumstances) has brought a real moment of reckoning on issues of race for which I’m prayerful something meaningful will come out of. However, it’s up to us whether we seize it or let it pass us by. In preparing to write this article I reflected on the experiences throughout the course of my life that would qualify as having racial overtones. It brought a lot of painful memories flooding back, many of which I’d largely suppressed. I experienced a childhood where I tended to be one of a few children of colour, if not the only one, in the places I lived. I can remember at age 7 being in class and having a white child interrupting the teacher during a lesson, to mock me by calling me a “spear chucker” and making monkey noises. I remember routinely being told by supposed friends that they couldn’t stand black people, but I was “different” as I was “black on the outside but white on the inside”. I noticed friends and strangers alike often resorting to racial slurs and put-downs if they felt I bested them in any way.  It was used as their nuclear option. I remember a science teacher inexplicably letting slip the N-word in the middle of a lesson in high school. I’ve been pulled over by police in the middle of the day, travelling from my place of work to a business meeting at another location, for no apparent offending reason. I remember attending a rugby match at Twickhenham and being subjected to a barrage of racial abuse from a rowdy gentleman. He got arrested, went to court and he got convicted for that. I remember going through to the final round of an intensive selection process, for what I believed to be my dream job at a venerable insurance organisation in the City of London. I recall the hiring manager enthusing about my presentation, my experience, my academic & professional qualifications and my additional language skills. He acknowledged to an extent I appeared overqualified. He hesitated, then to my surprise stated plainly he was concerned I might not be a good fit in terms of “the culture” of the organisation, in terms of the particular “type of guys” that worked there. Apparently, they were a “laddish bunch” who played an awful lot of golf. I suddenly found myself missing this hidden job criteria for which I had no answer. I ultimately missed out on that job. These are just a tiny fraction of the innumerable incidents, which have characterised various stages of my life. I offer them as a snapshot of the daily grind that these incidents can create.

There’s no immunity from racism if you happen to be black or brown irrespective of station in life. It affects the millionaire Premier League players (ie. racialised chanting in the stands), top NFL players, actors, pop-stars, models, doctors, just as much as the average person of colour on the street. It’s played out daily, largely through being on the receiving end of unconscious biases. These at their simplest are ‘instinctive’ preferences and affinity to in-group members that look like us while excluding those who don’t. Experience of racism is not a one-off, but tends to be a cumulative series of incidents for most people of colour throughout the course of their lives, starting from an early age, and for some the toll is quite destructive. It really is death by a thousand cuts. However, most tend to learn to “manage” and cope with the slings and arrows that come as best they can, picking the battles to fight and the ones to simply walk away from. To the person committing the racist offence or ‘micro aggression’ it might be just one insignificant action, a throw away comment, or joke about BAME groups but to the black or brown recipient it’s probably incident 5,999 in their lives, hence why even the small incidents of racism or unconscious bias can be so toxic. As a US friend of mine remarked over recent FaceTime chat, “being black in America is dangerous and stressful…” The parallels tend to broadly hold true across the Atlantic, with the danger element caveated.

If anything, George Floyd’s death and other recent racial incidents have awoken the wider world to the fact that racism is alive and kicking. Policing is just the very sharp end of racial disparities that are played out in education, employment, housing, health care (access & provision) and ultimately life chances. Combating racism (in values espoused by the Black Lives Matter movement) is not a black issue, it’s a universal justice issue. It’s a matter of recognising, especially as Christians, that we’re equally made in God’s image. And recognising our common humanity.