I’m angry.
Not just ‘normal’ anger either. Red hot anger. The kind of anger that makes you feel you could detonate at any given moment. The anger that is borne out of hopelessness, despair, bewilderment and shame. The anger at feeling that nothing is changing - in the United States and in many other parts of the world. The anger that makes me feel I can’t breathe.
Last week, I forced myself to watch the video of George Floyd’s last minutes staring, in horror, at the screen as he gasped for breath, pleading for his life, whilst a police officer knelt on his neck (and three other officers stood by, compliantly).
I was numb. My head pounded. And I felt sick to my stomach.
Enormous tears rolled down my cheeks. Tears of fury and tears of shame.
Because what I witnessed was a modern-day lynching - a white man depriving a black man of his life, in public.
It’s that simple.
Photo courtesy of JSTOR Daily
Photo courtesy of Al Jazeera
So I did what I thought I wouldn’t do - I broke lockdown (and I’ve been extremely diligent since mid-March, partly because I think I have an ethical obligation to save lives and partly because I’m actually classed as a vulnerable person). I did it because, at certain points in your life, you just have to stand up and be counted. I decided to make my voice heard for George Floyd, whose only crime - like so many others - was to be a black man in 21st century America.
I grabbed a bike, donned my mask and gloves and pedalled hard all the way to Trafalger Square At 1 pm, the organisers had announced, we would kneel for George. But this protest was much more than an act of solidarity - this was about calling out institutionalised racism - racism that’s so permissive, so vile, that it’s often too uncomfortable for us, as white people, to even contemplate.
After all, what do I know about being stopped and searched? About being arrested on spurious grounds? About being pinned to the ground, put in a chokehold, shot at with teargas or rubber bullets? I know that racism in the US is as prevalent as it was when I lived there, almost 30 years ago, when LA erupted after Rodney King’s assailants were acquitted. I understand its roots - slavery, lynchings, Confederate statues, Jim Crow laws, Freedom Riders…but what do I really understand about the reality of being black? Nothing.
All I can do is say his name.
All I can do is listen and show support.
Trafalger Square had a frenetic energy to it - black and white, young and old, most wearing masks and (like me) trying hard to keep a good distance. I counted only three policemen in the entire crowd in the 30 minutes I was there. People stood and clapped, cheered, chanted and made a lot of noise. Good. A great deal of noise needs to be made. This is no time to cower in a corner. Attention must be paid.
From the square, we set off down Whitehall (holding up the traffic), stopping at Downing Street (heavily policed, with regular ‘bobbies’ up front and a more military set-up behind the gates).
It felt more tense - not surprisingly - but after the crowd dispersed I stayed behind to talk to the guy in charge. What he said surprised me (and I’m not easily surprised). He admitted to me, quite publicly, that he’d seen things in the British Police Force, over the years, that had shaken him. That he knew something was awry. That he understood something had to change. Someone more cynical would have passed his words off as a good PR stunt, but - in my heart of hearts - I believed him; I sensed really sincerity. And that, in itself, is something.
Beyond Westminster and the Houses of Parliament, thousands set off over the Thames towards the American Embassy in Vauxhall. More heavily fortified than usual, I saw later, on the news, that the hundreds of police had been drafted in to protect the building, complete with an enormous buffer zone. Even so, there were just a handful of arrests, which shows how peaceful this protest was. Not that the Trump administration would care - no doubt if the President had his way, he’d have had us pelted with rubber bullets and tear gas. God Bless America.
I’ve been exhausted since, and hope I don’t pay the price (i.e. catch a nice case of Covid 19). But I’m not sorry I went. Actually, I’d do it again (and again, and again). Because, for me, silence is complicity now. If you don’t take a stand, in my mind, at a moment like this, you’re part of the problem.
His name was George Floyd. His crime was being black. Remember his name.