The Year of Black Lives Matter Out of Many, OnePeople - #7 - 10/12/20 John Root
Out of Many, OnePeople - # 7 - 10/12/20
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The Year of Black Lives Matter.
If it wasn’t for Covid Black Lives Matter may well have been the main news story of 2020. (I try not to think about Brexit). Although the movement had peaked in 2016 with the deaths of a large number of black people at the hands of the American police, yet it was with the death this year of George Floyd that a spontaneous global movement was sparked, including here in the UK where such tragedies have been extremely rare. Yet Floyd’s death became what Malcom Gladwell has termed a ‘tipping point’ – a time when something becomes contagious and grows way beyond previous expectations. This was partly because his death was filmed as well as appalling. It certainly created what Gladwell terms ‘stickiness’, something that latches onto people’s minds. Possibly because it saw the emergence of enough young black people with the passion to call out and respond to injustices, along with growing white awareness that the protests were just.
So what has BLM achieved? Here is a well-meaning but quite possibly wrong-headed white person’s year-end assessment of the plusses and minuses of the movement and its impact.
+1 Reforming our understanding of history.
I am not generally in favour of statues being toppled by a mob, but the toppling of Edward Colston’s statue in Bristol served to put front and centre Britain’s involvement in the slave trade, and served as a focus for growing unease about our failure to recognise the enormity of the evil lying only half-seen in our national history. Universities, bodies like the National Trust (see blog # 4) had been considering how to raise the profile of the issue. The Movement for Reconciliation and Justice, a Christian group, was planning to take a replica of the slave ship Zong on an educational tour of the nation’s ports. BLM has brought that recognition into sharp focus.
The cliché that such attempts to re-focus history are merely political correctness has been swept aside. TV programmes such as Samuel L Jackson’s ‘Slavery’ make it highly improbable that school syllabuses in particular, and popular understanding generally will erase the shame from our national memory. The demand of All Black Lives UK to ‘Decolonise the curriculum, teaching a historically accurate account of colonialism and Black British history’ will find milage in the way our history is taught. Whilst the belief that there are such things as ‘historically accurate accounts’ is contentious and naïve, BLM has almost certainly achieved what is almost certainly a lasting shift in the generalised national understanding of our past as regards the shame of the slave trade and slavery.
+2. Taking Microaggressions seriously.
The phrase ‘microaggression’ - as referring to the pinpricks of jokes, patronising remarks, failures to listen or take seriously, and so on – has in some places been derided as one more symptom (another cliché coming) of a chip on the shoulder. In fact I believe it is one of the main engines behind the grievance expressed in BLM. It is the accumulation of an infinite number of pin-pricks that gather together to generate a storm of anger and hostility.
In an interview the father of Jen Reid, who had given a black power salute from the just vacated plinth of Edward Coulson, pushed back against her action by speaking of ‘not biting the hand that feeds you’. For many of his generation the formative comparison was with the hard struggle of their pre-migration life, set over against the security and relative comfort of subsequent life in Britain. On balance it made sense to accept the good things the hand fed to you, and inure yourself against the hand also doling out insults and rejections.
But for his daughter the guiding comparison was with her white peers. Why should she have to face the insults and rejections which her they didn’t? In that sense, they really did have white privilege. I think the horrendous, and strikingly visual death of George Floyd has awakened white consciences in a wide variety of contexts to be alert to the very much smaller but nonetheless real wrongs suffered by black people, and to check the multitude of small ways by which we can inflict pain.
I believe that will be long-term and significant shift in the way in which people relate.
+3 ‘Normalising’ Black People.
It is now incontestable to all people and at all levels that this is a multi-ethnic society and this needs to be recognised and worked with.
One clear beneficiary of BLM are black actors. Whilst the Sainsbury’s Christmas advert has been the most high profile, the number of black people appearing in tv adverts has rocketed over the past year. The viewing public are being informed, perhaps subliminally, that black people do live here, do belong here, and aren’t that much different from other people. Though it is also true they are portrayed in mainly ‘mainstream’ rather than ‘ethnic specific’ situations, and often in mixed marriages (presumably to spread viewer identification), and my impression is that usually the actors aren’t very black.
The greater visual presence of black people can be cosmetic rather than a real mark of shifting power. At times it can be dishonest, including in the way that churches and church organisations present themselves. Nonetheless the momentum to ‘include’ is worthwhile and hopefully maturing into more substantial interaction.
-1 Overkill.
A public school headmistress has to apologise to the whole school for using the term ‘negro’. Sophie Raworth has to give a trigger-warning before an item on BBC News at 10 that people will hear a word that some may find offensive (c******d!) Increasingly it is being communicatd that people’s skin colour is a source of contention rather than a source of pride.
Theoretically, this is rooted in the conceptual paradox at the heart of the word ‘race’. Scientifically the word has no meaning; yet because people have given it social meaning we are faced with the very tricky task of both recognising the force of meaning it has acquired, whilst simultaneously trying to evacuate it of any meaning. Paradoxically race is real/isn’t real. ‘Racial’ differences are best recognised, built into our background framework of thinking, and then forgotten. So simultaneously BLM has done a service in drawing attention to the real injustices, major and minor, that black people face; and done a dis-service in making black/white relationships fraught rather than spontaneous. Thus white people can feel apologetic or walk on eggs; black people can feel offended by the use of descriptive words that have come to be deemed unacceptable.
One outcome has been an orgy of white virtue signalling, at times compulsory, which can obscure rather than enhance interaction.
-2 Outcomes.
By 2025 will the people who have protested in favour of BLM in 2020 feel that it has all been worthwhile? Protests work best when they are aimed at clear achievable ends. Yes, the poll tax is scrapped. No, the mines aren’t kept open. But what are the markers by which BLM can be judged? The greater profile of slavery in school syllabuses is one likely plus, but even that came wrapped with disputable demands about evaluating colonialism. Is ‘Stop and Search’ the enemy or the friend of black people? There are two sides. I suspect BLM (short of some major outrage) will slowly wither away, leaving protesters frustrated that no clear goals have been achieved.
Katharine Birbalsingh, the Guyanese-background head of the strongly disciplinarian Michaela Community School in Wembley takes an alternative viewpoint. She has said:“I am not going to waste my time begging the white man to undergo unconscious bias training, it’ll distract me from doing what does work, which is getting kids to learn their algebra, turn up on time and deliver. The problem with getting angry about racism is it’s distracting. It leaves you with less energy to help you succeed, like working hard, getting married and being a good parent.”
So, protest? Or the hard work of learning what makes us agents of change? They are not mutually exclusive. But the outcomes of both will need serious evaluation.
Add ons
Quote of the Week:‘Her topic is not “the big boot of bigotry, but the small constant aggressions of racism”’. (From the back cover of Patricia J Williams 1997 Reith Lectures: ‘Seeing a Colour-Blind Future: The Paradox of Race’. I know of no other book as illuminating about experiencing racism.)