Children, like adults, see skin colour. They are aware of these differences even from a young age. A conversation with my seven-year-old granddaughter made me aware that I have not paid much attention to the Black Lives Matter movement. One of those moments was when her inquisitive mind caught me off guard when she asked, “What does Black Lives Matter mean as I’m hearing it everywhere.”
My hesitation must have been deafening because I had never given this much thought as I presumed that everyone understood this, so I replied, “Kylah, all lives matter is the best way to explain this, but black lives matter more because of the wrong things that have been done to black people in comparison to white people.” Her response was,” Okay”, which suggested that she was not convinced by my reply or understood it.
There is a complete misunderstanding of what the phrase “Black Lives Matter” means, as some people have interpreted it as meaning “black lives matter more than any other lives.”
My point was not to say Black Lives Matter most or suggest that black lives should be more important than other lives. Instead, it was pointing out that black people’s lives matter also. Most discussions about this subject never focus on the organization’s leaders but on the victims, who have drawn attention to America’s massive racism issues.
The movement can be traced back to 2013, after the acquittal of George Zimmerman, who shot and killed Trayvon Martin in Florida. The 17-year-old high school student returned home from a shop after buying sweets and iced tea. Mr Zimmerman, a security guard, claimed that the unarmed black teenager had looked suspicious.
There was outrage when Zimmerman was found not guilty of murder, and a Facebook post entitled “Black Lives Matter” captured a mood and sparked action. Its calls for justice for Trayvon Martin lit the spark for the Black Lives Matter movement, but it was George Floyd’s killing that took the movement to areas it had not reached before.
The very public killing of Floyd by a white police officer in the USA became a catalyst for widespread anti-racist protests in the UK last summer. Though the death took place thousands of miles away, the cry for racial justice was felt deeply here. Britons stood up against racism, declaring support in their thousands for the Black Lives Matter movement via a succession of passionate protests. Shetland in Scotland cities, from South Wales to Shetland in Scotland, held protests in June and July. British historians described them as the largest anti-racism rallies since the slavery era, and at the heart of many of these protests was a new generation of young black Britons.
Although the protests were inspired by the US’s movement, the protesters’ anger was rooted in the British experience. They carried handmade placards with Stephen Lawrence, Sean Rigg and Mark Duggan and others killed by British police. They chanted for the Windrush generation and the Grenfell Tower fire victims and decried the high COVID-19 death rate among members of the BAME community. While some view the movement as controversial, it did create awareness and spark conversations about racism. The Black Lives Matter movement now has a chance to make meaningful, lasting change.
