To be honest OP, what’s really pissing me off is the pervasiveness of disparity between the protests and the huge, busy beaches and the Lake District. What I mean by this relates to the comments made in forums such as this, Facebook local pages, such as ‘Proper Manchester’ and I haven’t even bothered to read the racist rhetoric of the Daily Mail.
I, for one, do question if protesting in the middle of a pandemic is the right thing to do I have been isolating since the 13th March and when, as a family we would have been able to get out lock down kicked in. However, so many people have gathered in large crowds, put themselves in risky situations and owing to the beautiful weather (where’s it gone?!) en masse spent days at the beach, with little regard to anyone’s safety. Yes, there were negative comments about this, but the tone has changed massively and it’s so sad - that makes me anxious!
I was speaking to my partner today, and for context, I’m mixed raced and my partner is white, our children are very fair - one even has blue eyes. Anyway, we were discussing white privilege and for all intents and purposes my children will experience that because they are fair skinned. However, I raised the concern whilst pregnant how we would deal with racism, indifference towards them, lack of opportunities etc. if they were darker. The issue is that this shouldn’t have even had to cross or minds - it wouldn’t cross the mind of a white person.
That’s why people are protesting. The conversation should be about change, people need to recognise where they may have been unconsciously bias due to race (nobody ever wants to admit that), and companies, the government, need to ensure that those gaps are closed for BAME, as it’s accepted that BAME will generally live in socially deprived areas, have lower income roles, lack of opportunities and be treated differently by the Police. This is why they protest.
Only a person with white privilege will say “well there’s racism against whites”, the difference is the racism against BAME is deeply rooted institutionally, politically, policies work against the BAME community - this DOES NOT happen for the white community. It’s NOT systemic against the white community - that’s the difference.
This will also be raised again when the pay gap reporting into BAME comes to the fore and I hope it gets the same reaction as it did for the gender pay gap.
OP you’re right to feel anxious, you have my empathy, but I think you need to reflect on the reasons behind the march - it wasn’t “just because” they had enough of staying home, wanted to have a party, see their family. Being treated differently in all areas of your life affects the quality massively and people have chosen to take this risk in order to bring attention to policy, policing etc. To try and make a better life for them and future generations of BAME.
It’s sickening that we are still having this conversation in 2020 and trying to force through change to be accepted.