Will black lives ever matter?

[RockLock]

So another killing of a black man Ahmaud Arbery by 2 white men (Father and son) in US. They nearly got away with it calling it a citizen arrest and self defence. Father was a retired policeman.

They followed him, armed with guns and shot him.

Prosecutors tried to cover it up until the video emerged.
Ahmaud’s crime? He was going for a jog.

Will black lives ever matter?

[CanICelebrate]

@Chloemol ffs that attitude/ ignorance is part of the problem. I can’t believe people can think that black people and white people face the same issues on the same scale. This isn’t about individual gangs or places, it’s about a problem inherent within societies, Institutions and justice systems.

[Annamaria14]

@namechangervaver I am white and I see it.

I was so shocked in the USA, I never knew how cruel people could be. I saw black people really being looked down on like they were animals.

White people have a responsibility to get rid of white supremacy

[PlanDeRaccordement]

From the photos I have seen most of the protesters are not white.

This is to be expected.
Brunswick, Georgia where the shooting and protests happened is majority black (57%). White people a minority (38%) of the population.

[CanICelebrate]

@LyingWitchInTheWardrobe I do genuinely apologise if my comment upset you - I should also avoid these threads as the make my emotions engage before my brain when I type.

[LetsGoFlyAKiteee]

FeelinFagin that's what makes it worse. If the video was never posted no doubt nothing wouldve been done.
Yet suddenly video posted and arrests made..hmmm.

[Mistystar99]

I keep expecting that twat Laurence Fox to pop up here!!

[Oakmaiden]

Similarly, women have been utterly resistant to the idea of shielding men from frontline roles.

I haven't even seen this seriously suggested, let alone women being resistant to the idea.

I think it is a reasonably good idea, if it can be managed.

The problem becomes when you look at doctors, who are right in the front line, that 27% are BAME and 55% are male. In hospitals the proportion is probably higher, as women are more likely to be in GP. Which means, by removing otherwise healthy men and BAME from the front line workforce you immediately lose probably close to 70% of all doctors (as the only ones still allowed to work would be white women). That would simply make it impossible to operate an NHS.

Whilst the problem is probably less extreme for other medical staff or other frontline roles, it is still always a huge proportion of the workforce that we just can't manage without.

So whilst the concept is obviously an excellent one, I just don't see how the country can operate without allowing men to work in frontline roles. We do actually need them.

[ThatsWhatHeroesDo]

I will hold my hands up and admit that I used to think All Lives Matter when I heard about Black Lives Matter. I didn't realise, then, how little value was placed on black lives in so many places. I know better now. I guess it's more like "We Already Know White Lives Matter But Black Lives Matter Too You Know".

[Annamaria14]

Did you see the video where the black man enters his own appartment building. And a white woman living in the apartment building challenges him and follows him all the way up to his flat, in the lift. She assumed he was a criminal because he was black.

He lived there.

They have to put up with this shit all the time, and far worse - getting shot and killed

[YinMnBlue]

All lives matter but all lives are not equally at risk.

It is stated policy of well established white supremacist groups in the U.S that black lives are second class, and this persists in institutional and systemic racism.

You don’t have to scratch the surface very hard to find it here, either.

It makes me sick when MNers respond to threads about racism with “I’m not black but I’ve never experienced anyone being racist in our village / golliwogs are just loveable toys, I’m not black but we loved them as kids and I’d like one for mine and we haven’t grown up racist” etc etc

Or shuts down a discussion with “playing the race card”, “chip on your shoulder “ or “it’s just victim mentality”

Polite liberal racism runs deep. Optimistic polite voices, shrill in denying that no one is racist any more...

[GoodbyePorpoiseSpit]

Fucking hell. You usually get some critical thinking on Mumsnet... Of all the wooden headed ignorant examples of white privilege the chirrup of “all lives matter” is the WORST. It’s the WORST. So uneducated, obtuse and honestly, the people that typed it might not face up to it but if that’s your thought process then YOU ARE A RACIST.

[Squidgoals]

YANBU. Agree with you and anyone saying 'all lives matter' in response doesn't understand the entrenched racism that exists in the US, where black lives demonstrably matter less. Either that or they're being deliberately disingenuous and therefore racist.
I haven't seen the video and I hope I never do because it sounds traumatising.
If I was a black American I'd be looking to find a way out of there because you're in danger, white people and the police can attack you with impunity.
The US is a terrible society. NRA, school shootings, fundy Christians, erosion of women's reproductive rights, profit-led health care, death penalty, racism, terrifying justice system... ugh no. I've been there many times but I don't think I'll go again. It's a bad place, and it's getting worse. Ffs, It's not even a proper democracy

[Washyourhandsyoufilthyanimal]

Is disgusting. How can this still be happening?

[PlanDeRaccordement]

he has had a career where structural racial bias was culturally ingrained so to pretend that this has absolutely no impact on the attitude of a retired police officer is just wilful blindness.

The police force doesn’t make officers racist, they come into it as racists before they ever get a badge and a gun. The police racial bias reflects the larger US society and endemic racism.

The fact he was a retired police officer explains only the corrupt handling/cover up attempts of the shooting by the police department. US police are very corrupt and will try and “take care of their own”.

[MintyMabel]

When pondering over whether all lives matter to everyone equally, you might want to consider what would have happened to this guy if he weren’t white?

If a group of black armed protesters had taken over Michigan’s State Capitol building, do you really believe police would have stood back and taken it like this? If you do, try looking back over black protest rallys in history.

[Annamaria14]

White people do not want to think about racism?

Why? Because the minute thet we do, we have to look at how bad white people have been for centuries.

We have to look at all the atrocities that have been done by white people to black people, for a very long time.

We have to look at how bad we have been as a race, and all the pain and deaths thst we have caused.

[Coyoacan]

I'm shocked at the first responses. Firstly this man was murdered by strangers just because he was black, then his murder was thought legitimate by the authorities because the perpetrators were white and the victim black.

Just as we all know that the right to carry guns openly in the USA only de facto applies to white people.

I don't know OP, if things will change but it's been a long time coming

[cherry2727]

*@radiantrose *
Murders happen all the time, over the world, white people as well as black. So yes I think YABU.



Wow! Just wow!

[doadeer]

When I first met my DH (Black British, me white British ) he had a very anti-police/ bouncers attitude. I was so shocked as it wasn't how if grown up at all. We've been together for a decade now and I can honestly say I don't blame him.

Countless times he has been treated with prejudice, disdain, suspicion by police in the UK.

He was foreably stopped and searched in a busy street in London on suspicion of dealing drugs when he was on his lunchbreak getting a tesco meal deal.

We've been refused entry to venues, he's been taken aside and searched, followed round shops, people I've away from him on the tube on occasion, they cross over the road.

The list is huge.

He works in a very white environment and is constantly held up as the poster child for diversity. They use his photo in promotion shots without permission. I know these seem like small things but it's constantly making him feel like "other"

Our son is very light skinned and DH thinks it's a blessing that our son won't face the bullshit he has had to deal with. How tragic is this.

I can stay emphatically, no white boyfriend I've had has ever been treated like this.

[Annamaria14]

Also, because it benefits us as white people, we are quite happy to let it go on a little longer.

[doadeer]

Oh and everytime we move into a new apparent block it's ages before the neighbours don't give him suspicious looks. In our last flat he was asked by a white neighbour in his 60s what he was doing here. We lived there!

[itsnotcakeitsbaby]

The response "all lives matter" is whataboutery of the worst kind.

[Annamaria14]

I see this attitude in white people all the time.

People are getting murdered. Getting disadvantaged in all areas of society.

But it benefits us! Why change!


So how do we get (many) white people to change, who really enjoy racism and power.

We havenmt managed it yet. I don't know what will have to happen to make it change

[missionalmostimpossible]

The US is far from the worst place in the world for racism. When you are the individual on the receiving end of it, any incident is awful, and many countries are the same, if not worse. A black person should probably avoid the deepest depths of e.g. Russia, if they want to stay alive.

The only reason incidents like this don't happen with greater frequency in the UK is the availability of guns. I wouldn't be so free at assuming the UK is a much more tolerant place than the US, it's not.

YANBU OP, but there will always be someone to provide an excuse as to why you are on Mumsnet.