All lives matter

[Scoobyboob]

I’ve disabled voting because today has been a lot already! I can’t deal with seeing another such stark display in % or how few people support BLM.
Is there a black Mumsnet section? I could do with somewhere to discuss race with other BAME people and Allies that doesn’t get hijacked with

•all lives matter
•what about...
•I’m oppressed too
•white people are suffering as well
•if black people would just...

Happy to hear suggestions for other forums as well. I don’t think Mumsnet is standing against racism, so i’m happy to flounce to get what I need. Which certainly isn’t the silencing of black voices whilst overt racism goes unchecked!

Hi Justine 👋 and fuck off Karen!

Yeah I’ve been shocked at some long time posters showing their ignorance.

It just goes to show that a hell of a lot of people don’t think they are racist because they don’t use the typical racist words but in fact they are because their little brains will not allow them to focus on this single issue respectively.

Don’t be disheartened, keep posting, keep shouting

Totally agree with you, OP, and as an ally would wholeheartedly support such a space. It must be absolutely exhausting and disheartening to see all the 'all lives matter' and whataboutery bs on here the last few days.

"All lives matter" is a nasty passive-aggressive counter to BLM. Designed to wind people up whilst appearing to #bekind.

I completely agree with your distaste for it OP.

I agree, it’s hard to hear it as a white person and hard to know what to do about it.

I think on a personal level we have to try to challenge our individual (and often unconscious) bias, race is an obvious one, but we judge everyone whether we realise it or not - age, name, clothing, body weight accent etc, it probably links into a primal function of identifying friend from threat. Rather than deny it and claim we treat everyone equally, we need to challenge ourselves - all the time.

The part I think we don’t see (through white privilege) is the way that everything is harder if you’re not white. Everyone has worries and difficulties in their life at some stage (health/family/relationships/financial/work) and so it’s easy to bristle at the term “white privilege” when you feel anything but privileged. But for BAME people, systemic and individual human bias just makes all these hard things harder still.

I have family relations and work acquaintances from southern/Eastern Europe, and even though their skin tone is “white” they have experienced abuse and discrimination based on their ethnicity. They find the sense of being “less than...” incredibly wearing. I’m not sure if this is racism or xenophobia though.

I guess the main thing is to listen to the lived experience of people, even if it feels uncomfortable. I hate to hear (often white men) lecturing BAME people what is or isn’t racist.

Scoobyboob- totally agree with you.

I'm not sure why you've taken against Bankofnook. I don't think she meant the cartoon for people who understand, she was posting it for those people who were attracted by your title (i.e. because they do not understand 'black lives matter' as a concept)

I don't think there should be a BAME section. It's vital to have these discussions in the open regardless of many ignorant people or the racist ones.

I do agree that people need to be made aware of the many difficulties faced by BAME people, however, there’s nothing to prevent BAME people from posting in both. One for support and then main Mumsnet sections in order to educate or inform. I absolutely love the FWR section and feel I can be very open there and will find support. That doesn’t mean women can’t post about feminist issues on other sections.

I’m also aware of the irony that many posters on here giving our opinion are white. Sorry, because I feel as if we’re doing exactly what you were complaining about, OP, therefore I’ll bow out now.

If there was a BAME section, conversations could more easily be held between those who are best able to contribute, without too much interruption. People like me could lurk and learn.

@Lovely1a2b3c I don’t think I have. I wasn’t sure if @BankofNook had read my post and apologised once they clarified. My comments were about the need (I think there is one) to use cartoons to educate idiots, not Nook.

@LillianBland I see your point regarding posting in both like FWR.

@picklemewalnuts I see your point.

I'm white and I agree 100% op. This deeply ingrained inequality and violent racism has gone nowhere in hundreds of years. It needs dealing with once and for all. I'm sick of mners telling me it's only a problem in the US. Like fuck it is! Our cultures and our histories are inextricably linked, and so is our racism.

Hmmm. 'All lives matter' is the current excuse used by lockdown deniers when told they are spreading Covid and putting the vulnerable at risk.

While I agree with 'all lives matter' in principle - what fair-minded person wouldn't - it's generally used to deny a minority the space to fight for the right to be treated fairly and equally. So I agree that it is indeed, sadly, deflective bullshit.

I don't think there should be a BAME section as I feel it would cause a divide when there shouldn't be one. I'm white though so people may feel it's a good idea.

Obviously all lives matter but right now this is about black lives and they matter the most right now with all that has happened and continues to happen. It needs to fucking stop.

Not all white people are racist but being quiet about it doesn't help either. It's all of us against racist people. We all bleed red.

I agree, OP. Mumsnet is has a serious issue with rascism that stems from ignorance l, complacency and whataboutery. Did you see the thread about the woman in Central Park?
I don't think a BAME section would help because these conversations need to be happening where all posters on Mumsnet can see them and hopefully be educated. All lives matter is a such a shitty thing to say in response to Black a lives matter and its usually said by white people who can't stand not being the centre of attention and think rascism isn't their problem. We are in 2020 and should not be having to have these discussions but sadly we do have to.

What a relief. Sat here raging as a white woman married to a black man. I only usually use social media for happy/funny shares, but couldn’t ignore #blackouttuesday. Many of my white middle class social media contacts have not reacted to any of my posts relating to BLM and the odd one are posting ‘not everyone is a racist’ posts. I can’t understand how anyone could react to this tragedy with such moronic posts, on this particular day, if you can’t bring yourself to support just stay quiet FFS.

It seems to me the majority of people with white privilege want to do better. We don't all learn from reading books, whereas reading other people's conversations on a forum we already use is very accessible. I learned so much on FWR, but would/could never access those topics through feminist literature.

While BME conversations absolutely should be on mainstream boards, those conversations often get derailed and turned into the usual bun fights meaning the key people don't get to explore the topic as they want and the lurkers don't learn either.

'Hot' threads get on the trending board and get attention anyway, and things can be posted in the busy places as well.

Well, hispanics are treated really poorly in the US and I wonder who is advocating for them.

Interesting. I am not black but I am not white and feel even more marginalised at the moment.

I want to understand more. I'm reading Reni Eddo-Lodge. It's helpful to understand her frustration with the protestations of 'colour-blindness' from white people as tantamount to saying 'hey, look at me, I'm not racist'. That's easily done when you're in the position of not facing prejudice, setbacks, an unequal playing field when it comes to opportunities, or even that the police may kill you, every single day of your life because of the colour of your skin. It's a freedom with which, very sadly, black people have not been able to live.

I wish every teenager could read Malorie Blackman's YA Noughts and Crosses trilogy. In these novels Blackman inverts the hierarchy, so that it's the Crosses (black) who are the dominant race and the Noughts (white) who are subjugated. She invents her own version of the racially inflammatory language black people are constantly forced to confront (Crosses meaning closer to God but ironically also angry), Noughts meaning nothing. She invents a sort of racial segregation that's not dissimilar to South African Apartheid. As a white reader, absorbing this unputdownable novel was a highly discomfiting experience. It gave me a glimpse - and a glimpse is all that is possible - into what living this way must be like.

The 'all lives matter' platitude is very like the NAMALT/victim blamers defence when talking to women who, like me, have been victims of male violence, rape and sexual abuse at various stages of our lives. No man can understand this, any more than I can understand black lived experience, or the experience of black women rendered marginal because of their skin colour as well as their sex.

It's structural racism has to be tackled. We have little hope of conquering individual racism - or simply associating it with skinheads and an England flag which is very oversimplistic - until it's been tackled at this kind of institutional, structural, embedded level.

I hope if this tragedy has one even slightly positive outcome, it will be that it causes people to question this - and also themselves and their own attitudes - more.

I don't agree that 'all lives matter' in this context, I support BLM because that's the issue at hand.

But I can't debate with anyone who uses 'Karen' as an insult. According to some on here, objecting to 'Karen' makes me a racist.

I don't agree but it makes me think that threads about racism are best left to those who experience it directly, not well meaning observers like me.

I support the call for a BAME board and support the need for it to be used primarily by BAME people themselves.

Yes, yes, yes! We need a Black section - the racism on here is exhausting -but eye-opening at least.

Hi @Scoobyboob, I am shocked at some of the ignorant bullshit I’ve seen posted on here lately and agree that Mumsnet should be doing more to show support for BLM.

In terms of your request for other forum suggestions - have you tried lipstick alley?

Yes, yes, yes! We need a Black section - the racism on here is exhausting -but eye-opening at least.

But, you do understand that "black" and "BAME" are not the same thing, right? It's really shocking how many people are using the terms interchangeably on this thread. Like I said before, I feel that people who are neither black nor white are being completely erased from the picture. But, I guess that this isn't the thread for that conversation.

Lurking and learning, I very much want to understand and to know what I can do.

Hmmm. 'All lives matter' is the current excuse used by lockdown deniers when told they are spreading Covid and putting the vulnerable at risk

Wtf??

I think a black rights or bame section is a good idea. You would have to deal with those who come in just to be inflammatory or because they resent the space existing much as I remember in the early days of feminism board having to deal with fucking mra trolls. But you get to respond to them as a collective, with your sisters rather than being alone and you get to point out what board you’re on and it tests mnhq and stretches them to show their hand in their moderation of incoming racists.

I confess to having to apologise to an African American friend today. Yesterday I got upset at him being snappy with me for me saying thank god uk is not that extreme and some things he said that felt really dismissive and accusatory. Today I realised what I’d and just messaged that I needed to apologise, that my feelings were hurt but I’d realised he wasn’t obliged to give a flying fuck about my feelings especially now and that I was sorry and I hope he’s doing ok.

It’s fucking uncomfortable stuff and it’s hard and we all want to feel like we’re good people and the exception and our defences flare.

It didn’t hit me how much more emotional and personal and raw this is for him until this morning and I then felt totally ashamed of that blindness.