Attending BLM protests?

[ALifeDesign]

I am wondering if anyone has attended today or planning to go to any of the protests being organised around the country this weekend.

I am debating going tomorrow. I would maintain social distancing and wear a mask. In ordinary times I would be there without a second's thought but these aren't ordinary times.

Some photos from today on Twitter look well organised, distanced etc.

I wfh and live with one other person - currently furloughed - who would also be at the protest, so I feel we are low risk of spreading.

I'm still a bit torn. So I suppose AIBU to attend?

I'm surprised it's taken until now for anyone to mention Floyd's record; there was a long, long piece in the dreaded Mail some time ago with all the details

I actually think this may not be true. Because from what I've read about George Floyd, he was a much loved man who helped with a lot of projects and was a devout Christian. It's possible that he had a past which the police weren't prepared to forget?

I don't know obviously, but he careful before smearing a nan who is dead and who the police will have a strong motive to discredit.

Worth the risk? 40,000 people dead in the U.K. second worst death rate in the world (second to the massive USA) but you think the risk is small? Nonsense.

People have been agitating all the way through lockdown for some sort of civil unrest. First it was 5G, then against lockdown itself. Now there is a cause nobody dare question. So all go out and spread it. Utterly selfish.

We’re there public toilets open anywhere in London yesterday ?

Could all this BLM that has recently appeared is a set up by Russian/China/North Korea to spread unrest and the virus?

You don’t need Russia or China to cause unrest here, lockdown will do that. No money coming in, no work, no school, angry people with time on their hands, recipefor disaster, this will be the first of many, the R number will go up, we stay in lockdown, more riots, vicious circle that will go round and round until everyone gets back to work and school.

Matt Hancock condemned the brutality that led to the death of George Floyd in America.

He asked people in the UK not to attend protests in order to control the spread of coronavirus.

If we will not follow the instructions of our health secretary, we are truly fucked.

Mittens030869 I don't want to labour the point because in the context of what's happened it doesn't matter, but I'm told the Mail included shots of the various court records. So unless they've forged them - which would seem unlikely even for the Mail - it would seem the record at least is true

As said, though, it doesn't matter ... whatever someone's done in the past that's no reason to kill them without due process

"We’re there public toilets open anywhere in London yesterday ?"
What do you think were in the bottles that they were hurling at the police.

I know my nephew and his wife went to one in Cambridge yesterday (dont know exact location)
They said it was peaceful, very good social distancing g too.
I wo t be going on any, sorry, I refuse to undo all the self isolating I've done and I fo not want to carry it either.
There are other ways to support causes other than.public protest.

@Puzzledandpissedoff Fair enough, I suppose it depends on whether the record was well in the past or recent. But you're right that it doesn't matter for now, but if it was in the past and he had changed then that would be very hurtful for his family.

@ecidmxl
Exactly!

DD went yesterday - cycled there and kept her bike with her which she said helped with the social distancing. Wore a mask and gloves.

However at times like this I wish that we still had the tradition of wearing black armbands as a sign of mourning. Then we could all wear one to register our protests safely. I felt like that when the policeman was killed outside Parliament as well - wouldn't it have been nice to have a nationally recognised symbol of mourning to show respect/concern/protest when injustices and tragedies happen.

My answer may well sound cold and cynical, but here goes.

I did a history degree, and we've been living in a live action GCSE history question since 2016.

The whole thing is an immensely complex series of trends and triggers. I'm actually far more of the philosophy not that Black Lives Matter or All Lives Matter, but that fundamentally on a historical level No Lives Matter. We all end up dead, and as an atheist, I'm of the opinion that that's it - one shot at life.

Unfairness is pretty much hard coded into human societies and has been for the entirety of their existence. There's never been a nice and lovely and fair society, and the present global combination of wealth distribution, technology, environmental issues and large populations make it near bloody impossible to achieve. There are two few good people, too few intelligent and educated people, and too many mechanisms for the bad and the powerful to prevent change and manipulate the stupid and the vulnerable. It will take a truly seismic effect - a really decimating pandemic that can't be managed like this one, or a proper cataclysmic environmental failure, to hit a fundamental reset button on human society (assuming it isn't wiped out). And even then, rebuilding human society in a good model relies on the ragged remains of humanity consisting of people with the intelligence and resources to do so and the good will to do it right.

Now that is obviously highly depressing, but within that there are still good people, still good things, still good lives to be lived. Humanity is an interesting but flawed species, and right now the flaws are especially evident and exploitable - off the back of their own inventions, thank you social media!

As a person who has studied and evaluated history and anthropology and come to those conclusions... Yeah, I have very little incentive to leave the house to go shout about injustice, when I have shit to do and a bad headache.

We've been living in a live action GCSE history question. I have a degree in history and politics and I've been saying the same thing for the last four years!

@thecatsthecats yes, to everything you've said. History tells us that humans aren't very nice. It sadly appears to be human nature and I don't know how we can overcome that without something seismic happening. I don't think that will happen anytime soon looking at thousands of years of humanity.

@thecatsthecats Totally agree.

@ItsInTheShed yes, there were public toilets open.

Just watching a live protest/gathering in my local park. Someone is walking around and filming. People are sitting on blankets, definite social distancing, some with masks and gloves. It looks family friendly. People making speeches aimed all age groups. I live in an area with a significant wealth divide but I understand that many people have come together.

@Ylfa

Went to Hyde Park on Wednesday and to another one today. Will probably keep showing up at these events because there are even bigger and more sinister sicknesses in our society than COVID-19.

In 2016 (the latest year that I could find a figure for all deaths, not just shootings) 1,093 people were killed by a US police officer. Of those 1,093, most weren't black (not to say that it's not still a disproportionate amount, just making the point that it is a tiny number in proportion to CV19). Some of the 1,093 will have been justified killings (where an officer has acted to prevent immediate loss of life such as by killing an active shooter), others weren't.

CV19 has so far claimed over 110,000 lives in the US alone. While any unnecessary loss of life is a tragedy, one of these tragedies is measurably 100x bigger than the other.

His past record is irrelevant he was a black man brutally murdered in the street by White law enforcers it is the long road of police brutality against black people. Overall the protests seemed to be peaceful. If it wasn't in the middle of a pandemic I would have went too.

@thecatsthecats I agree. Apart from displaying solidarity (which is worthwhile), I can't understand the aim of the marches.

A concerted campaign for reparations from the slave trade & greater affirmative action would be more meaningful.

But while many of the virtue-signaling white people marching might be happy to display solidarity, I suspect most would draw the line at relinquishing a share of their assets or their child's university place in the name of greater equality.

Yes, he apparently held up a hispanic woman at gun point - perhaps not caring about hispanic lives mattering. Anyway it is what it is. If we can all counter racism when we see it so much the better.

Matt H is right in what he said (quoted above) but if we spread it a lot more via this or any other breaches of the lockdown rules then so be it. People are likely go get it anyway at some point and we have more NHS capacity now.

You’re furloughed to avoid coming into contact with others who have the virus, so it’s a bit unfair to then go and mix with thousands of other people on a working day while the government pay you for it.

it’s a bit unfair to then go and mix with thousands of other people on a working day while the government pay you for it That's true. When the next pandemic hits hopefully we'll be better prepared though I think the government will strongly oppose furlough using the rule breaking as their reason.

No, you don't deserve to be murdered by police whatever the situation.
There's a Black woman on youtube telling you how you have all fallen for the race divide again, she lists his crimes.
He was going away for a long time.
He was a good man, according to the woman on tv crying about justice for him. How he was a good dad, won't see his child grow up.

He was a dreadful man who wouldn't have seen his dd grow up because he'd be in prison for years for his crimes. There are black people who don't support this as they don't want such a person as their martyr, I don't blame them.
I don't think many checked out his past before they jumped on the bandwaggon.
Whatever he did though the Police murdered him when they were supposed to be arresting him.