There was a thread on here recently talking about people interactions with the police and it was overwhelmingly negative.
I think that if are black and you receive daily microaggresions, stop and search, the police car slowing down to look at you, police car following you or even stopping you. The different voice and stance taken when the police talk to you as opposed to the voice and stance you have just seen them take with a white person.
This happens constantly all your life with your interactions. And the bame within the police often follow suit as they do not want to be targeted more by their own (they already are) but want to be seen as having their face fit.
Image now this is repeated with social workers, teachers, shop workers and some medical staff.
Then politicians and the government turn around and tell you like Matt Hancock just did, that Britain is not racist.
It's all different shades of bullshit day, after day from birth to death when you are black.
But lets be upset because some good police are being called bastard. Well if they don't want to be called bastards then they need to change. Change what they do, day in day out and the silent ones need to tackle it when they see it instead of being silent and complicit.
However tackling it from within is hard. One of my mum's school friends became a police man and he was hounded out. It took them nearly 20 years but they finally did it. He refused to be complicit and he was black.
Read the reports about bame demotions and failure to promote within the police. Cases and challenges bought about it over many years.
Many many reports are written. Written about the police, the criminal justice and court systems. The prison system. The 2011 riots, Windrush, Grenfell you name it.
This country loves a report and loves to say we spent this amount on this report. But they never listen to the reports and most reports fail to get any real sort of grip on the problem. Nothing is implemented properly if at all.
So I don't think it was disgusting that a stature of a slavery was torn down. People had asked for it to be removed for years and nothing had been done. How many more years do black people need to wait to be listened to? Is over 400 years not enough?
Why should people in the US and here wait 400 years for proper change. Segregation did not really end in the US. So a black person can sit anywhere on the bus but still can't travel anywhere, work anywhere or live anywhere in the country in which they were born. They can't sleep in their bed, relax in their home, birdwatch or return home from work or a party. Can't drive their car or change a tire on the side of the road. Can't do anything without fear and suspicion from the people ie the police, who are meant to be protecting them.
It is no surprise that they do not call on the police. I have seen it first hand, a black women calling the police for help and the questions and suspicion immediately turned on her.
So no all police are bastards but for many are. They are sometimes bastards to the white people they serve, they are utter bastards to the bame people they serve.
Too many black people get longer sentences than white people. In this country to be fair the same happens if you are a woman who committed a traditionally male crime or a lower class person. So yes class and sex works against you too. Add your race into that and no wonder black people are over represented when the sentences they receive are longer and harsher. They are already more likely to be viewed as lower class. And black women fall at the bottom.
Hearhoovesthinkzebras
And police killed on duty are rightly remembered but what the hell has that got to do with justice and equality for black people, that we are talking about here.
They can be remembered and should be discussed but that is not part of this discussion.