To be utterly disgusted by the protests today.

[SoggySocksAgain]

Am I alone here?

I am utterly disgusted by what I have seen in the news.

@Smilethoyourheartisbreaking it isn’t a big deal now but it was in the 70s when I was a child.

@Smilethoyourheartisbreaking I certainly haven’t asked you to educate me. I asked what precisely you mean. I’m not sure you know, so we’ll leave it there.

I really can’t be black in the UK, I’m afraid. That’s impossible.

I’ve stated upthread that I vehemently oppose racism. If I witness it, I’ll call it out. Please don’t infer that anyone who hasn’t been out smashing up property and playing Russian roulette with a deadly virus over the last days is a bigoted idiot who needs an education, that was my point.

Children in my family don’t think twice about what colour or race there friends are.

@AllesAusLiebe totally agree.

I don’t agree with any racism
I don’t agree with gathering in large crowds in the middle of a pandemic.
I don’t believe in ripping up the statue
I don’t believe in horses being harmed
I don’t believe in all the graffiti that tax payers will have to pay for.
I believe you should Love a persons heart not there skin colour.

I am also disgusted with the protests Op. Initially I was sympathetic with the George Floyd issue but all the looting and violence has alienated me and many other people I know. It seems acceptable, somehow, to attack innocent police officers and animals in the name of ‘justice’.

Not for me.

[quote Lifeisconfusing]@Smilethoyourheartisbreaking it isn’t a big deal now but it was in the 70s when I was a child.[/quote]
You clearly don't understand racism or why it's still a big deal today. You very much have an "Well I haven't seen it so it doesn't exist" mentality, which is a major part of the problem. Do you even know what systemic racism is? How about institutionalised racism? Are you aware of intersectionality?

What's to say Derek chauvin wouldn't have knelt on anyone else's neck ?? He doesn't seem a particularly stable

There were tens of thousands of people peacefully protesting in NI, Scotland, England & Wales over several hours. At night, a tiny handful of a dozen or so foolish people were arrested for vandalism etc.

Be more "disgusted" that if you are black in the UK you are 4 x more likely to be stopped & searched & 2 x more likely to die in police custody. Be disgusted that BAME people are 2 x more likely to go to prison than white criminals & make up 51% of Young Offenders institutions.

I think George Floyd has largely been forgotten

He was just an excuse to go out and cause mayhem.

So how do you account for the fact that vast majority of protesters weren't causing any mayhem whatsoever?

Just to add to my previous post, I do not condone violence of any kind and I do not believe that horses should have been taken anywhere near that kind of environment for their own protection. However, that being said, these protests (peaceful protests) NEED to happen. This is a revolution.

I'm starting to think that anyone who doesn't protest or see the need to protest is a racist.

The protests have been mainly peaceful. But hey concentrate on a few bad apples of all races that have been idiots, rather than the issue you know of global racism.

African Americans, bame in the UK and in europe, indigenous Canadians, indigenous Americans, aboriginals to name a few, have all had enough.

Do you get that. What is truly disgusting is all the tone death white people a starting threads about how disgusting protest is. What is disgusting is 400 years of mainly peaceful protest and nothings been done. Oppression and racism continuing in the year bloody 2020.

Maybe if bombs had started then listening may have followed. Lots of other causes including the Irish have used bombing campaigns. Populations of most western countries have been historically lucky that the majority of the oppressed have chosen peaceful protest.

What is disgusting is ignoring campaigns to remove the statue in Bristol just like the millions of other campaigns on similar issues have been ignored around the world.

Op it's telling that you do not find your stance disgusting.

@AKissAndASmile

I do find it weird that I've seen the word thug more than ever during the protests. Not lout or criminal or anti-social... thug. Racial terminology.

It's because Trump used it. These people are his followers. Their knickers are showing.

Nonsense I used exactly the same terminology about the Extinction Rebellion lot. Most of them were white. Ditto the charmers who go to football matches to kick hell out of the opposition. Most of them are white. Thuggism isn’t the province any any one skin colour.

@Bluemooninmyeyes1 so, a few people who got involved primarily because they wanted to cause criminal damage, many of whom are white and have zero interest in the cause, have made you give up on the idea of protesting systemic racism?
However, what they have done - awful as it is, and much as it needs to be addressed - is a tiny fraction of the harm done every year by racial inequality, from mothers dying in childbirth, to young men dying in custody, to black boys stabbed on their way home from school.

If you think that a small group of bastards getting in on the action means that massive peaceful protests against racism are no longer justified, you obviously aren't all that bothered about racism.

If people want to protest fine but is,it really sensible when there is a deadly virus going round? There was no social distancing in the pictures I saw and while some were wearing masks not everyone was. Bit of a fuck you to the entire medical profession.
I think those that were violent weren't even concerned about George Floyd. They just wanted an excuse. Nothing wrong with a peaceful protest in normal times but it rarely seems to go.that way. There's always a minority that turn it violent.

Neat illustration there from Orangeandapples of the fact that truly revolting racism is alive and kicking on MN. Thanks for deleting.

@Orangeandapples
??? You wrote "the majority of criminals are black" ? Did you really mean to post this publicly on SM in 2020? 6% of the population in the UK is black and you are maintaining that they commit the majority of crimes? Take a look at the ONS or The Met stats and you'll see you're way off the mark here. And don't get your "news" from YouTube .

Honestly reading all the shit of this thread makes me empathise MORE with the people smashing and burning stuff.

And it's not just the police violence, @GreytExpectations, or even the harrassment by constant stop & search requests, but all the other ways that BAME people are disadvantaged. They are, on average, lower paid, more likely to live in sub-standard or overcrowded accommodation, have lower educational attainment, and poorer health outcomes (including in mental health).

I believe that there have been studies showing that BAME defendants tend to receive stiffer sentences than white defendants for comparable offences, but I'd have to find a source to cite before I commit myself to that. I am, however, positive that there has been a study that found when job applicants submitted identical applications they didn't get offered interviews in respect of the application that used a name that was more common among the BAME community.

Why did it take nearly 40 years after the arrival of the Windrush immigrants before any Afro-Caribbean people were elected to parliament? Have there ever been any Afro-Caribbean cabinet ministers (I've been racking my brains, but can't think of any)? Have there ever been any Afro-Caribbean CEOs of FTSE 100 companies? Only 14 African or Afro-Caribbean Nobel laureates (source: wiki).

Because of racism, that's why. It's 44 years since the Race Relations Act became law, and while there has been progress, it has been painfully, glacially slow. Meanwhile, the likes of the EDL and Britain First peddle their vile race-hate, and mostly get away with it.

It sickens me beyond belief. I understand the rage felt by BAME peope in the UK. And Martin Luther King was right about rioting: it's the voice of the unheard.

@LakieLady well said.

If the vandalism of stone memorials and some yelling at the police upset you this much OP, centuries of racism, slavery and discrimination is going to blow your mind.

Do I want property smashed up?
NO

Did I feel like smashing up stuff after reading Orangeandapples racist statement?
(that they felt comfortable to post on mumsnet amid a backdrop of people fighting for racism globally)

Hell yeah. Reading that crap, I think things will get far worse around the world. Trump sent in the national guard and teargas many peaceful protests. Peaceful as documented by the journalists that were there who also got injured.

This was before the looting and property damage. Some of which were done by white people.

UK government saying their is no racism in the UK and racist chumps like Orangeandapples, still feeling free and validated to air their racism.

Protest is just protest, more is needed before change will come. Thanks for pushing ever more people to the edge.

The child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth" - African proverb

Repeated in the black panther movie.

To desecrate war memorials around the 76 anniversary of the D Day Landings (my FIL was there) is totally an utterly despicable, my DS was called scum by rioters in his town when he and his friend stood and protected his war memorial on the evening BEFORE the anniversary, protected it so that people could go and pay their respects the next day and not have it covered with vile graffiti - and I am VERY proud of him for doing that and that's something I will not apologise for

Nobody was targeting war memorials though, just memorials and statues to known slavers and massive racists. A nice gesture by your son, but ultimately pointless.