To remind those protesting in the UK at the moment

[Changednamesorry]

A reminder to those currently protesting in the UK.

"No Justice No Peace" isn't a general slogan you can just co-opt . It has a long history of being a slogan used to protest violence against black people at the hands of white people, usually (but not always) police.

It's not ok to appropriate this slogan. That is whitewashing and drowning out black protest about black issues by at the very least diluting the message about the horror of racially motivated violence. It is the activist equivalent of being an "all lives matter" type.

Please consider how you protest and make sure you aren't damaging or drowning out other causes.

@whyamidoingthistomyself let's assume (which I doubt) that those who coopted "No justice no peace" genuinely had no idea its a long held slogan used for black protest.

Once this is highlighted, and the issues involved with appropriating such a phrase..... should they not then reconsider?

Probably not , because where does it end?

At what point does the specific meaning of something to a subset of people at some point of time in some country mean that the phrase is out of bounds ?

If it had evolved in Britain and was widely known such that it would be seen by most as part something else , then perhaps. Or if you had reason to think that it was used deliberately

If it's more that the phrase resonates with other people who aren't really aware of who said it first and why , don't take offence when none was offered

"if you are white, none of that negates the fact that you will not have been the victim of racism."

That's not a fact; that's your belief and It's wrong. Of course white people can be victims of racism.

@AlexaShutUp

Or am I just not getting it?

You're just not getting it.

I think the word privilege is confusing for people, because we tend to associate it with economic privilege. From what you have said, you are living in poverty and you are disadvantaged as a result of that. You probably have to think about money quite a lot, whereas someone with economic privilege doesn't have to even consider whether they can afford to cover their basic needs - they just take it for granted that they will have enough.

There are other types of privilege though as well, race being one of them. If you're white, you probably don't have to think about race very much or worry about whether you or your kids will have to deal with discrimination. You just take it for granted that you won't be treated unfairly because of your skin colour. People of colour can't make those assumptions and have to think about these things quite a lot. They have a different type of disadvantage.

Some people of colour might be privileged in other ways, e.g. economically. So they might benefit from being economically privileged while still being at a disadvantage because of their race. You are the opposite - privileged because of your race but still at a disadvantage because of your economic circumstances.

Some people of colour will be disadvantaged economically and because of their race. That makes life hard on multiple different levels, and while it doesn't mean that you struggle any less, it does mean that they struggle a little more.

Thank you that makes a lot of sense.

Well we don't actually know who made up that slogan; there are records of it being used since the 70s, not always for anti-racism protests. It may have become associated with that cause in the 80s, but does that means it can't be used by others any longer? Especially when losing the right to protest disproportionately affects black people, even if some of the people chanting it are white.

Similar with BLM; Animal Lives Matter was not uncommonly used in the AR community before BLM, but if people said it now, we'd be accused of co-opting it.

Of course white people can be victims of racism.

No they can't.

But anyway, I said something similar about the phrasing "Say her name".

So when people are refused entry to butlins because their name is associated with white travelling community that's not racism? What is if then ?

The most serious attack on civil liberty in my lifetime and you are worried about a SLOGAN. God give me strength.

I'm with the OP on the consequential silencing of the "first" use of slogans when they are adopted by subsequent groups.

@FaceyRomford

The most serious attack on civil liberty in my lifetime and you are worried about a SLOGAN. God give me strength.

A slogan that was used in connection with the murder of multiple black people in racially motivated attacks.

So yes. I'm worried about it because it has the potential to silence or dilute that protest, which despite being ongoing for decades, is STILL a problem. And in terms of the people who all of a sudden feel like protesting having never been arsed to do so on behalf of others , this could become (rightly) an enormous protest.

So it needs to not steal the words of other protests and causes a) because that's immoral and b) because it deserves its own protest.

If you don't understand that, then you are either rather new to the world of protest or you only give a shit about a certain type of people. Not ok.