*takes long sip of coffee* Right.
This is my explanation as to why the Black Lives Matter movement doesnât have a place in the UK, and why this particular event is utter horse manure.
Now before I (or any other people who may respond to me) say anything, I am not saying that the Black Lives Matter movement is bad in America, nor am I saying I support the festering pit of only slightly veiled racism that is the All Lives Matter backlash. I recognise in Britain there is a problem of prejudice, but trying to combat it with taking the BLM movement and placing it here is frankly stupid.
1. Gun control - such a huge part of the BLM movement is gun control. This cyclical argument that cops must have guns because the citizens have guns is an integrally American idea. So many of the incidents that sparked the inception and continuation of BLM are due to a lack of gun control, at least in name - the claim that police officers have shot unarmed POC due to the fear that they had a gun is not a transferable aspect of culture. Whether itâs unconscious stereotyping from the cop to believe a black man is more likely to be armed than a white counterpart, just the excuse being given by the guilty cops, or the fact that merely having a gun is so damn easy, itâs a whole mess that Britain doesnât come close to having. You canât cure two different diseases with the same medicine, the BLM movement was born from and in response to fundamentally American problems. Transposing the BLM movement onto contemporary Britain is mad, itâs an incomparable situation.
2. The state of discrimination in modern Britain. A LOT of the racial discrimination that occurs in Britain today is directed towards people of a European origin; Polish people, for example. Purely geographically, a lot of the immigration Britain receives is from continental Europe, which is reflected in British demographics; whilst 12.6% of Americans are black, only 3.01% of Britons are black. Yes, British POC still face stupid amounts of prejudice, but you canât assume these two countries have the same problems when it comes to racial inequality. There isnât a polarised problem or sense of race in Britain, a lot of our main targets of racism are white people.
3. With regards to this particular protest - the claim that London City airport is âdesigned for the wealthyâ is utterly ludicrous, then the leap from that to the claim that black people are being targeted specifically by climate change is honestly nothing short of deluded. Yes climate-motivated immigration is about to blow up as an issue, and yes the poorest countries are the ones who will be and who are being hit hardest by climate change, but BLM claiming that black people in particular are affected most in London? Thatâs insane. Okay, the point about this airport being the playground of the elite - are the people writing and supporting this even remotely aware of living prices in London? Are they/you aware of the connotations of living in London, or London more generally? Put simply, you have to be earning a hell of a lot to have property in London, and guess which airport might happen to be the closest and thus most convenient choice for those living in central London? Shockingly, itâs the one named âLondon City Airportâ! You could make precisely the same point about a Parisian airport. Rich people gravitate towards the capital of a country for business and because they can afford to, especially with rocketing house prices in the country and particularly in London. Speaking of Europe, my absolute favourite part of the above is that the salary of the airport users is given in euros, but the others in pounds, to exaggerate the difference (see later on sensationalism). Targeting this airport because its users have a high average salary is like targeting a small independent coffee shop in central London, because I promise you that coffee shopâs customers will also be richer than average. There is nothing particularly elitist about this airport except its geography, the figures here are misleading, they donât charge you ÂŁ500 on the door or indeed any âluxuryâ tax on these purportedly prestigious flights, and I canât help but feel it was the third or fourth layer just thrown into this protest to try and score as many leftie anti-oppression points as possible.
Conclusion: this is a messy, incoherent protest designed to tick as many boxes as possible. I am firm in my conviction that this was carried out by people who spend a lot of time on America-centered social media and wanted to get involved without thinking too much about what they were doing. Prejudice against black people in Britain and the effects of climate change are problems that must be faced and dealt with, that is not up for debate, but the Black Lives Matter movement is a fundamentally American movement at its core, and thus canât be transposed onto the problems of the UK. This event and statement are both sensationalist to the end and wonât help anybody. An awful, awful dialogue on tremendously important questions, written by and carried out by people who didnât put too much thought into their actions or message(s).
