![]() “Reparations for racial discrimination rooted in colonialism and slavery are essential to the fulfilment of human rights,” a UN human rights expert has announced, calling on states “to accept they have obligations and responsibilities to make reparations to victims and their descendants”.īLM’s radical ideas, such as defunding the police, would only make the lives of black communities worseįor those advancing the radical BLM agenda it is easy to shut down any opponents simply by labelling them “racist”. Some corporations seem to be getting ahead of the curve by voluntarily making huge donations to BLM. And before long there will be increasing demands for the payment of reparations. The current battleground is the spoils of Britain’s nineteenth-century colonial exploits, paving the way for claims that it is time to atone for historical sins by offering more jobs, promotions, pay rises and positions of power to black people. One is therefore driven to ask whether the BLM movement really is concerned about the value of black lives or the suffering of black people or whether it is, instead, a way of harnessing racial identity to achieve power and influence. This perception of British universities is puzzling: our universities have long been at the forefront of progressive change. Silence, they claim, is violence, and therefore the statue of Cecil Rhodes above the gates of Oriel College, Oxford, offends them by its muteness as they saunter past it to their lecture or latte. “Why is my curriculum white?” and “Why isn’t my professor black?” they cry. They ask why the authors on their reading lists appear, as far as they can work out from the names, to be white. ![]() ![]() And how odd to see British protesters carrying American-inspired “Don’t shoot” placards as they march towards unarmed and outnumbered police whose response, if not to scarper, is to kneel in penitence.īLM protesters also allege rampant colonialism in British universities. In the UK the hapless police are more likely to ignore or take flight from protesters than they are to throttle anyone to death, black or white. However, the facts of police shootings in the US do not support the “institutional racism” narrative. Thus the world was confidently assured by two young black women who organised the London riots that British police are more of a threat to black lives than the coronavirus. The narrative is that it was not just another incident involving rogue policemen, but instead constitutes evidence of “systemic” or “institutional” racism. The rhetoric surrounding the latest incarnation of the BLM movement is rooted in a narrative about police brutality that, if true, should certainly concern us all. Instead, it was the death of a black career criminal during the course of his arrest that prompted protesters to break the lockdown rules, vandalise historical monuments, tear down statues and attack the police during their “largely peaceful” protests. The recent demonstrations were not triggered by rising black-on-black crime, mass starvation or homelessness. The causes are a complex interaction between multiple social, cultural, political and economic factors.īut these are not the concerns motivating Black Lives Matter. Many more examples of real tragedies affecting black lives could be cited. In China, at the height of the pandemic, African students were barred from rental accommodation and shops, unable to buy food and forced to sleep on the streets. In Africa, millions face starvation as the pandemic exacerbates an already grave food crisis. In London, black people constitute only 13 per cent of the population but almost half of murder victims and suspects are black, according to figures obtained by Sky News.
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