It hurts living on our knees
“How difficult is it for one body to feel the injustice wheeled at another? Are the tensions, the recognition, the disappointments, and the failures that exploded in the riots too foreign?”
Claudia Rankin
In August 2014, there’s a summer of “hands up, don’t shoot” protests, in Ferguson, Missouri, in response to the unlawful shooting of Michael Brown Jr.. In November, Darren Wilson, the white Ferguson police officer responsible for Brown’s murder isn’t indicted. In December, filled with rage and helplessness, I organise the first ‘Black Lives Matter’ protest in the North of England; a political poetry reading at our city centre library. Together artists and writers, cram into a hot room on the top floor of a building made of glass, and pour out our rage and pain through our writings. Black people’s words. Our ancestors’ words.
I’m criticised by one black woman, in particular, because I invite white poets to read. They could only read the words of black people as this event is centring our lives. Black lives. A white people’s presence is not what this black woman wants. She wants a safe black only space. I respect and understand her views. We all want a safe space for black people. But I feel we can achieve so much more when we work together, black and white, to solve our society’s problems.
I know where she’s coming from though; a place of pain and suffering and hatred. As black people, for so long, we have endured so much hate and violence from the hands of white people. For far too long, we have been excluded from a share in the economic wealth our ancestors paid for with their lives to create. We’re sick and tired of being excluded from the abundantly spread societal table which our ancestors give the skins off their backs to forge. And this hurts.
In March 2017, there’s a ‘Stand Up to Racism’ demonstration in London, Miss Ella, my seven year old daughter, and I dance behind the sound system truck, towards Trafalgar Square. Crowds behind metal barricades line our route, with the Metropolitan Police shepherding us along. We shout, ‘Refugees are welcome here.’ Miss Ella, dressed as her superhero, Black Widow, looks as if she’s just stepped out of a Black Panther’s meeting. With her long brown hair blowing in the wind and her peachy fist punching the air, she’s learning long before I did how to use her voice to bring about change. She carries her homemade banner stating, ‘Black Lives Matter,’ high with pride and courage. Along the way, a white woman with screwed up face screams at us to shut up and go back home to where we come from. Disallowing our protests, devaluing our presence here.
I recognise where she’s coming from; a place of her ignorance and pain and hatred. As a white working class, for so long, she’s been fed the lies that black people and immigrants come over here and take their homes and jobs. For so long, the poverty they’re experiencing is down to these black illegal criminal and not a capitalist system rigged in favour of a few priviledged people. We’re just as sick and tired of this too. And we know it hurts.
In May 2020, there’s ‘Black Lives Matter’, protests around the world. In response to the recent killings of George Floyd, Tony McDade, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor, to name just a few, the streets are talking through fire and smoke. Thousands take to the streets, black and white, to demand justice for all our black brothers and sisters who have been and continue to be murdered by state sanctioned violence.
I’ve grateful for their voices and bodies. This time, I protest through my words and art. As the Covid-19 pandemic still poses a real threat here in my part of the world. I’m a black, fat woman carrying yet another target on my back. While protesting, the odds of getting molested and arrested, and not surviving the experience is higher for me than any white person. Just as the odds are greater for me of dying from the Coronavirus than a white person.
Black, Asian, and ethnic minorities in the Western world are dying at a disproportionately higher rate and number than white people during this pandemic. Many explanations for this reality have been voiced with the blame thrown at the feet of black people. That it is our unhealthy bodies and behaviours which are spreading this disease, conveniently not addressing the inherent racism and systematic inequalities that have operated for over 400 years that has brought about this dis-ease, making our weathered bodies more susceptible to this virus.
‘We rather die on our feet than keep livin’ on our knees,’ taken from the James Brown song, ‘I’m black and I’m proud’, I feel this as we see thousands of black people (and white people) take to the streets, even though there’s a greater risk to their lives than ever before. But I recognise where’s they’re coming from. We’ve had enough. We’ve endured enough. We’re not prepared to accept black lives being devalued anymore.
