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Black Lives Matter.

  • fairydreamsblog
  • Jun 10, 2020
  • 5 min read


I didn't want to start one of my first posts on this blog as something so deep but I need to use this platform to express my feelings and to use my privilege to help educate and support members of the black community. This may have some things in that some may find upsetting but it needs to be said. If I'm not accurate in some of my telling of this, please call me out and explain, as we are standing together, we have to remember to help educate those who may not 100% clued up. So here goes.


Aged 14, I was first exposed to the American Civil Rights Movement and I felt disgusted that people could treat another person in this way, some of the photos that stuck with me and has stuck with me for the past eight almost nine years has been the Greensboro sit ins, how peaceful the people were, even whilst enduring horrible abuse from other patrons but they would continue to sit across 55 cities in 13 states [1]. Age 16, during my A Level History where we looked into Germany from 1890-1945 and the Civil Rights Movement again, however so much more in depth, this time around we learnt about Jim Crow and some of the early movements of the 20th century, that I had not realised. I regret not concentrating enough when we went on a trip to a guest lecture at the University of Manchester, I remember learning lots of really useful information that clearly went in one ear and left once I had completed my coursework on Malcolm X and the Black Panthers. It has always shocked me at essentially racism is just as bad as it was during Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, Malcolm X's time, just now lynching isn't being hung from a local tree with a crowd, it's those who are meant to protect us, killing our own and their deaths being streamed and exploited

across social media for millions to see.


Just a little anecdote I'd also like to share, so October 2018, I went to London for

my 21st birthday and I visited the Tate Museum whilst it was raining, in their gift shop they had a range of books for £1 and these turned out to be Penguins Modern Classics, with authors


such as Andy Warhol (Fame), Wendell Berry (Why I Am Not Going To Buy A Computer), George Orwell (Notes on Nationalism) and so many other intriguing stories. I treated


myself to Martin Luther King's Letter from Birmingham Jail as I had read snippets but wanted to read the whole thing, I was going to buy more but couldn't decide what else I fancied.It was worth £1, heck I would've paid more for it, as I have for other historical books on the civil rights movement, hitler's germany, russian dictatorships and more. I think what my message of this story is that it doesn't take a lot of money to educate your self on oppressive societies, we're so lucky that we can access so many articles and journals online for free and through libraries whether that be and institution library or your local library, there is so much

information out there.



I have friends on facebook that have claimed to be feminists and allies for the Black Lives Matter movement and the LGBTQIA+ community, yet have remained silent during this time. If you have a platform, use it. Don't just be an ally when it suits you. Take a stand against racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ageism, and every other thing that faces oppression. During this time, I have used my platform on my instagram, facebook, twitter and other social media sites to try to share, donate and educate my fellow white people and encourage them to use their privilege to stand up for themselves and the minorities in their community. This is incredibly important that we


do this and use the privilege that we have to sign, share and educate. I have had many discussions with my family about the Black Lives Matter movement and have been sharing many resources to help them to see why no lives matter until black lives matter and that the BLM movement does not invalidate our own struggles. So some of my family members were brought up when racist tendencies were 'acceptable' but they need to move with the times and actually accept that just because it was okay then it is not okay now. Just remember if a conversation is hard then it's probably worth having.


So after the trending page no longer contains Black Lives Matter or Justice for George Floyd or Say Their Names, what can and should we do to make sure we are still standing up and supporting the black community, we can be doing so much more but here are some things:

  • Support Black Owned and POC Businesses

  • Share successes in your local and national community

  • Donate to local causes to help better diversity in your area

  • Call out other peoples casual racism

  • SIGN, SIGN, SIGN Petitions (Locally, Nationally and Globally)

  • Email, Text, Call your local authorities to call them out

  • continue to educate yourself on the history of the civil rights movement, slavery, inter sectional racism, etc (see below for books to read)

  • and so much more.


Just to end the post, I understand I will never understand, but I will take a stand.


and one more thing, I went for my daily exercise around a park in Manchester that was built for the unemployed during the Industrial Revolution and American Civil Wa


r, where local workers refused to use cotton picked by slaves on plantations. Just a small bit of local history that I thought I'd pass on.


Hope you all have a lovely week ahead and come back to my blog in a few days when my next post will be up :)


See below for links to support BLM and more.




-FairyDreams




Here's some links where you can donate, stream, sign, educate and more: Please let me know if I am missing anything x (If youre outside the US, use 90015 (Los Angeles) as your zip code x)





[1] I thought it would be a good idea to link my sources if anyone else would like to read up on certain things :)

 
 
 

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