Black Lives Matter - Manchester

Staying at home

On another day and at another time, I probably would have gone out to join the Black Lives Matter protest in the centre of Manchester, but I had to be conversant of a number of things. I could be vulnerable given my medical history, then considering how it is said the Coronavirus appears to affect people of the Black, Africa and minority ethnic origins disproportionately, one should not take unnecessary risks. [BBC News]

Yet, once should be careful not to engage in gestures that might have no impact, though the teeming crowds around the world are sending a clear message that Black Lives Matter. It so happens that some would give the refrain of All Lives Matter. Indeed, all lives do matter, but what is important at present is when a part of the All is affected and identified, that particular part is addressed.

From a finger to the body

My whole body matters, in health and wellbeing, but if I hurt my finger, I don’t say my body hurts or my head hurts, I say, my finger hurts. At that point, my finger matters and until that finger issue is addressed and healed, I will not be thinking of anything else.

Blacks are part of the whole of the human race, we have observed the murder of George Floyd, a black man with the knee of a white officer of the law on his neck until he expired, we are reviled and outraged. His story encapsulates that many occurrences of the loss of black lives at the hands of white policemen or people with privilege acting with impunity all without any consequence.

Even with the obvious public extrajudicial killing and a good video record of the heinous act, it took four days for the law to take the perpetrator into custody with a charge.

Until it matters

Take that all together, indeed, All Lives Matter, but today, knowing and seeing what has been happening to blacks in all sorts of situations going back to time immemorial with too much to list from deprivations, discrimination, denigration, abuses, slavery, and much else, Black Lives Matter.

Until Black Lives Matter, Black Rights Matter, Black Aspirations Matter, Black Freedoms Matter, Black Opportunities Matter, Black Equalities Matter, we would always, always fall short of the greater encompassing cry of All Lives Matter. Each element of identity, grouping, or expression that finds themselves bereft of the greater goals of human achievement and actualisation make the goal of All Lives Matter less true and we cannot ignore that.

We are the hurting finger

When anyone is compelled to say All Lives Matter, they should look around to lift up those who are not standing on the same plinth as them celebrating the fulness of the comforts that gives them the laudable voice of All Lives Matter.

It is Blacks today, the hurting finger of the whole body of humanity, it could be another other group tomorrow, and to them now and in the future, we owe in our strength to comfort the afflicted, soothe their pain, recognise their yearnings and gather to give them not just the vision of better things but helping them on to the route to human prosperity.

We must strive to see that no one is left behind and everyone regardless of where they are in life or station can in honesty and truthfully say All Lives Matter because we are in the common cause to make Every Life Matter, from one to all.