Council must take action on Black Lives Matter

LAST week, BBC South aired a package on their lunchtime news. It was repeated throughout the news cycle that day and followed on from the front page story of June 18.

The message in the package was that Wokingham Borough Council does not support “Black Life Matters”. The thrust of Mr Halsall policy, if there is one, was his opposition to the Black Lives Matter movement demand in the United States for the police to stop killing, predominately unarmed, black men. The latest example was the eight minutes 46 second public lynching of Mr George Floyd by former Mississippi police officer Derek Chauvin.

Sadly, Mr Halsall has benefited from white privilege which has allowed him to cast a blind eye over the intense and perpetual suffering of black people at the hands of authority around the world.

Furthermore, he has demonstrated his tone deafness to the zeitgeist on the issues that matter to Wokingham 12% BME population.

He has conflated the demands of this global movement for equality, fairness and Justice with a specific call in the USA for greater police accountability. Clearly he does not understand what is meant by the term ‘defunding the police’ in the American context.

My principle objection in the news item is the substitution of his personal views and opinion on Black Lives Matter to be those of the Council. Furthermore, the comments were made more incendiary by using Mr Parry Batth, an Asian Councillor to project fascist/racist views as Council Policy.

This cannot be allowed to stand as it has caused great offence and hurt to Wokingham’s black community.

Wokingham Borough Council Equalities Policy was adopted on 17 March 2017.

The policy requires the council policies to comply with the Race Relation Act 2010 and the Public Sector

Equalities Duty. I have now reviewed the Council’s Equality Policies and found nothing on Black Lives Matter. However, I was able to find a policy on AntiSemitism adopted by the Council on 18 July 2019, which we the BME community fully support.

Clearly, Mr Halsall was not tone deaf to the Jewish lobby call-out of AntiSemitism in Britain.

I want Wokingham Borough Council to reverse the claim by Mr Halsall that the Council as a matter of policy does not support Black Lives Matter.

Furthermore, lessons should be learned. Never again should the personal view of the Leader, purport to be the policy of the Council.

It was extremely harmful and offensive decision to put forward a person from another ethnic minority to publicly relay the message that Wokingham council would not be supporting Black Lives Matters.

It is clear that council members felt this choice would placate the anger of constituents but has instead simply demonstrated how out of touch the council are to not truly understand the aims of the movement – a demand to respect and protect black lives, through institutional change and a law enforcement system which does not view them as cannon fodder and instead conflate them with an extreme American view point to dismantle policing.

It is no longer acceptable to say I am not a racist; you need to be actively antiracist. I believe that Wokingham Borough Council has erred.

However, there is a fast closing window of opportunity to redeem itself.

Wokingham Borough Council must bring a positive motion forward to full Council for adoption that Wokingham Council positively believes that “Black Lives Matter”. Keith Kerr and Sharon Harrioמּ-Kerr