Southall protest joins calls to end institutional racism
“I’M really floored today... I want to let you guys know, this is probably the most impactful thing I’ve probably seen in however long I’ve been here.
“I want to thank you for standing with us, for standing with people like me, a lot of times you feel like you’re alone in the world... To see this I finally feel like I belong.”
This was the reaction from a black American man speaking to protesters at Southall Town Hall last Wednesday, who were standing in solidarity for Black Lives Matter after the killing of George Floyd in the United States.
More than 200 people turned out to support the socially distanced, peaceful protest.
Mr Floyd died after being arrested on May 25. Distressing video footage showed white police officer Derek Chauvin kneeling on his neck for nearly nine minutes while Mr Floyd was heard saying “I can’t breathe”.
Campaign organiser from Southall Resists, Suresh Grover, said families, young and older people from across the borough and different ethnic backgrounds all joined in the “very emotional” display of anger and solidarity.
Protesters chanted George Floyd’s name and knelt on the ground in what has become a global symbol of the Black Lives Matter movement.
“What was really amazing for me was buses and cars stopped and drivers came out and joined on the road, I have never seen that in Southall,” Mr Grover said. “People were angry about what was going on in the US and in this country... We have a huge problem of structural racism in both countries.”
He added: “If the use of force [by police] is not outlawed there will be another George Floyd. I just hope it is a turning point.”
In the UK figures show that between 2004/05 and 2018/19, 2,563 people across England and Wales died during or after contact with police, including deaths from road traffic incidents involving police vehicles, police shootings and apparent suicides following police custody. These included 2,160 white people and 150 black people – 43 for every million white people and 72 for every million black people.
In particular, black people are more than six times as likely to die from police shootings. In 2017, an independent review also found that of all eight prosecutions of police officers in connection with a death in custody in the last 15 years, all have ended with acquittals. These include prosecutions for murder and manslaughter.
Mr Grover, the director of anti-racist charity The Monitoring Group, said: “What angers people are these [people] become statistics, it’s been increasing and there was going to be a time it would come out, hopefully this is the moment. We want the government and local government to take institutional racism seriously.”
Protests in the capital have focused in central London but the campaigners wanted to do something in the Southall community for those who could not travel further away.
Standing against racism and fascism in Southall also has a long history in the community. Dating back to the 1970s and ’80s a resistance movement erupted against the rise of the far right.
Mr Grover, who was active in the Southall Youth Movement, himself was a victim of racist violence, stabbed by “skinheads” in Lancashire, prompting him to move to Southall in the 1970s – before encountering the local struggle against racism.
He said: “I’m not saying we live the same as in the 1970s, but it has come back and we are not safe. We don’t feel safe, there’s places I don’t go because of being called a p-word or n-word. Growing up people wouldn’t call me my name, they would call me a p***”
He added: “There’s less and less racist violence outside on the streets from the 1970s but institutional racism is as rife. That is why George Floyd has died, institutional racism has killed him because the officer doesn’t think he’s done anything wrong... You don’t do that to an animal.”
Mr Grover also believes the strength of feeling and anger to act also comes as coronavirus exposes fault lines over race and inequality.
A government review published on Tuesday last week found BAME groups were around twice as likely to die with Covid-19 than their white counterparts, but the inquiry failed to publish any recommendations on how to better protect their lives from the disease.
Southall Resists is planning upcoming events to continue the movement and is hoping to focus on how BAME health workers in the UK are being badly let down during the pandemic.
While organisers were disappointed “not a single local councillor” turned out for the protest, Ealing Council lit the town hall purple on Tuesday last week in support for Black Lives Matter.