Black Lives Matter... and issue affects us all

ONE of the most destructive things about social media is how it has shattered any sense of complexity or context.

Everything has become a wedge issue, where if you’re not fully signed up to one side you are ‘othered’.

The best thing about it is the ability to tell people’s stories.

The Black Lives Matter protests in America – which have spread worldwide – combine the two states. It is vital to see and record scenes of US police using force against unarmed marchers, of TV crews being arrested, and people telling looters to get out of their communities. On Friday we saw Washington DC’s mayor have a mural declaring ‘Black Lives Matter’, left, painted onto the street leading to the White House.

What’s not so helpful is trying to directly equate that to the situation here in the UK.

There is racism that needs confronted and dismantled here, but our history is not the same as US history and our policing is different, too.