Protest, vigil and pandemic

How to show anger and fight for change in a pandemic

Unless you have been off world lately you will know that we have been living through a pandemic for a year now. This has also been a year of social change. First of all was the Black Lives Matter movement that gained traction again following the death of George Floyd. Next came the events of the last week (at the time of writing) where women are trying to make their voices heard in Britain.

Black Lives Matter

In May 2020 the death of George Floyd at the hands of police officers cause wide spread and actually world wide protest. Statues of those connected with the slave trade were toppled and people took to the streets to march.

There were protests and counter protests throughout the summer and it was a time when people wanted to really make their voices heard. Pandemic or not, they were angry and they wanted to be taken seriously.

Sarah Everard

In the same week that saw International Women's Day and Mother's Day (UK) a young woman was walking herself home and was kidnapped and later found murdered. Her alledged attacker was an off duty police officer with the Met Police in London. 

Women got together on Saturday, 13 March 2021 to hold a silent vigil, but as police moved in to break up the vigil it turned into scuffles and arrests. What was meant as a peaceful way to show respect and solidarity turned into an ugly scene that the police do not come out of looking well.

Protest and plague

The arguments against the protest and vigils are that we are still in the midst of a pandemic due to a highly infectious virus. Should groups of people get together to protest or even hold a vigil? Well, probably not, no. What these events do show is that people feel strongly that they should be finally taken seriously.

Black people last summer and women at the current time feel that they are angry enough to go outside and risk their health because some things are just that big. It is important to be heard and staying at home feels like silence. If we want politicians to take notice then we have to do something shocking and against the rules. After all, women didn't get the vote just over 100 years ago by sitting meekly at home.

Social changes come through action. No one wants to be on the streets holding a vigil for a dead woman because the woman shouldn't be dead. If we had a world where women could walk alone at night, or even during the day, without being followed or catcalled or made to feel uncomfortable in any way then Sarah Everard wouldn't have been killed and the vigil wouldn't have been needed.

The same goes for George Floyd and all the other black people who have lost their lives unnecessarily at the hands of the police. For all those black people who have been unfairly stopped and searched, been manhandled and arrested for no reason. If these things didn't happen then protest would not have been necessary. 

No one wants this during a pandemic or at any other time. We shouldn't have to have these conversations in 2021! Here we are though. Plugging away at the same old story.

I'm tired...really fucking tired.