#211: the futureās unexpected combination
This is a rare warmup inspired by current events in the UKā¦
Occasionally, a photograph will stop me in my tracks.
For those of you not in my news cycle, there has been a knife attack in the UK in the last few days, at a Taylor Swift themed school holiday dance party for kids, where a 17 year old boy targeted both participants and staff. Three young girls have died, and many kids remain in critical condition. Immediately it was assumed via certain sectors of social media that the perpetrator was not born in the UK.
What you donāt see from the woman who is holding the sign can be gleaned by the various videos of her that are accessible on the same social media. Her fear is apparent, but she stands firm. A number of people attempt to pull the sign from her, but she wonāt yield. In a massive crowd of white British stupidity and hatred, she is the one the Police is most likely to arrest.
She is the one clearly āprotestingā: she has a sign. Our laws in the UK now make this illegal. The vast majority who went to cause hate last night will not be punished. The people who incited this will face no consequences. The insistence that this country is not racist and has never been so is so ridiculous as to defy belief, even when a bunch of fascist idiots hijack tragedy to make it about them.
We give five year jail terms to people trying to prevent a global catastrophe using peaceful intervention, but there will be no consequence for whoever set fire to this public property. The people taking pictures of the woman with the sign, the guy here with his phone in full view, all of those people recording drama will claim it wasnāt them that started any of thisā¦ why were you there?
Mostly white men throwing stones at a mosque says an awful lot about this country. Mostly white people stirring up hatred and not being stopped says even more. This is the true legacy of 14 years of Conservative rule, and it will get worse as Labour are doing absolutely nothing to prevent it happening. In fact, with the upcoming āinevitableā austerity measures incoming, it will get so much worse.
This country is broken. It has been broken for decades. The woman with the sign last night became the perfect symbol of how it feels for so many of us who see the horror and feel helpless, and just need to do something. I heard her last night, and I wrote, and those words will become something I can use as fuel, to power my own work and actions.
The womanās sign wasnāt just protest either, it was resistance. Every sign, every piece of art, every verbal takedown becomes resistance too. That is how every single one of us can fight this going forward. Small movements when combined become powerful, gather momentum and alter spaces forever. Those who champion their attacks using innocent lives as the focus will never win.
Wherever they are in the world, however they operate, they can be stopped.
Thanks. My writing is my protest.