Jul 16, 2020
The Politicization of The Black Lives Matter Movement. Hilda Kaguma
It has been a tumultuous few weeks in 2020 since the death of George Floyd for black and African people around the world. The world as it is in matters of race has truly been revealed through this movement. That in fact even in the year 2020 we still have a long and gnarly journey in the fight for human dignity and equality for all.
The black lives matter movement has been received differently. There have been those who support the movement and those who do not and say that all lives matter. How can all lives matter if black lives do not matter? Those not in support of it have turned the heart of the issue into a political matter. The movement has been associated with various schools of thoughts with the most prominent one being that it is a Marxist movement in a negative connotation. This political emphasis has made the goal of the movement a more treacherous one. The goal of the movement is simply justice for black people and an end to police brutality. For so long the short end of justice has met the black community in America and the poor in developing countries. The politicisation of a movement that fights against injustice done to black people by white supremacists should not be as difficult and politicked as it has been made out to be.
The people who say that all lives matter have sat comfortably on their seats at home be it in Kenya or America stating that the BLM movement is in fact detrimental because the protestors have become hooligans and looters. Others are concerned that BLM is an agenda to change America into a communist country. Forgetting the real reasons for these protests. Revolutions have always accosted human beings something. Therefore the emphasis on the protestors being violent or that there is a new world order is an exaggerated narrative. Yes there have been major damages done in the American states but this is only a sideshow. The protests have mainly been beneficial even waking up middle class Africans to the police brutality that happens to their own poor demographic. Martin Luther King Jr was a peaceful protestor and many a time he was asked to comment on the non-peaceful protests and this is what he said.
“It is not enough for me to stand before you tonight and condemn riots. It would be morally irresponsible for me to do that without, at the same time, condemning the contingent, intolerable conditions that exist in our society. These conditions are the things that cause individuals to feel that they have no other alternative than to engage in violent rebellions to get attention. And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it America has failed to hear?… It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquillity and the status quo than about justice and humanity.”
Isn’t it a shame that we are concerned that a few protestors are vandalising and lamenting on this so proudly and loudly as opposed to seeing and empathising with the reason behind this. There is a difference between those who protest and those who vandalise and loot. The latter are not concerned with the heart of the issue and should be distinguished from the former. It is highly unfortunate that the looters see opportunity through the protesting.
In classist societies like the ones in Africa or white dominated societies like the west any demand for equality from the power or people of color is met with backlash. In western societies they speak about white guilt. Black Lives Matter is not to make our white counter parts feel white guilt it is a response to white supremacy. Countries like Kenya are still heavily marked by neo-colonialism and control by the elite political class. The black lives matter movement is a movement for human dignity; it is a fight for one group of humans to be looked at as human after centuries of dehumanization. The response that all lives matter is a protest to the protest of black lives matter. Once again white supremacy still wanting control over black lives matter.
It should not come as a surprise that those protesting are outraged and therefore protesting is only a rationale response. What should a perfect movement look like? There is a shift happening and at a cost. The people crying out against protestors should be crying much louder against systemic racism, they should be outraged about police bias and brutality and the cover-ups that continue.
Statutes from South Africa to the USA and to France are coming down. They are being taken down because these statues represent white supremacy; they represent men of the past who dominated people of colour, men who won bloody wars. Waiting for a legal bureaucratic case in the court of law to remove these statues will not suffice. The statues being taken down is actually an element that finally things are changing the truth is being told and without truth painful as it is there can be no real reconciliation. It is unfortunate that people are concerned with historical aesthetics compared to what the statues may mean to minority groups or dominated societies.
There will never be peace without justice,
Thomas Sankara said this of women, and this can apply to people of color in America and to Africa from a global perspective; “Comrades, there is no true social revolution without the liberation of women (poc). May my eyes never see and my feet never take me to a society where half the people are held in silence. I hear the roar of women’s silence. I sense the rumble of their storm and feel the fury of their revolt.”
