content warning: mentions of death of BIPOC & death of Indigenous Australians in custody, police brutality, racial slurs, racism

Trending: #BlackLivesMatter

Do you ever feel like your very existence makes other people uncomfortable?

In 2020, the Black Lives Matter movement began to trend after a video of an African American man named George Floyd being killed by police was posted online. The video of Floyd’s death appeared on my social media countless times. I couldn’t help but picture Floyd as my Black father. My heart felt heavy. I was reminded of what the world is usually like, where being a Black person makes people uncomfortable.

The explicitness of the video forced people to open their eyes to racism not only in America but the world. It was disheartening that it took a video of a Black person dying. There have been several other videos of police brutality against Black people that have gone viral. The virality of Black suffering online desensitises and normalises the consumption of it. There were several weeks where I couldn’t go on social media without seeing Black suffering. It was all I could think about. Yet, when I would enter my Zoom classes, the white people were oblivious to what was going on, and the ones who did know would focus on the riots that they believed Black people had caused.

In Australia, Aboriginal deaths in custody continue to go unnoticed. Tanya Day, an Indigenous woman, died in police custody after being racially profiled and arrested for ‘public drunkenness’. Day’s family has not gotten justice for what happened. Indigenous Australians continue to be targeted by police and comprise a disproportionately large percentage of the prison population, yet many Australians don’t know or talk about this issue. Indigenous Lives Matter.

All lives can’t matter until Black Lives Matter.

Why is it that people’s automatic response is the defence of All Lives Matter? When did Black Lives Matter signify that ONLY Black Lives Matter? Why is it that even though the issues of racism and police brutality significantly and disproportionately affect Black people, the conversation cannot be focused on Black people? How can All Lives truly Matter when society has shown that Black Lives don’t?

In my residential college, racism became an interesting and trendy conversation topic. During one of my first meals at college, a white girl asked me in front of the table of eight people, “why can’t we say the n-word if there’s a country in Africa called Niger?”

I sat there stunned. I told her, “it’s a French-speaking country, so it’s actually pronounced nee-zher, but also it’s spelt differently to the n-word.”

She replied, “oh, well I’m going to call it nigger anyway.”

The rest of that meal was a blur as I felt so uncomfortable due to her comments and have never forgotten them. Nobody seemed to see anything wrong with what she said and the way she said it. They all silently agreed.

Those who do not speak or think about racism are those who have the choice to do so. In choosing to stay silent, they are choosing the side of the oppressor as their silence helps maintain the racist status quo. This choice is usually a symptom of white privilege which, when addressed, often triggers white people to fall back into their victim complex. A white man messaged my Black friend about the ‘lack’ of privilege in his life due to his depression, because my friend had spoken about white privilege making him feel ‘attacked’. My friend had to explain to him that white privilege doesn’t mean his life hasn’t been hard. It means that his race doesn’t make it harder. There are many privileges a person can have, from heterosexual to socio-economic to male privilege. White privilege is being more likely to get hired, it’s being represented in the media more, it’s not being afraid of the police and so much more. It is not Black people’s responsibility to educate white people on racism. White people need to be held more accountable and take action for the problems they have caused. Being a light-skinned Black woman who has white family members, I am very aware of the privilege I have that comes from whiteness.

Often, white people successfully play the role of the villain but are painted as the victim in society. This is evident when white terrorists are seen as suffering from mental illness whilst innocent Black people are immediately criminalised. White people are victims that society should feel sympathy for while Black victims are annoying and unable to ‘move on from the past’. By mentioning the systemic racism prevalent in society, Black people ruin the joyous fac¸ade that society paints. If your immediate reaction is “not all white people” or you feel attacked by my words, then you need to reflect on why that is. It seems that when it comes to being a good person, all it requires is not being bad. So, people supposedly aren’t racist unless they’ve explicitly done racist things, even though we are all taught to adhere to some level of racism—whether it be through family, media or institutions like education and the government. Racism is deeply entrenched within society. The police supposedly aren’t bad until we see videos like George Floyd’s. It’s no longer good enough to simply not do or say racist things, we must be actively anti-racist because to be a good person is not to simply do no bad but to actually do good. It’s not easy to win this Race Against the Odds. But for real change to happen, we must keep doing better.