Saying Black Lives Matter does not mean that other lives do not. Every life matters.

Well, the last few weeks have been interesting, when riots have occurred during some Black Lives Matter marches, those engaging in horrific behaviour have been termed rioters.  When the far right attack police in London, they are protestors.   

I have had a few interesting discussions on Facebook with an old school friend about BLM.  I would never have considered them to be racist, and to be honest, I do not consider them to be one now.  But they have shared the views of racists like Mark Collett on their timeline. Needless to say, I suspect that this has caused considerable upset despite posts also showing how the police work with all communities.

I do not agree with all of what every BLM supporter says. Most find violence against the police abhorrent, most do not agree with racism against anyone, and most do not agree with the violence and rioting that has taken place with some of the protests.  

When it comes to those in the USA calling to defund the police, they forget what has happened in Britain when the police has been underfunded by the Conservatives since 2010.  Crime has gone up.  The people who want the police to be defunded the most, are those that the police protect us from.  I treat police officers and none that I have met went into into the force (or service as it is called now) wanting to do a terrible job.

But reform is needed to address how people who are not white are treated.  Here it is harder to bring that about as the police has been defunded.  In the USA, there have been several examples of how police brutality is not just whet on black.  Non-white police officers stood by as George Floyd was killed, and non-white police officers were involved with the death in custody of Freddie Gray.

I have worked in high stress situations where you have to make a snap decision based in the information you have, not hindsight.  So I do understand how decisions that would not be made in hindsight were felt to be the appropriate decision at the time.  So unlike many, I do not think that the police officers making those choices when it came to the deaths of Mark Duggan or Jean Charles de Menezes, were wrong BASED ON THE INFORMATION THE OFFICERS KILLING THESE PEOPLE HAD IN THAT INSTANT.  

But as the deaths of Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd have shown, a lot more needs to happen in the USA.  And we need time and money for the police to improve here in the UK as well.