When the million or so Black and White protestors took the streets twelve months ago they did so in the spirit of justice for George Floyd.
Also for the heart of our nation to be a beacon of hope. I’m with them, 100 per cent.
In the past 12 months we’ve seen black people empowered to have conversations that they didn’t feel able to beforehand.
The wave of anger moved the dial from: ’Is there structural racism?’ to ‘We know it is there and we are ready to challenge it.’
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So many of the capable black and brown employees previously invisible to businesses were finally being seen, heard and appreciated.
Eyes were opened to the societal determinants such as low pay, zero hour contracts, poor housing and health inequalities contributing to the disproportionate illness and mortality rate of Black and Brown people from the Coronavirus.
Of the first 100 doctors to die, for example, 97 were of African and Asian descent.
In general if you were a Black man you were four times more likely to die.
It was against this hyper-sensitive backdrop that Floyd’s death exploded race protests we hadn’t seen in the UK for generations.
“I can’t breathe” was their rallying cry.
The young protesters, Black and white demanded a nation confront and dismantle the long standing pillars of institutional racism.
The footballing world took the knee.
Sir Lewis Hamilton used his global platform to ask his searching questions.
Academic institutions accepted that our nation’s story needs to better explain how its dark past built institutions, perpetuated global inequality and maintained a hierarchy of race.
Sadly this Government has set itself full square against the greatest conversation our nation had had for some time with faux culture wars.
But our society remains ready to embrace our past and the ways in which some of it still negatively influences the present.
The prize will see us more comfortable with who we are, our differences and what wonderfully binds us a great nation.
