On the 25th of May 2020, a white police officer knelt on the neck of George Floyd, a black man, for 7 minutes until he murdered him. That man is not an exception as within the days since Floyd’s murder we have seen Breonna Taylor shot by the cops while asleep in her apartment, Tony McDade a black trans man murdered, and earlier in the year Ahmaud Arbery who was shot by white supremacists while jogging.
This is not new. The response to the murders of Black people in America has ranged from peaceful protests, taking a knee, campaigns to get the government to do something to no avail. This is not a fault of the system, this is how the system of the U.S.A government is built on the oppression of Black and Indigenous people. A country Black people built is being taken back. People are grieving. Buildings and businesses can be rebuilt, murdered Black lives cannot be brought back.
Carceral solutions will not solve the problem. As we’ve seen they charged George Floyd’s murderer Derek Chauvin (who has killed 2 men before on duty who were unarmed, 18 complaints against him) with second degree murder. They are charging him to protect him. The legal justice system is rigged and no matter how many Black people are there in representation it will not change the reality that Black people are incarcerated more, get longer sentences and get killed for existing. Hate crime laws will not solve racism, it has been used to further police racialised and queer communities. Criminalisation assumes that racism is an issue of a few bad individuals who can just be locked away, when in reality racism is an institutional, cultural, social, political, economic issue. Justice cannot be found in criminalising individuals for a collective failing to provide people with community, education, healthcare, education, and so forth.
We stand with all protesters all over the US. Black Lives Matter, today, tomorrow and everyday. We can not continue to sit this out. We are in the middle of a pandemic, but racism is deadly to us. We understand all the risks and concerns but where is the outrage for Black lives? For people in Direct Provision who are unable to socially distant or self-isolate? Anti Blackness is global and ever present here in Ireland too. We must not forget that the Irish state is guilty of observing, instigating, and profiting off violence against Black people and all ethnic minorities. Direct provision is violence, systematic racism is violence, abuse against Travellers and Roma is violence, the 27th Amendment is violence. Liberation for us all oppressed people means understanding the interlocking struggles of race, class, disability, gender, queerness and how they are violences perpetrated by the settled White Irish capitalist state.
Enough is enough.
In these increasingly trying times, it is important to remember to stand for the especially vulnerable queer community. Particularly the trans community. We must highlight their compounded strife in a system that constantly dehumanises and belittles them, specifically in the way which the media constantly erases their trans identity. May Tony Mcdade, and Nina Pop Rest in power, their death wont go in vain. Similarly we deal with this transphobia in Ireland, when Sylva Tukula, a trans woman who was forced to live in the mens only Direct Provision centre, died in Galway. She was never awarded the basic respect of a proper funeral or a chance to part from her friends. We will not forget about her. The dreadful realities of being forced to live in direct Provision while being trans is something that shouldn’t go unmentioned, trans folk in Direct Provision are entitled to full and sufficient services and care.
These incidents play into the wider narrative of the unruly policing and disrespect of black trans folk across the world. It is time to stand up and loudly for the black LGBTQIA+ community as a whole. Especially now in times of unpredicted violence and policing, our voice matters.
If you wish to support the cause please donate to the community and bail out funds organised by local groups on the ground protesting. Don’t share photos or videos of protestors without blurring any recognisable person as you are putting them in danger. Most importantly, amplify the voices of Black people and check in on your Black friends.
