SECOND BLACK LIVES MATTER PROTEST SINCE THE MURDER OF GEORGE FLOYD SEES THOUSANDS PROTEST IN BUTE PARK ON AN HISTORIC DAY
OTHER ACTIONS TOOK PLACE ACROSS WALES AS WELL AS MAJOR DEMONSTRATIONS IN ENGLAND
THE GROWING MOVEMENT BEGAN BY SHOWING SOLIDARITY WITH THE REBELLION IN AMERICA BUT IS NOW TAKING CLEAR AIM AT STRUCTURAL RACISM IN BRITAIN AS WELL.
By SC Cook. Images by SC Cook
Around 3,000 people came to the Black Lives Matter protest in Bute Park, Cardiff, on Saturday, in what was one of the city’s biggest demonstrations in decades.
The crowd spread out from the stone circle in every direction, standing on pathways and fields as others climbed trees to catch a view of the speakers. Even at the front, protesters tried and mostly succeeded to keep a distance from one another and the vast majority wore face masks, a specific instruction from organisers who were well aware that the demonstration took place amidst the Coronavirus pandemic and even distributed gloves and masks.
There were huge numbers of young people who came, almost continuously, into the park as the demonstration took place. Older people, families, workers in uniform and trade union paraphernalia, and groups of friends from across the city also took part. A great proportion of the multi-racial crowd which filled the field was made up of black people and people of colour, who led the demonstration from the stage.
Speakers denounced both institutional and everyday racism, the police, colonialism, Trump, Johnson, and demanded that this moment be a turning point in history. Those who took the mic included black civil rights lawyers, a member of the Cardiff 5 (also known as the Cardiff 3), a world champion boxer and many others.
The crowd was vocal, upbeat and angry as they joined in chants of “No Justice, No Peace”, raised their fists in the air, and collectively kneeled for victims of racist murders.
The protest was called by Black Lives Matter Cardiff, a group led by young women who also called last weekend’s action. Saturday’s event was on an entirely different scale however, and what began as a movement for George Floyd and in solidarity with the revolt in America has grown into a powerful force also taking aim explicitly at racism in Britain and its shameful legacy of colonialism.
Other protests also took place across Wales, including 100 people at a lively event in Caerphilly.
Approaching the demonstration from the North side of Bute park, Wayne, who lives in Cardiff after graduating from University a few years ago, says as a 25-year-old black man he has been made acutely aware of racism- and experienced it -throughout his life.
“I dread to think in the next 25 years, these things will still be happening,” he tells me.
“I feel that today I have a chance to be here, and make sure people are aware of it, and people in power recognise us and make sure that in the next 25 years, everything changes.”
He explains how he still witnesses people online denying the reality of racism but the Black Lives Matter movement has brought the issue to the fore.
“When you see it blatantly happening in America, I feel their pain. And even though we’re across the world in another continent I still believe certain things, like racial injustice is still happening in Britain, and please don’t give up.”
As Wayne went to find his girlfriend, I met Jessica Dunrod, standing back from the speakers with her family, including her son, father and step-mother.
“Racism has gotten worse in Wales and in the UK generally, so we’ve come to show our solidarity,” she says.
Jessica – who is a pole-vaulter – has experienced institutional racism within the world of athletics, but says it’s also the everyday reality of racism that has brought her here.
“It’s things people think are ok: ‘oh can I touch your hair,’ or ‘oh that’s enough of talking about race.’ These little things we’ve had to deal with.”
Despite being a good student, she didn’t get into A levels at her high school. “I’ve had to go and get my degree now at 31, when I could have got it at 21,” she tells me. “It’s things like that you know. It slows us down, it’s keeping us back.”
One immediate thing that could be done to tackle racism Jessica says, is to “Decolonise the curriculum” and “teach accurate black history.”
She says it’s her own family, rather than official education, which has taught her more about black history. Her father came to Wales from Saint Kitts in the Caribbean. Their surname, Dunrod, she explains, is Scottish and comes from their ancestor’s slave owner.
Her family tree only begins when slavery was abolished. “They tell us to go home. Alright, you find out where we’re from, what language we spoke, what religion we had,” she says angrily. “You paid compensation for the slave owners, not the slaves.”
Jessica points out how her family is an example of multiracial, working class life. Her father is from the Caribbean, her white mother is from Ely and her stepmother – who she is with today – is from the docks.
“They call it the bay but I still call it the docks,” her step-mother says, adding that she is here at the protest because she believes this movement represents “a new moment” in history. “It’s gone on too long.”
Jessica says she’s also here today for black workers, in particular the transport worker, Belly Mujinga, who died after being deliberately spat at by a white man with Covid-19. “They need to press charges… you know, she died.”
Making a point that Islamophobia is also rife, she says “[that] it’s everything coming together…. we’re all in it. If they can’t discriminate against you based on your race or your gender they’ll do it [based on] class, they’ll find another reason you know.”
Jessica attacks the “special relationship” Britain has with a racist US President as being a key reason she is angry. “Trump’s out of control now, and they’re not even saying anything because Brexit’s happening, they need the money.”
“Stop funding Trump, stop standing for this madness anymore,” she says before turning to Boris Johnson: “[This is] a man who calls us golliwogs, letterboxes, watermelon smiles.”
As well as highlighting systemic grievances that disproportionately affect black people and people of colour, this protest movement is also radicalising against institutional racism, particularly within the police. The wave of action in the US has exposed police brutality like never before, with videos flooding social media of cops beating up protesters, journalists, and even bystanders. In a sign of how rapidly the mood has shifted on the back of the mass street movement, a recent poll showed that the burning of Minneapolis police station – where George Floyd’s killer worked – was more popular than either Donald Trump or Joe Biden.
Standing a short distance away from the speakers was Sulaiman and Zee, two young Asian skaters who have “Fuck the Police”and “ACAB, Abolish the Police” sprayed across their boards.
“Obviously as an Asian, as a Pakistani, as a skater we’ve had our run-ins with the police,” says Sulaiman, who explains how his younger brother was recently racially profiled and searched by the police, “I don’t think they’re just at all.”
“So called good cops?” he says, “I don’t personally believe there are good cops because this is systemic racism within the police force, they’re all representative of a corrupt system.”
He says he believes the police are beyond reform. “The only way to really fix and change this is to start from the ground up, complete reformation….Break it down to its bare foundations, start again, see what the people want.”
The question of democratic accountability is central to Sulaiman:
“If what you’re doing is causing this much of an outcry, you got this many people saying you’re fucking it up, you’re doing it wrong, you’ve got to listen to the people. You’ve got to make the changes they want because you’re meant to be serving the people, you’re not supposed to be oppressing people.”
Zee agrees. “At its core it’s corrupt and about discrimnation, and I’m against a system that represents that,” he says.
“For us it’s about standing up to racism and oppression. We’re about trying to make that change…Protests in the past have had effects before you know – civil rights, bills have been passed because of protest. It’s about harnessing the anger that we have in…not stopping, we’ve gotta keep these protests up.”
“We’ve got so many people coming in every day because of what happened with George Floyd,” says Sulaiman. “Not just black or white, you got people from every walk of life you know, we’re all just sick of racism.”
The protest reflected the demand that this movement had to be the beginning of a new era where racism was no longer denied or covered up. At one stage in the event, a Cardiff Labour councillor, Ali Ahmed, was booed for suggesting that Cardiff was “different” and it didn’t have a problem with racism. He made things even worse when he told the crowd that “all lives matter,” a phrase associated with white supremacist Trump supporters in America. Ahmed – who often addresses and helps organise anti-racism events in Cardiff – was heckled off stage immediately.
Another politician, the MS (Member of the Sennedd) Jenny Rathbone, while not saying anything as offensive, was also seen to have missed the mark, reflecting the fact that the anger and rage of this movement goes beyond mainstream politics and will not simply be channelled into electoral ends.
Sitting under a nearby tree I meet three young people from Cardiff, Dan 19, Jo, 19 and Jazz who is 18. They too are drawing their own conclusions about what they have seen happening in America.
“The fact that everyone’s coming down to make a difference is just really inspiring to see,” says Jo, adding that this was the first protest any of them had ever been to.
Asked about what they think about the uprising in America, including rioting and so-called looting, they say, “it’s completely necessary.”
“The riots are good in my opinion because it shows people want change,” says 19 year old Dan. “Seeing people flooding the streets is good because it shows people’s opinions are quite extreme on the matter.”
“If that’s what it takes for the black community to be treated like normal human beings then that’s how it’s gonna have to be,” Jazz tells me. “For years racism has been ignored and now people are actually kicking off and it’s necessary. All the looting – people complain but it’s just materialistic stuff – someone died.”
“It’s just kicking off everywhere,” she says. “I mean the normalisation of homelessness is just ridiculous. I’ve been walking around and you see someone on the streets and people just ignore it like it’s normal. There’s like empty houses that the council have and they don’t use them. The poor people are getting angry.”
Dan, who is white, says it’s important that he was there. “Black people need to know that the white people are looking out for them as well, you get me?” he explains. “If the white people didn’t show up, the black people are gonna feel like they’re on their own. So yeah the white people have gotta do their bit as well.”
The protest – full of homemade placards – incorporated a number of issues and campaigns. Some read “Free Siyanda”, in reference to the young black woman who was recently imprisoned by police after her family say she was defending herself against a racist attack.
Another read “Justice for Christopher Kapessa”, the black teenager who drowned after being pushed into a river in South Wales last July whilst surrounded by a large group of young white people.
A woman called Lizzie told us she was there because, as a gay person, she felt it was “incredibly important for to stand behind the Black Lives Matter movement.”
“My sign here is of Marsha P. Johnson, she’s the reason we have pride – she’s an amazing woman. In 1969 she threw the first stone in the stonewall riots which escalated and caused pride to happen for everyone else.”
The protest in Bute park ended at around 3.30pm and a march of around 700 people took off to the Senedd, where an emotional and tense silence was held for 8 minutes and 46 seconds – the amount of time the cop Derek Chauvin had his knee on George Floyd’s neck – in memory of Floyd and all victims of racist murders. On the steps of the Senedd, further speeches as people grabbed the mic and took aim at the police and the failure of politicians to address the burning injustice of racism. This is an international movement that feels different, is determined to do whatever it takes and has no plans to stop now.
For more information on how to support Black Lives Matter Cardiff, visit their Facebook Page here.
