Events then are the starting point, they are the stimulus to get us thinking and in my case writing. Sometimes we judge unfairly sometimes we are too hidebound, too soft, too forgiving but what ever the result is it's much better than disinterest or the claim of being too bored or busy to take any notice.
The Black Lives Matter debate continues to blanket our screens and from a black persons perspective the issue is raw since it garners so much of the injustice they see of being black in this country its part of their perceived failure to achieve, their failure to be judged for the person they are within this society.
For a white person (and I know this incites many people who think identity politics is a dangerous concept) living in what traditionally was assumed a white persons country, largely because the bulk of people here, before 1947 were white, the issue has never really arisen. Much as feminism is a quirk of being a women, (a matter for which men fear to have an opinion) so also the LGBT community is an out-layer to many people's thought process and whilst individually there is simply no difference, collectively the movement in their name seem to amplify not only our lack of knowledge from both sides but the opaque way we view most things in life.
One of the most striking things about the Black Lives Matter movement is the intensity it brings to focus on ones self image and to do a calculation on how you rate in society at large.
If you have a sense of grievance it is amplified and the grievance has a convenient hook to place that grievance on. The reason why I was not promoted was because I was black, the reason I failed at school was because I was bullied because I was black, the name calling when tempers are inflamed makes me as a black person a target, the isolation I feel in the society at large is because I am black and it's unfair.
These hooks are genuine but not unique to a black person. Bullying, being targeted, not getting a job (never mind promoted) and the feeling of isolation in parts of the country in its towns and cities is just as much a problem to a white person as it is to a black person the difference is there is no ethnicity focus, there is no banner to march under.
The lost voice of the white working class person used to be protected by the labour movement but after a brief flirtation with proper socialism under Jeremy Corbyn unfortunately, that ship has sailed and we are back with a middle class, politically correct agenda where matters such as LGBT rights get tabled and debated to the exclusion of the under performing, poorly educated white working class child who is off the media radar.
Black Lives Matter, of course they do but so do White Lives, Asian Lives, in fact the whole gambit of human life matters and it's wrong to proclaim that because what happens in America is somehow equivalent to what happens here. If so then we must include what happens in China or India, the Middle East, in fact all countries across the globe, for a better perspective.
The influence the media gives to any 'identity' political issue usually inflames the subject beyond all recognition. The activists seize the microphone and seek to exploit their own agenda, their own sense of their identity crisis. It might be a genuine agenda but it might also inflate the prejudice they already have (and we all have prejudice) and it will likely drive a wedge between people with ill thought through rhetoric, much like Donald Trump uses to divide his nation and it will deliver a body blow to those who genuinely see themselves as individuals not representatives of their race or gender, performing to the best of their ability and finding success is often directly proportional to the effort you put in.
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