https://medium.com/publishing-well/-415fa71da2cd

'This is not a trend

This is my life" Displayed on the billboard by a marching black lives matter advocate

What the critics of the black lives matter movement do not know

No one can have failed to hear the criticism of the rise of the black lives matter movement portrayed as being about people who are easily dominated by Marxist groups who have their own agenda

Or that the movement should be dismissed as groups of opportunists eager to spark a trend (which is predicted to be short-lived)

Perhaps one of the most destructive criticisms circulating is that apparently blacks are merely jumping on a bandwagon and demanding attention just for the sake of it

Some black people are demonstratively trying their best to refuse to acknowledge the movement preferring to concentrate their attention on fitting in, not making a fuss, just in order to get on with their everyday lives.

I am a British Born Black Women

Old enough to remember watching Dr Martin Luther King's Funeral on our black and white television set.

I have spent my life trying to ignore any ignorant prejudices that came my way.

No-one wants inequality and injustice to raise their ugly heads

No-one openly seeks it

This Black lives matter movement erupted because an ultimatum was thrust in front of the nation

People Died

They were killed.

The reaction from the nation was from all fair-minded people who rose up and demanded that the killers be brought to justice

The movement bloomed as a direct consequence of these fair-minded people refusing to ignore the differential treatment that occurred when mothers and fathers son's and daughter had their lives stolen from them because of the colour of their skin

Simply that

Their lives were cut short because they looked different in appearance.

Their equal rights to exist were stolen from them when they were singled out from a crowd

They were killed when they were treated differently not because of their personality nor content of their characters Dr Martin Luther King emphasised in his speeches in the 1960s about his dream for the future of the nation that he loved, but because they were reacted to differently by law enforcers because of the colour of their skin

This movement has sparked a conversation that has spanned my whole life

This conversation is reverberating around the globe

A practising (white )lawyer described to me that in her experience of cases of alleged differential treatment or lack of equality in work and or pay she had found human beings to be tolerant until something triggered a response or reaction to the injustice which was felt.

She asked, "What is your breaking point?"

For black people, this was the act of murder

The Black lives matter movement caught afire because of deeply held feelings

Black people began to react to insults and interactions that had occurred to them. Actions that perhaps in the past -they had tried to ignore and sublimate.

Anger and grief was the trigger which marked refusal to no longer tolerate standards that we had tried to live with whilst we slowly and painstakingly apologised as individuals for disturbing the status quo with our different appearance.

Individuals became no longer content with working singularly and continuously in small groups in order to facilitate integration and to change attitudes and to minimise the existence of being singled out from the crowd just because of skin colour

This movement thrives and gains momentum based on collective painful feelings that have arisen from collective hurts that were for the most part closeted and hidden and excused but never forgotten

In this new day, we openly acknowledge discuss and air our discontents remembered from the past present and future. It is these feelings, these legitimised hurts that were formerly excused and submerged are birthed as if new.

The hypocrisy of differential treatment is condemned by our real and empathetic friends who support us as each relived and revived pain fuels the fire of resentment.

We have run out of time

We can no longer wait for equality to exist during our lifetime

We aspire to fully live now

We are no longer acquiescent

We are done with compromising

We can no longer afford to wait until people are comfortable with the way we look

Until all communities become more accepting that they can no longer see the colour of our skin and infer and impose conditions on our lives and our existence

We are forced to talk about it repeatedly and unashamedly today

We have to implement constructive changes in all walk s of our lives which can only begin when we call out the existence of differential treatment of black people

Before any more human lives are stolen.