For a few weeks, black lives mattered. Now what?
The revolt is in danger of being reduced to a cultural debate by an establishment that remains hostile to black people
Nesrine Malik. 21 Jun 2020
Normal service is resuming. Although some protests are still continuing, after three heady weeks of black lives mattering, the news cycle is moving on. It feels a bit like dawn rising on the morning after a large public gathering. The ground is littered with debris, some stragglers loiter here and there, reluctant or too tired to leave, but the street sweepers are already on the scene. Before long there will be no sign that anything happened.
But something brief and unexpected did happen, although already it feels overshadowed by the brawl that followed over the goals and the methods of the Black Lives Matter movement. There was a global revolt by black people – and in solidarity with black people – that spread at an unprecedented speed and scale. The uprising crossed borders and language barriers, as protesters from Paris, London, Brussels and Minneapolis realised their grievances were the same: the erasure of their history, the cruelty of immigration systems, the impunity of the police. Black anger was too strong to contain, and the numbers in the streets were too large to ignore."
For a few weeks, black lives mattered. Now what?