How A White British Girl Feels About #BlackLivesMatter Right Now

No, the photo couldn’t be more #whiteprivilege. It was taken on the Staten Island Ferry – behind the camera, a close friend who could not be more mixed race if he tried. Seriously, the guy is, like, a quarter Puerto Rican, a fifth Native American, maybe a third African American, and some bizarre amalgamation of Continental European and whatever else his insane DNA is.

The fact that someone in my shoes – white – would treat someone like him – not fully black, but loves to say he looks it with a good tan – differently is something I still struggle to digest. While my country’s headlines were dominated by COVID-19 these months and our beloved, 94-year-old queen horseback riding more recently, we’ve got our eye on you. Honestly, we literally don’t know what to say.

Shortly after the May 25 murder of 46-year-old black man George Floyd, I watched the video of ex Minnesota PD officer Derek Chauvin kneeling on his victim’s neck for over eight minutes, killing him. Chauvin, since transferred to a maximum security facility for his murder in the second-degree charge, is now joined by the three other officers involved as they face charges for aiding and abetting the murder of Floyd, killed after he paid for a pack of cigarettes with a counterfeit $20 bill.

I work in celebrity media. I check their IG all day long. Feeds for me now see an endless stream of black, white, and other ethnicity stars ditching their Fashion Nova promos and summer bikinis for lists of where to petition, how to safely protest, and the small ways black-owned businesses can be supported. As stars including Beyonce mark what would have been the 27th birthday of yet another innocently-murdered black person at the hands of white police – Breonna Taylor – it strikes me just how little has changed.

Never, have I been more embarrassed to be white.

I’ll admit that my white privilege has largely shielded me from the racism that blacks face on a daily basis. I go to a grocery store and from the moment I leave my house to the moment I return, the color of my skin is unlikely to see me judged or unfairly treated. Prior to Floyd’s death, it would’ve been rare for me to wonder whether the COVID security limiting store numbers as we wait in line might let me slip in because I’m white – or not because I was black.

“You guys elected a black president in 2008, and still, so little has changed?”

And yet, something has. In a way that is likely more powerful than we’re able to process right now. Black Lives Matter is no longer a black movement. The countless U.S. city streets – and now British ones – lined with people of all races and creeds saying Floyd’s dying “I can’t breathe” words is not to be ignored.

I was fortunate enough to know a Holocaust survivor well. The man, white and Austrian born, spent two years in Auschwitz concentration camp, escaping as the Russians rolled in. Conversations with him prior to his death five years ago always proved sobering. Actually no, scratch that. Uplifting. Together with friends that included a black Brazilian woman and her half-white, half-black child, we all had lunch. Somehow, the child being mixed race was mentioned. The Holocaust Survivor’s response to the mention of “mixed race?”

“I don’t see it,” he said.

It took us a moment, and a few questions, to realize that the man who had been near-gassed for being a Jew literally didn’t see color any more. I’d say it’s unlikely that white people will ever not see a black person as black. There’s no shame in saying it, but big surprise, the human eye can detect different shades of color. I continue, however, to literally not comprehend how the guy across from me on the bus is somehow a subpar human because he doesn’t need to wear Factor 50 in the sun. I literally do not comprehend how a Harvard Law School grad of color applying to top firms in Manhattan is still getting profiled – and likely glossed over – in favor of the white candidate because it’s “less of hassle.” “Easier.” Just…yeah, let’s hire the white person.

From the girl who accidentally started watching “Insecure” and loved that she “got” the “Draya” reference. From the girl who probably couldn’t function without Hip-Hop. From the girl whose country welcomed Meghan Markle and then watched the racism accusations explode as our fancy white monarchy seemed unable to handle a black woman.

You’ve got our back. At the very least, mine. I stand behind Black Lives Matter. And when @kanyewest knocks out lyrics like these, it’s about time more privileged-*ssed white folk give a damn.

“My momma was raised in the era when
Clean water was only served to the fairer skin
Doing clothes you would have thought I had help
But they wasn’t satisfied unless I picked the cotton myself.”