Where the hell do I start?

With the incredible sense of entitlement that allows someone to feel vindicated in doing pretty much whatever they like because their situation is so much more nuanced and complex than your situation and anyway they’re actually more important and intelligent than you and really you wouldn’t understand?

With the strategy to combat a deadly virus conflated with partisan politics?

With lies openly told by governments but everyone too exhausted or bored or disengaged to bother to do anything but sigh?

With full on, simple, bare-faced racism which has never been addressed with truth and honesty but just ignored and constantly re-booted in big and little ways because it’s too difficult and uncomfortable to unpick?

With peacefully protesting citizens being tear gassed by police to make way for their own fucking president on his way to a photo opp?

With the leader of the free world using language inextricably linked to historical, racist police brutality (oh but “that’s not what I meant” so don’t worry that’s okay)?

With deliberately provocative groups of white vigilantes armed with golf clubs and baseball bats taking to the streets seemingly without challenge from the police?

With the systematic militarisation of police resulting almost inevitably in dehumanisation of the individuals dressed like something out of an unrealistic dystopian film?

With members of the UK Parliament currently unable to vote on behalf of their constituents because a very small amount of very entitled people need that parliament to look, sound and act more like a public school common room than a place where important decisions need to be made?

With the hypocrisy of people who voted for years against actual policies that might have supported “our” NHS, clapping and banging outside their houses every week in areas where front line NHS workers could not afford to live and will never hear the empty noise echoing into the dusky evening?

With corporations around the world talking about their inclusive culture whilst actively failing to actively support or actually invest in inclusivity programmes which might actually do something… or worse, actually actively and openly putting D&I on the back burner in “these unprecedented times”?

With video after video being shown of police hitting unarmed protestors as hard as they possibly can, protestors who were standing still, or trying to cycle home, or reacting to being groped, or just getting ‘too close’?

With the retort of “yeah, but don’t all lives matter?” glibly thrown like a smarmy, clever little hand grenade full of deliberate ignorance?   

With a growing dread that because every media outlet has some kind of agenda, it’s getting harder and harder to find objective truth beyond hastily shot iPhone footage?

With the sense that no one really cares about truth anyway, they just want to hear from sources who reinforce what they already think?

With the horrible feeling that your faith that kindness and love will ultimately conquer all might just be a naïve fantasy?

Okay, wait a minute.

Yeah, maybe I’ll start with the last one.

Because I’ve seen white cops taking off helmets and laying down batons and walking alongside their communities.

Because I know that the outpouring of sadness for what’s happening in America is real, and that sadness comes from a good place.

Because we may not know what to do, but knowing something has to be done is the first step.

Because the further things go, the more people will decide that enough is enough.

Because regardless of political or social predilections, I do think that the idea of “fairness” is one that transcends most divisions, and there’s nothing fair about what’s happening at the moment.

Because there’s a fine line between frustration and injustice, which drive action, and dejection and gloom, which make you give up. And I need to actively keep myself on the right side of that.

Because I do believe, with all my heart and soul, that hope and love are stronger than despair and hate. That the light side of the force will ultimately overcome the dark side of the force. Even if it takes 9 feature films to get there.

Unusual that I turn to Rocky for wise words, but just this once…

“The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It is a very mean and nasty place It will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me or nobody is going to hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard you hit, it is about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward, how much can you take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done”

Rocky Balboa, 2006, written & directed by Sylvester Stallone.

Because we will move forward.

Love and peace x