‘Privilege of being white helped me do well in life’
RECOGNISING white privilege was a key learning point for many people at Saturday’s Black Lives Matter protest.
The island’s senior politician, Policy & Resources president Deputy Gavin St Pier, was invited to speak and began by telling islanders: ‘I am a white, middle-aged, middle class, privately educated, married man.’
He said he would be kidding himself if he thought he would have done so well in life without this privilege.
In his speech, he showed his support for the anti-discrimination legislation and said the events globally in the past weeks have been a learning curve for a lot of people.
The MC echoed this, saying in many ways this protest was the start of an important conversation, one which will need to continue if Guernsey is going to successfully address and eliminate the systemic racism that harms the lives of black people and other people of colour in our community and around the world.
‘The past few months have shown that we can be so strong when we work together.
‘We have all recently made changes in our lives to help everyone in the wider community stay as healthy and safe from Covid-19 as possible.
‘We can do this for racism and other forms of discrimination too, by questioning our own thoughts and behaviours, by educating ourselves and others and by putting the legal protections we need in place to defend vulnerable groups.’
Explaining the problem of people arguing ‘all lives matter’, one speaker said of course they do, but it is black lives in danger, it is black lives that need help and support now, it is black lives that are being taken just because they are black.
At the end of the protest, islanders young and old took a knee, sat down or bowed their heads for eight minutes and 46 seconds to honour George Floyd who lost his life to the hands of the police in America, and to pay tribute to all of those who have died simply because of the colour of their skin.
. Guernsey Police said the protest passed without incident.
‘We want to thank the organisers for their early and extensive engagement with us throughout, and for everyone who attended ensuring a powerful message was conveyed in a meaningful yet peaceful manner,’ said a force spokesman.
