Colour Only Brings A Rainbow

This month was a month of celebration. October is Black history month and is a time to appreciate and celebrate Black people’s heritage. There have been assemblies across schools, fashion exhibitions to show Black clothing, plays performed, oral history archives, music projects and more. The month celebrates so many black icons such as Mary Seacole (nurse at the Crimean War), Barack Obama (first African American president of the US), Toussaint Louverture (leader of Hatian slave revolt) and Martin Luther King (Leader in the African-American Civil Rights Movement).

 

Black History Month is an annual appreciation of black history which is celebrated in October. It is celebrated in other countries such as Canada and the United States of America (it is celebrated in February). Black History Month was first celebrated in the United Kingdom in 1987. Black history month has often sparked controversy as the usefulness and fairness of the month has been questioned. This is because many believe that one month should not be designated to a certain race.

 

Black Lives Matter is a National based organisation working for the validity of Black life. They are working to rebuild the Black liberation movement. Today the current population in the world is 7.5 billion with 1.3 billion of the population being African. This means that 18% of the world is from Africa. #BlackLivesMatter was created in 2012 and currently has 4,254,679 on Instagram alone. Black Lives Matter is a movement to prevent more police brutalities towards the Black community. Although young Black men only make up 2% of the American population they comprised of more than 15% of deaths in the US in 2015.

 

Black lives are deprived of typical human rights. Black Lives Matter aim to stop:

How Black poverty and genocide is state violence

How 500,000 Black people in the US are documented immigrants

How Black girls are used as bribes during times of war and conflict

How the Black queer community are judged further by skin and sexuality

How Black people living with disabilities and different abilities are forced to participate in state sponsored Darwinian experiments.

 

 

Black people have tried to express their frustration for years in many different ways. An example of this is through poetry for example Lois Akinnagbe wrote the following verses of this poem entitled ‘Pertrubations’:

 

“Perturbations

I wake up, my heart with still no rhythm

I turn on the TV and see another victim

It’s not right for them to keep dying

And for all to ignore and keep lying

 

Turn to my side and see my siblings awake

6 of us in one bedroom I can’t catch a break

I step out of the apartment

With no valid statement

Cause this is simply not fair

 

I walk down the block

And count the clock

The signs of opportunity

And finally reality

 

I’m not to be held back

Due to my dark skin

Not to be thrown out

For my name that you can’t shout...”

 

Lois in reply to my question “What does the Black Lives Matter organization mean to you” replied

“It means justice. It means strength. It means hope.  Justice for my race and all that we are. Strength in being able to withhold our hurt and express it in numbers. Hope in the fact that despite so many years of prejudice, intolerance, racism and being victims of society, we survived. And we will continue to. This is what the movement means to me and if anyone has a problem with the movement they have a problem with humanity. Black lives matter always”.

 

 

This movement will continue in the world until the world can finally understand that all lives are equal. The colour of our skin should not determine our life value.

 

By Amani Younus from Newstead Wood School