All these Action Plans But Still No Action

Incase you missed the Oprah interview with Harry and Meghan, here are 4 tweets that sum it up.

Some Black people are scared to speak out, they know that not everyone smiling at them and inviting them to ‘important’ rooms or zoom meetings cares about their reality, they know who they had to become behind the scenes to get to where they are and if they speak out they’ll be shut out by the senior white people that invite them to ‘important’ stuff, pay their salary or they may equally may also be ostracised by family members & community. It’s sad, it’s deeply painful and uncomfortable to know, the very reason some people may not speak out is the very thing that kept Harry and Meghan silent for so long. We are feeding that same machine with our silence.

Seeing Black people and people from other ethnicities say stuff like, ‘I don’t want to get involved’, ‘I think tensions are too high now so I’ll sit this out’, ‘nobody had been racist to me’, ‘I have a good relationship with the family or the media’, ‘it’s complicated’, Fam… Firstly, it ain’t about you. You may as well not say anything, instead of justifying why you’re not saying anything, to save face, because you know you’ve capitalised off of this Black conversation and now everyone’s expecting you to say the real situation you’re making excuses, you are a melt, these are the same people who signed all these letters, manifestos and action plans last year after George Floyd, hundreds of manifestos later and no manifestation of change, both Black leaders and non-Black ‘allies’ signed every letter on earth, created hundreds of action plans, all these action plans but still no action. What good is your allyship and your voice if you are nowhere to be found when issues arise that directly impact the Black community negitivly, the same community you promised to stand by when you finally realised the world had it's knee on our neck. And to Black people, what good is your high profile position or 'position of influence' if the only time we hear you speaking up for the Black community is when it means you'll be all over TV, have increased followers on social media and be treated like a God among your own people. Climb down off your high horse and remember the continent that gave you life, a sense of identity and the strength you conveniently hide under the garment of capitalism and social climbing. And no matter how high you climb, or how high your horse, you're still treated like 2nd class citizens. Do you lot not see? The conversation around what many reffer to as ‘mental health’ issues, issues of depression and suicide with Meghan and Harry is deeply disheartening to hear and completely valid, but please don’t get it mixed up; Meghan and Harry did not get treated the way they have been because of ‘mental health’ issues, so let’s not conflate the 2 issues at play here; they have both said a lot of the ‘mental health’ issues came because of the way they were treated as people. Meghan and Archie were treated like this because they have Black in them, the blood of Africa, Harry was treated the same way because he fell in love with a women who has African blood in here. Strange though, when you consider we all bleed the same, but live completely different realities.

This is why I wrote www.LetterToZion.com

"Somewhere along the way, the idea that white people are superior to others has taken root in society, like a stubborn weed in the garden. It’s everywhere and people are so used to seeing it, they don't appreciate that it’s choking the goodness out of our world. I wish I could tell you, that you’ve been born into a reality free of negativity, dangerous stereotypes and casual racism that has plagued us for so long, but I can’t. To really change the state of things, I believe we must right these wrongs with the same intensity we used to create them. But in doing this we must be consistent, because consistency is greater than intensity." - Quote taken from my letter to my son, read more on the link above - Letter to Zion

This is why I started The Black British Network 

Follow my new page >> Cephas Williams Page << I’ll be posting updates on their as time goes on. 

#TogetherWeAreStronger