I’ve been very quiet these last few days – as a white British person, it seemed more important to keep quiet, listen and put the work in offline to make sure I’m part of the solution and not part of the problem, than to performatively demonstrate that I care. (If I had an audience, it would be different, but let’s be honest – I don’t.) There are a great many petitions and donation links circulating at the moment – if your Tumblr dash and Twitter feed look anything like mine, you’ve seen them twenty times already today, and these are proof that there’s a lot we can all do from behind our computer screens.
However, most of these links are, understandably, US-focused, so for those of us in the UK it can be difficult to know the best way to help. One thing many of us might not have been aware of is the fact that the UK sells tear gas and rubber bullets to the US. There has rightfully been a lot of discussion about how the UK is far from innocent when it comes to racism and police brutality, but our goverment’s direct role in supporting and exacerbating the violence currently occurring in the US is often overlooked.
Like many people, I was ignorant of the danger posed by rubber bullets – the name is disingenuous for something that can be profoundly disabling if not fatal. A photojournalist lost her left eye a few days ago and is now partially blind (she’s already working again and being extremely badass about the whole thing). Tear gas is evil at the best of times, but during a pandemic that affects the respiratory system, it is unfathomable. To continue to sell these weapons to the US makes our country complicit in the lives lost and injury caused.
There’s been a call for these sales to be suspended (see article linked above), which would send a clear message that the UK does not condone this brutality. It’s only a drop in the ocean when it comes to putting a stop to the harm caused by the UK arms trade more generally, but it’s a drop that would help.
So please, if you’re in the UK, write to your MP in support of suspending these sales. While you’re there, ask them to condemn Trump’s response, and demand that the government release the delayed report about BAME Covid-19 deaths. It’s easy to feel helpless adding your name to dozens of change.org petitions, but there are concrete issues you can approach your elected representatives about, and these are some of them. None of us can fix the world, but we can help.
You can write to your MP very easily using WriteToThem.com. You don’t need to be registered to vote, you just need to live in their constituency. If you have a home and term-time address (e.g. you’re a university student), you have two MPs. You don’t need to know their name, because WriteToThem will find them for you. You don’t need to send a long, thought-out email (although that’s great!), you just need to make it clear to them that this is an issue their constituents care about.
The world is awful right now. Let’s do what we can to make it a tiny bit less awful. <3
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