[Image 1: A wide shot of a high-rise building in London with almost all of it blackened by fire. Image 2: The same building with the damage hidden by scaffolding and a large banner reading “Grenfell, forever in our hearts” opposite a green heart symbol.]
Today (June 14) is the first anniversary of the Grenfell Tower disaster. 72 people died, the vast majority of them working class, black, migrants, disabled, or Muslims. (Or a combination of more than one of those descriptors.) Many were young children, as well. The whole terrible, avoidable incident remains a massive stain on modern-day Britain. The survivors and the families of the victims still haven’t got justice for what happened.
I think about Grenfell a lot and I really want to do something, but there’s so little useful stuff I can do, especially since I can’t get to London easily from where I am in the UK. So today I’m gonna do the one thing I actually can do, which is post detailed tributes to all the 72 people who died, quoting the family members they left behind and explaining who they were and what they did.
Obviously, this comes with huge trigger warnings. Any details about victims’ deaths, rather than their lives, will be described as clinically and distantly as possible. However many family members have made it clear that they want the world to know the exact way their loved ones died, and I’ll be posting quotes from those people as well. It’s incredibly difficult stuff to read so all posts will be tagged “grenfell” “grenfell tower” and “trigger warning.” I hope that’s sufficient.
For more about Grenfell, the Guardian has covered it very extensively. You may also want to look at the hashtags #justiceforgrenfell and #justice4grenfell on twitter, where many survivors’ groups have made their voices heard.
Once I’ve finished posting about the victims I’m going to make another post talking about all the people who came out to help that night when they didn’t have to, and all the people who are still fighting for justice.
Prime Minister Theresa May has said she regrets her reaction to the tragedy, and she should. Many of the people she promised to rehouse still don’t have houses.
Again please be sure to blacklist the trigger warnings if you need to! This post is tagged with them too.
Edit: Here are all the tribute posts, in alphabetical order by last name:
andulkaphoto
discoholicmusic
izzy806
janainaart