"The beauty of anti-racism is that you don't have to pretend to be free of racism to be an anti-racist. Anti-racism is the commitment to fight racism wherever you find it, including in yourself. And it's the only way forward."
We're living in a historical moment. The police killing of George Floyd has sparked international outrage and triggered protests calling for racial justice across the US and the rest of the world, including the UK, France, Australia, south-east Asia and parts of Africa. This is not only a turning point in an ongoing Black Lives Matter movement against police brutality, this is all taking place against the backdrop of a global pandemic that is disproportionately affecting Black and ethnic minorities in the UK and the US.
"Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next. We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks and dead ideas, our dead rivers and smoky skies behind us. Or we can walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world. And ready to fight for it."
Now is the time for us to work together as a community to strive to be anti-racist and unlearn and dismantle any behaviours, cultures, systems or perspectives that encourage intolerance. Ibram X. Kendi, a black scholar and author of How to Be an Antiracist, says striving to be antiracist is an ongoing journey, one that involves learning and the capacity for self-critique.
This document contains a collection of carefully curated anti-racism and racial justice-minded resources along with a set of practical actions you can take to support the BLM movement.