Quakers make a stand against racial injustice
Quakers in Britain have joined with other UK churches in reaffirming their commitment to challenging racial injustice
Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) has joined other UK churches in affirming their commitment to challenging racial injustice, as protests following the death of George Floyd swept the world.
In a statement shared on social media, BYM said: ‘“There can be no peace without justice; no love without trust; and no unity without equality.” In 2017 British Quakers made this statement. We reaffirm our commitment to bearing witness against injustice and the right of citizens to hold their governments to account. #BlackLivesMatter.’
The Quakers in Britain Twitter account also shared some links to ‘toolkits’ on the issue, and said: ‘Challenging racism also means owning our own power and privilege.’
Friends General Conference (FGC) also had strong words to say on the injustice, with general secretary Barry Crossno commenting at the weekly FGC Zoom meeting: ‘As we work together to dismantle systemic racism, how can we replace it with systemic love?’
Elaborating on this theme in an email, FGC said: ‘Before we can create systemic love, we need to confront the realities that got us here… There is also anger among People of Colour over white culture’s push to go back to normal (a desire that is rooted in white supremacist thinking). Normal wasn’t working for everyone.’
The renewed calls for racial unity come amid revelations that in the UK BAME (Black, Asian, and minority ethnic) people are twice as likely to be fined for lockdown breaches as white people by the Metropolitan Police. At the same time, the UK government has been criticised for failing to publish third-party submissions to its report on the higher incidence of BAME people’s deaths in the Covid-19 pandemic, who have up to double the risk of dying.
BYM was one of eighteen groups that wrote to health secretary Matt Hancock, suggesting four ways to address race disparities in the use of coronavirus powers.
The MP for Bristol West, Thangam Debbonaire, who has spoken about her Quaker roots, joined calls in 2018 to remove the statue of slave trader Edward Colston that was torn down by racial justice protesters on 7 June. She said at the time that the city ‘should not be honouring people who benefited from slavery’.
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