Whilst we all feel heartbroken let’s recognise that if we’re not black it’s our duty to implement real material changes to change the anti black status quo. In the UK anti blackness is upheld by non black people of colour - south Asians and Arabs especially - in so many ways

One of the most subtle of these is the internalised desire to be closer to whiteness. If we look at the likes of Patel & Javed we see how Asians are able to access power through performing proximity to whiteness THROUGH their internalised racism

Whiteness is constructed through anti blackness, non-black poc subconsciously know this and know that it is much more difficult for black people to access whiteness in the same way so by throwing them under the bus, can benefit. E.G think how “BAME” representation rarely = black

On the other hand u have the way non black poc love to fetishise just the same as white people whilst also not actually wanting to be close to black PEOPLE. Think of the use of the desperate desire of Asians to use the n word but never marry black people; think of colourim

The hatred and loathing of dark skin in south Asian cultures predates colonialism and is linked to class and caste. It’s echoes last in the skin bleaching we all know about and the ways dark skin south Asians are denigrated ridiculed and dehumanised even within their own families

A good friend named that phenomenon to me as a type of eugenics. She’s right. South Asians are often intent on lightening their gene pool through marriage choices in this almost dystopian “breeding” of skin colour that goes into partner choices. All resting on hating dark skin.

And that’s why we all know the trope of the Asian family who won’t let their child marry a black partner. It’s rooted in casteism, anti-blackness and internalised desire for whiteness. This is deep rooted and further exacerbated when we fetishise black people or erase them

It’s easy to feel paralysed when black people are murdered every single day but if we are not black we have work to do. How are we contributing to those deaths? How are we complicit in black peoples dehumanisation? How are we upholding white supremacy and complicit in it?

You don’t have to be sitting on a black person’s neck to be part of a system that makes black life unliveable. You may be unlearning things yourself but you’re also responsible for your family, your cousins, your youth and your elders. In the same way we need to disrupt generally

Disrupt anti blackness wherever you find it. Stop lightening skins. Stop preferring light skin people. Learn the history of casteism/ colourism intersecting with colonialism. Stop using the N word & KNOW WHY. Stop trying to outmanoeuvre black people. Reflect. We have to do better

And just to add this is part of the nexus of reasons we need to cancel “BAME” and the erasure it does; and why we need to all stop begging for representation rather than redistribution, dismantlement and absolute system transformation.

I pray we destroy the ugliness of racism within us before it destroys us.

Also just wanna add ——Arabs, u have u own problems with racism that deserve their own thread so if anyone wants to direct us pls do post below