For immediate release…
Monday 24 May 2021
TUC backed week of action will culminate in mass #TakeTheKnee action across Britain, Tuesday 25 May: 1 Year on from George Floyd’s Murder – We Need Action
#BlackLivesMatter #UKisNotInnocent
#SayTheirNames #TakeTheKnee
Organised by Stand Up To Racism & The TUC
Stand Up To Racism and the Trade Union Congress have called a week of action that is set to culminate in a mass #TakeTheKnee action on 25 May, with evening events taking place in towns and cities across England, Scotland and Wales, with TUC and trade union organised workplace #TakeTheKnee actions throughout the day.
The week of action is to commemorate George Floyd’s death one year on, in the spirit of the #BlacklivesMatter movement.
You can see the list and details of #TakeTheKnee #UKisNotInnocent actions planned for Tuesday 25 May here, including London, Manchester, Birmingham, Sheffield, Hull, Leeds, Newcastle, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Kirkcaldy Elgin, Bristol, Southampton, Bournemouth, Derby, Eastbourne, Swansea, Brighton, York, Kent, Essex and more.
A central focus of the events will be highlighting that the #UKisNotInnocent, with anti racists raising the need for action on institutional racism, justice for families still campaigning after the deaths in custody of their loved ones and no charge brought against the police as well as those in black and ethnic minority communities who have died disproportionately during the Covid pandemic.
On Tuesday 25 May, anti racists will #TakeTheKnee everywhere across the country. More details here.
The TUC and Stand Up To Racism are organising across unions in every workplace to #TakeTheKnee during the day at work, and then take part in the 6pm Twitterstorm and social media blitz as communities all over Britain #TakeTheKnee and those unable to join collective workplace or community actions will take part by doing #TakeTheKnee wherever they are.
Content from actions at 6pm, as well as earlier recorded content from workplace actions will all be shared at 6pm using #TakeTheKnee and #UKisNotInnocent
Two major rallies – a trade union mobilising meeting on Monday evening last week of over 300, and a major international rally on Saturday evening of up to 300 – took place to organise amd galvanise for Tuesday’s #TakeTheKnee across Britain.
TUC & SUTR letter to unions here
Diane Abbott MP, said
“Those images of George Floyd being murdered went around the world, and it wasn’t the first time a black man has died at the hands of the state either in America or even here in Britain, but the video that young girl took was absolutely incontrovertible evidence of what had happened. They couldn’t say he was resisting arrest, they couldn’t say he was exaggerating, they couldn’t say the usual things they say when a person of colour suffers violence at the hand of the state. In the trial it was posed: ‘Do you believe what your eyes show you?’ It sparked a global Black Lives Matter movement because every country has the experience of state violence and injustice against minorities.
“Although the death of George Floyd sparked a new international movement for racial justice, it also sparked a backlash. The main vehicle of the backlash here in Britain was the government’s commission on race and ethnic disparities led by a man called Tony Sewell. It was a deliberate counter-attack on the movement for racial justice, and had people on it who had been handpicked because they didn’t believe there was such a thing as institutional racism.
“How can the government have the face to produce a commission which says there’s no such thing as systemic racism? Sadly they did and that’s because if they accepted there was such a thing as systemic racism they would actually have to do something about it, and this government is determined not to do so.
“We have to learn from each other and learn what is happening up and down the country. We also have to keep fighting and support each other – one of the most positive things that I have seen in recent weeks was the response of the community in Glasgow in Pollokshields, who came out to defend their asylum seeker neighbours from a dawn raid. We have to keep fighting we have to go forward.”
Zainab Hassan, Justice for Mohamud Hassan campaign, said
“Mohamud was a healthy 24 year old young man. He was arrested, kept overnight, released the next morning battered black and blue, and died around nine hours later at his home in bed. It has been four and a half months since my nephew died and we are still not any closer to actually knowing what happened to him. We still have no answers. I don’t feel that we are any closer today than we were the night he passed away. Which is very, very sad.
“A lot of things need to change in order for us to move forward. I believe the whole system has to scrapped . The way the police deal with people of colour in custody definitely has to be looked at. The police have so much power and so much protection, and they have had it for too long. In their eyes why should anything change, they can get away with killing innocent people. My nephew was released without charge. Why did they feel that they needed to hurt him in such a way – those bruises that he had will stay with me for the rest of my life. No family should ever have to go through what my family has gone through and what we are going through every single day. He was a young healthy 24 year old man, looking forward to his life, about to become a first time dad. It’s horrible. I hope no other family has to go through what we, and many other families, are having to go through at the moment.
“Unless there is change, unless this system has a complete overhaul then there will be a lot more families grieving, mothers crying at graveyards. There has to be change.”
Mohannad Bashir, Justice for Mouayed Bashir campaign
“My brother Mouayed Bashir was sadly murdered by the Gwent police on 7 February… We are gathering together remembering George Floyd after the long awaited trial that everyone has been watching, I have, day in and day out, and even though the laws in the US are different, it was a huge learning curve for me, and I’m sure for others. I’m sure with Mouyayed’s case, when that time comes there might be a lot of similarities there, but there are a lot of things that we have to make sure with regards to police brutality that are looked into.
“As a family member, what my family is going through right now, it is quite huge, and I would never wish anyone to go through this, not even my worst enemy
“Definitely within the police force, there could be more education with regards to mental health awareness, educating the police with regards to the use of force, and learning a bit more about ethnic minorities in their area of the country. Black history training should be in there.
“Numbers don’t lie. It has been 96 days since my brother passed away, and so far we have 6,543 signatures from people out there demanding the release of the body cam. footage which we are still waiting for. We want to know exactly what happened to my brother. That is more than the 1,204 Gwent officers that are currently still working there. We need to stand up together”.
Bell Ribeiro Addy MP said
“George Floyd death instigated protests across the world… reigniting the Black Lives Matter movement and setting about a sea change, something I haven’t seen in my lifetime. There have been many mass movements that I know, but none so large and none that have gone on to make such significant change. For the first time ever we saw people having very real conversations about racism… taking an interest in a way that some have not before. Even though we have seen for the first time a police officer actually face the consequences of their actions murdering a black person, now is certainly not the time to let up, the backlashes will continue to come and the more we demand justice, the more we will face challenges.
“Now is the time to reignite our commitment to the anti racist movement, to make sure that we are not just being passive.”
Kehinde Andrews, author of The new age of Empire & professor of Black Studies, said
“There is something about the anniversary, something about ‘happy anniversary’, the day George Floyd was murdered… something that doesn’t seem right to me… where we are a year after his murder, what has changed? In the UK unfortunately it has largely changed for the worse… the government’s response is part of this bigger backlash, we have that so called report. In terms of policy we are actually worse now than it was last year because the backlash has been so clear, “there is no racism in the schools, society, the police force, anywhere, and not only is there ‘no racism’ but that ‘Britain is a beacon for the world’… They are saying things now that they couldn’t have, or wouldn’t have said a year ago…
“The positive is that it is a welcome reminder of where we are. We should talk about it, we should stay angry. That report actually was a good thing in the long run because it kept us all angry. That anger and that fire that we felt a year ago is exactly the anger and the fire that we need now. To get the change we need, it can only come about when we continue to mobilise in big numbers”.
Elise Bryant, Coalition of Labor Women & United Against Hate, Washington DC (US), said
“I want to give honour to Ella Baker, civil rights activist and pioneer, who said ‘We who believe in freedom cannot rest’… I’ll tell you what’s happening with the BLM movement – we are moving forward… because we who believe in freedom cannot rest, cannot rest, until it comes… so we are gathered to join together and honour the life of George Floyd and to remember his murder. Not to live in the past, but to remember the lessons learned so that we move forward. We cannot take time or step aside because of fatigue… George Floyd is but one… you know them… the ones whose names we don’t know, who don’t make it to the newspapers or to social media.
“I join with you across the waters, across geographical boundaries, to envisage an end to the racist attacks on people of colour around the world… it must stop. That is the work we are called to do… to demand justice for all. On May 25th let us all stand together wherever we are, or take a knee, in the honour of the memory of George Floyd and the work we are called to do to bring an end to racist attacks.”
Anna Rothery, Liverpool councillor and Lord Mayor, said
“It is a very sad occasion that we are coming together for another brother who has died at the hands of the police. Unfortunately George Floyd was not the last black man – we have got many George Floyds and Georgina Floyds – suffering from this racism and discrimination.
“We had the murder of George Floyd and Covid-19 at the same time, and it gave us the space to tap into our emotional intelligence and start looking and unpicking just exactly racism is… for those who didn’t understand, during the Covid-19 period those discussions, debates, conversations that took place—really the rabbit was out of the hat and it was not going to go back. Nobody can plead ignorance anymore. Now is the time for action.
“We still have a very long way to go but at least we have opened up that dialogue. These are basic human rights we are asking for, we are asking not to be killed. That’s the reality. My patience is wearing very thin – we don’t need any more reports or research, we need action”.
Natasha Johnson, All Black Lives UK, said
“A year on from George Floyd it has made young people a lot more political and they are beginning to see the injustices that are going on within this country. There is a lot more that has to be done and it has to come from the bottom upwards, we can’t expect people in government to give black people their liberation and freedom so there needs to be a lot more work on the ground with grassroots organisations where people are joining together.
“What we need to do next is make sure young black and brown people in this country have a voice, because they are living the experience of economic decline, racial injustice. This year has changed the course of history probably forever.”
Lawrence Davies, laywer for the Justice for Belly Mujinga campaign
“The coroner ruled last week that there should be an inquest into Belly Mujinga’s death – that was the first step forwards in the campaign for justice. If you go back in time between the 1970s and 2010 when the racial equality act came in, we all thought to some extent we were making progress against race discrimination… Certainly in the workplace there were less cases of overt racism and less visible racism, some sort of stigma developed where somebody was found to be racist. Superficially things were changing… but racial harassment according to the TUC doubled between 2016 and 2020, from 16 to 31 percent.
“For Belly, she had put a complaint of racism against her supervisor, that was just completely ignored. Employers were becoming more and more empowered to not process race grievances. That was the same supervisor who sent her out onto the platform that day on 21 March, she was assaulted twice on that platform by a white male for no apparent reason, hopefully the inquest will look into why he acted with such anger towards her, pointed at her, coughed and shouted and covered her in Spittle. And she died later on 5 April.
“Despite the Black Lives Matter movement which her case was very much part of in the UK, and the 2.1 million people who signed her petition, we have seen a lot of protest but actually there has been no change in the economic situation, no change in the disproportionalities in our society. That’s a problem. So we have at the moment 99 percent of people who suffer racism at work, and that has doubled, are not complaining. People are still afraid, and the economic situation is still as it was before. We have a race pay gap that is still at 37 percent. The race pay gap, the debt is about £300 billion. So I say if you transfer £300 billion to black workers in the UK that would be the first significant step in tackling race inequality in the UK.”
Reverend Kobi Little, NAACP president Baltimore (US), said
“One year on following the televised murder of George Floyd, the question is where are we and where should we be going? Yes we are glad to see that Derek Chauvin has been convicted of murder. On August 23rd the trial for the remaining suspects will commence and we will continue to track that. But at the heart of the work that we must do is the recognition of the colonial impact on our communities that result in hate, that result in the denial of white supremacy in corporate spaces… it is important for us to challenge those who deny institutional racism, that we reject the CRED report and that we stand up in the face of those deniers and draw the connection between racism and institutional inequity, and police violence and government sanctioned hate and violence.”
Roger McKenzie, Unison assistant general secretary, said
“The fundamental question here for all of us is how are we going to build this movement, how are we going to make sure that what happens next week is part of this process of making sure that we have a movement that is fit for purpose when it comes to deing with racism.”
Margaret Greer, Unison National Black Members’ Officer, said
“In our fight for freedom, we are not going to continue to die without justice.”
Mark Serwotka, Public & Commercial Services (PCS) union general secretary, said
“We all have to ensure that next week in our workplaces we do everything we can to ensure people #TakeTheKnee and commit themselves to the fight against racism.
“If anyone needs inspiration, let me say as the trade union leader who represents workers in government who sometimes do an unpleasant job including in the Home Office, that nothing gladdened my heart more than to see the inspiration of black and white people coming together to stop the deportation of our neighbours, our comrades and our black citizens in Glasgow. That shows the power of a united movement and let’s see many more Glasgow’s stopping other deportations, and committing all of us to fight to root out racism that is systemic in Britain.”
Kevin Courtney, National Education Union (NEU) joint general secretary, said
“It is one year since George Floyd was murdered, and if you go back a few months before that we had all those pictures of black NHS workers in this country who had died in the start of the pandemic. And we are celebrating and commemorating them as well and saying there has to be struggle against racism in our society.
“We are doing it in the spirit of what we have seen since the murder of George Floyd – those huge mobilisations that happened in America and spread across the world of black people but black and white people on demonstrations demanding change. The people in Bristol who, whatever you think of it, that mass mobilisation which ended up tearing down the statue of a slave owner, people one the streets saying they are not putting up with racism anymore, and the mobilisation in Glasgow last week against those deportations and as well as these, we want mobilisations in the workplace.
“So what can you get your workmates to do next Tuesday? Will they take a photograph together, will they do a #TakeTheKnee action together? If you are a teacher, can you get an assembly in your school that day? Can there be a union meeting which sends a message of suppport? We want things happening in as many workplaces as possible.”
For more information, interviews and further quotes:
info@standuptoracism.org.uk
