I Can’t Breathe. The irony of protesters chanting with…
By: Seán Rickard
Tags: Society, Coronavirus, BlackLivesMatter, Politics, Blm

Black Lives Matter protest, Belfast

The irony of protesters chanting with great pride, “I can’t breathe” whilst taking part in a mass gathering, during a pandemic of a respiratory virus is pretty astonishing. Even more astonishing is the fact that a lot, if not the vast majority of these people are those who grumbled ad nauseam about Dominic Cummings’ apparent breaking of the lockdown rules, whilst attending to a family emergency.

Not that I’m surprised, but the media were careful to tread lightly around that most blatant of hypocrisies. Sky News in particular alluded with careful understanding to the attendants’ inability to socially distance, without a mention of the repercussions they so passionately cite when in attack mode. They closed the story with an observation that the crowd seemed to be “thinning” now anyway. And that was the end of that.

For months, everyone’s mind has been occupied by confusion about what we’re allowed to do, what we aren’t — who, where, how many, why not? But now, in a flash, people are gathering with contemptible self-righteousness in cities across the UK, unchallenged by any authority. Have you missed the funeral of a loved one? Ignored that lump for fear of unnecessarily risking interaction at your doctor’s surgery? Well none of that matters, because you didn’t have a hashtag.

“One rule for you and another for everyone else!” they cried at Cummings; but ironically, this succinct adage is far more fitting of the Black Lives Matter protesters. They may think that they’re fighting the good fight, showing solidarity with the oppressed, spreading awareness! But unfortunately that message is drowned out by another more glaring one: that they are more important than the rest of us, and their opinions reign supreme. Those partying on the beaches get shamed and lambasted for breaking the rules and risking lives (as they should) but those with the ‘correct’ opinions can do what they please; as they are the arbiters of morality. They’re the good guys.

And don’t dare question it, because if you do, you’re basically a Nazi and you hate Black people. I’ve been branded a racist a few times now for condemning something which has, and will continue to, put lives at risk. I’ve been told that not supporting an anti-racist protest means I’m a racist, and in normal times that might be a reasonable assumption, but we are not in normal times. Of course, this doesn’t matter to the Great Virtuous; they have no patience for nuance, no ability to see more than two points of view. They view the world in only black or white. Pun intended.

I agree with the sentiment behind the BLM movement, and like the vast majority of people, I am anti-racist. I shouldn’t need to prove this by taking part in arbitrary internet trends, and I certainly shouldn’t be required to support a dangerous event. I cannot in good conscience ignore reason to uphold an image of righteousness. It’s disingenuous and inauthentic, and in this case, even cruel.

Yes, cruel. Don’t these people care about the very real danger they have now placed hundreds of thousands of people in? Some will die as a direct result of these demonstrations, doesn’t that play on their conscience? If I’m being kind, I could say that they’ve been naively blinded by tribalism, innocently conditioned, driven by the universal need for social acceptance. If I’m being honest, many of them are there simply to massage their ego as members of the righteous elite, whether they’re conscious of it or not.

We are facing a biological foe, and so it cares not for societal circumstance. As far as Coronavirus is concerned, a crowd is a crowd ripe for infection and its reasoning is unimportant. This is common sense, but it’s been condemned to an elephant in the room.

The hypocrisy is mind-blowing.