Black Lives Matter solidarity statement – Labour Campaign for Trans Rights

Following the widespread protests against police brutality, white supremacy and racist oppression across the world, LCTR has published a statement of solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement, which is available below, as well as names and links to important organisations supporting this movement:

LCTR stands in solidarity with the family and friends of George Floyd, the protests in Minneapolis and across the US, and with all movements against white supremacy and racial oppression.

As trans people, we know the pain of counting the dead: a long list of names which gets longer every year. Violence against trans people cannot be separated from racism, as the violence against our community is overwhelmingly against Black trans people and especially Black trans women. All transphobia is intensified and multiplied over for trans people of colour who also experience violent racism intertwined with it. This is the same structural racism which has led to the murders of George Floyd, Tony McDade, Breonna Taylor, and many more. We recognise that these murders take place in a nation which was built on slavery and the ongoing disposession of Indigenous peoples, and has never stopped killing and exploiting Black people. We also recognise Britain’s history as architects of the slave trade, the legacy of British imperialism, and the racism that is embedded in our society and policing in this country too.

We stand with the people who are in the streets of the US this week fighting against structural racism, white supremacy and oppression. We see their bravery in struggle against a militarised police force and a president threatening them with death. We hear their voices loud and clear above the reactionary murmuring of politicians and the media. Black people in the UK, as in the US, are over-represented in prison populations, brutalised by racist policing emboldened by stop and search powers, and murdered at the hands of police officers who are rarely punished. Racist policing is the sharp end of a system where Black workers are exploited and even killed. From Grenfell to Belly Mujinga, we must remember the dead and fight for the justice they should have lived to see.

We cannot be spectators in the systematic murder of our Black siblings, trans and cis, wherever they live. As members of the Labour Party, we know that the policy of our party has always been to back the expansion of the police and border security. In 2009, in his role as Director of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer approved a decision not to prosecute any police officers over the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes, despite years of campaigning by his family. When there were “riots” in London in 2011, almost no Labour MPs spoke out against the racism that those on the streets had suffered. The Labour Party must take this moment to reckon with the reality of policing in Britain.

We are taking action and we call on our supporters to do the same. Donate to freedom funds, memorial funds, and solidarity funds, listen and learn from anti-racist organisers, and join active anti-racist organisations. Most importantly, organise to fight until we have justice.

BLACK LIVES MATTER.

In solidarity,
Labour Campaign for Trans Rights

LINKS:

George Floyd Memorial Fund

https://www.gofundme.com/f/georgefloyd

Trans Women of Color Collective:

https://www.twocc.us/