Following on from their Statement, your Officer Team have written a letter to Birmingham MPs in support of the Black Lives Matter movement and the subsequent protests.
Within this letter, they demand that the government take action, stand up against all forms of racism and reform the police system, so that they can win back the trust of black communities.
To amplify and support this message, we need your help. We have drafted an email, which we’re asking you to send to your local MPs, so we can work together to tackle injustice.
How do I get involved?
1. Copy our email text.
I am a member of your constituency and writing to express my deep concern regarding the extensive level of police brutality and systemic racism that Black people are subject to, both here in the UK and in the USA.
The brutality committed against the Black population by the police in the United States, together with the UK government’s failure to denounce Trump’s response, is shameful. If we do not stand up to global injustice, we cannot expect our own communities to trust our police and government. This isn’t just a problem in the United States. We have known for many years that Black and minority communities are more likely to be victims of police violence and stop and search powers, in the UK.
The recent Public Health England (PHE) review into COVID-19 case and death disparities has shown that a disproportionately high number of BAME communities have been exposed to and subsequently died from COVID-19. The review gives insufficient weighting to social and economic inequalities and fails to address systemic inequalities. Action must be taken, both to uncover the causes of this dreadful disparity and to protect those in the BAME community.
In 1999 the Macpherson report declared the Metropolitan Police as institutionally racist, which it defined as “collective failure of an organisation to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour, culture or ethnic origin”. Whilst our country has progressed significantly between that time and now, we believe there is still more to be done to combat the systemic failures, discrimination and inequalities that Black, Asian and other ethnic minorities face.
The government needs to reform our police system and win back the trust of black communities. It needs to stand up to all forms of racism. We want to see tangible outcomes that you and other MPs are taking to combat racism in all its forms: overt, systemic, institutional and unconscious.
I am asking you to use your platform to speak out against the widespread injustices we are seeing around us and support the Black Lives Matter movement. The commitment of this government and Parliament is vital in helping to bring about real change. Tangible actions that the government could take would be to stop the sale of rubber bullets and tear gas from the UK to US Police Departments. It is current government policy to not support the sale of equipment that is being used as part of repressing civilians, so this action would easily be justified.
I hope you will support these issues and make an active effort to throw your support behind the Black Lives Matter movement and ask the government to do better.
Yours sincerely,
2. Head to: www.writetothem.com
3. Enter your postcode and select your MP
4. Paste our email text (you can amend it if you'd like) and enter your details.
5. Press send
We need to speak up, we need to take action, we need to drive change.