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Often as business owners we don’t want to talk about or deal with controversial issues such as race because they may rock the boat of our customers, clients and staff so we avoid at all cost the conversation. It’s easier. 

Many will have seen the leaked footage yesterday showing moments before George Floyd was pinned to the ground and suffocated. Why did this information have to be leaked? It should have been part of the overall coverage and investigation. It adds a whole new realm of horror to an already devastating situation. Before George Floyd even got out of the car he had a gun pointing in his face. Many black people live with a gun pointing in their face on a daily basis as normal and business as usual. 

Please keep this issue alive through the Black Lives Matter campaign or through any other means open to you. Consider what you and your business is doing to combat racism. Call it out when you see it. It does not have to be as extreme as the clip below for you to take action.

Put it all into perspective

Have planning authorities been too lackadaisical or controlling in the past?  What has brought this on?

NEW PLANNING PD RIGHTS!

The Government is laying before Parliament today new laws which will:

✅  Allow extensions of up to 2 floors on dwelling houses subject to a prior consultation process with neighbours

✅  PD to demolish unused buildings and rebuild to provide new homes

✅  New ‘Commercial Use Class’ to allow fast track change of use from redundant commercial uses in one class to be quickly repurposed for more viable use classes. 

The Government is aiming to bring these new rights into force by 1st September.

What happens to planning applications going through now? Wish I had waited I may not have needed planning permission to put on my porch!

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2020/757/made/data.pdf

As we adjust to the ‘new way’ of working post soft lockdown, many of us may find that we are busier than we have ever been before because we have changed the way we work and things we are doing/offering and subsequently business is actually booming.  

I have come to the realisation that I cannot juggle so many balls and something has to give before I drop them all.

It’s the administration, book-keeping, research, booking meetings, templates, posting on social media and design elements that are all too time consuming. 

For a good few months I have been saying I need a VA but actually had no time to look for one.  That came to a head last week when I was kicked into action from admin overwhelm.  At that moment I was introduced to the amazing Isha, VA/PA extraordinaire.

So tell me what you want, what you really really want….VA or PA?

Ladies and gentlemen – I’m proud to introduce you to Isha Webber. Isha is a History and Sociology graduate with almost a decade of administrative experience from the media communications and charity sector. Isha believes she can ‘take tasks off your hands so you have more time to execute the vision’ – proudly telling anyone who would listen that she enjoys administration. During our first conversation, it was clear that Isha understood her strengths and was interested in finding out about my own working style – suggesting ways that we can work together in order to make the working relationship an enjoyable and mutually beneficial one.

The beauty of hiring a VA (but in my case a PA because I needed that physical contact) is their availability to tailor to your needs on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. Many VA’s have multiple clients and so don’t have much down time but have learnt to prioritise the urgent and important tasks first. A good VA remains flexible in terms of the when, as they know what works best for them and their client.  

If you have not considered a VA – what’s stopping, you? He or she will expand your capacity giving you space to work on strategy, direction, offering, delivery etc. 

Are you looking for a VA or maybe you have just found one and would like to share the experience. I’m interested to hear how it’s working.

You will have heard it time and time again over the last couple of weeks that Black Lives Matter and I make no apology for raising it again. It matters.

The Government’s attempt to address this issue of racism is by way of yet another public Inquiry.  Over past years we have had no less than 7 Inquiries none of which have ever concluded with all the actions and outcomes being enforced.

Is this just an excuse to kick the issue back into the long grass for more information gathering meanwhile this generation continued to be oppressed and for the rest of us Blacks it is business as usual.

How many Inquiries do we need before we actually take action and CHANGE?

My message is clear.  I would rather the government and those in positions of power and influence start with three things. I do not claim to know it all and I am just one small voice, however my ACE plan to start scratching the surface of this systemic problem is this:

Apologise

• Apologise for paying off the owners of slaves to the tune of over £20m up to 2015
• Apologise for killing so many black people solely because of the colour of their skin
• Apologise for turning a blind eye for decades to inequality and discrimination 
• Apologise for the failure of no plan. Accept and Agree one now

Communicate 

• Talk Talk Talk about the issue.  Place it on every agenda
• If families, businesses, networks have not covered the issue because they believe this campaign is not talking to them now is the chance to come forward and be vocal about it. 
• Communication should not just be amongst white people only but all races, denomination, creeds and colours 
• If you fail to talk about it, you fail to do the right thing for yourself, your children and your children’s children. Question why you would allow an injustice to continue to take place when you could have been part of fixing the problem.

Educate

Photograph: Christopher Jones/Alamy

The radical in me would say take down the statues and the relics that represent slave traders and people that profited from slavery.  Place them in a museum with a carefully curated display highlighting their part in the British Empire where slavery was normal.

Those that feel strongly enough about them can go pay to look at them.  Many may say, rightly or wrongly – our history is our history.  The reverse of that however is that, that same history caused our great grandparents to be burnt alive; hung in masses publicly; sexually and physically abused; tortured and degraded.

Therefore, the only solution is to ‘educate’ our country but not only from the prism of a white middle-aged male historian but from the paradigm of a black working-class family whose ancestry lived in chains.

This education needs to be placed on the curriculum not only in UK schools but in schools across the world. A global shift. 

Photograph: Ben Birchall

The statue of the 17th century slave trader Edward Colston was hauled to the ground last week in Bristol.  Many would say this act of violence was appalling and should be punished. Including the Home Secretary herself.

For me this was a cry for change.  The Berlin Wall springs to mind!

Many including our younger generation may not know even after the events of last week that he was responsible for 84,000 Africans being enslaved and 20,000 of those were lost at sea. Yes, he was acknowledged for giving money to good causes and schools, but would that have been blood money? 

The Bright side 

On a positive note Sadiq Khan, has set up a commission to review all of the landmarks in the capital. More than 100 Labour councils have pledged to review monuments and statues on public land to ensure they represent local people’s values.

9 out of 15 books sold over the last couple of weeks have been Anti-racist books talking about anti-racism.  It is positive that people want to learn and research more into the subject.                 

This image stuck in my head for all the right reasons …. I am sure it will go down in history. 

A protester carried an injured counter-protester to safety. ‘He came to hate but he was carried away with love…’

Don’t wake up tomorrow on the wrong side of this issue.

It’s not too late to SAY:

Maybe I need to look at this from a different perspective.

Maybe I don’t know what it’s like to be Black (especially in America).

Maybe, just maybe, I have been taught wrong.

There is still so much work to be done. It’s been a really dark, raw week. This could still end badly. But all we can do is keep doing the work.

Keep protesting. 

WE ARE NOT TRYING TO START A RACE WAR; WE ARE PROTESTING TO END IT, PEACEFULLY.

Bad press should not dilute the worldwide ongoing good work

We have had to hit rock bottom again before anyone will take any notice of our cry. It seems people have to die before anyone bats an eyelid and then when things start to look as though change might happen the rioting and looting that comes as a result of heat, anger, enough is enough, rage – the media jumps on those stories and prioritises them over the real issue of racism and #Blacklivesmatter.

YOU CANNOT SAY ‘ALL LIVES MATTER’ WHEN BLACK PEOPLE ARE DYING AND ALL YOU COMPLAIN ABOUT IS THE LOOTING.

People have a legitimate right to protest.  Let’s not focus on those who want to highlight the negative parts of the protests.  Not everyone that goes to a football match goes to watch the football.  

Let’s take a leaf out of the civil rights movement. Protesting was just the beginning.  That served to unify the people and bring attention to the issue.

Now we have to look at economic action, legislative reform and policing and people changing.

Don’t spray the street if only one house is burning

What I have come to realise is how little my white friends, colleagues and sisters knew about this deep-rooted systemic problem.  They perhaps had heard of the words: slavery, oppression and white supremacy but they did not fully understand how deep these issues still were.  

Over the past couple of weeks, I have heard stories of friends unfriending friends of over twenty years because one discovers that the other is racist or has chosen not to comment, which is even worse through fear of rocking the boat or saying what they really mean.

If we don’t speak about these issues, we cannot affect change.  White supremacy is real. Privilege is real. Racism is real.

YOU CANNOT SAY ‘ALL LIVES MATTER’ WHEN YOU DO NOTHING TO STOP SYSTEMIC RACISM & POLICE BRUTALITY.

The other issue that keeps raising its head is the question of which lives matter. I’ve heard people say that people of colour are themselves racist because they only use the phrase Black Lives Matter.  The point is white lives are not being lost because they are white.  Black people are being killed because they are black.  If your house is not burning why would you spray it and that of the street whilst letting the house on fire burn.

Business as usual

How many of us now are changing our practices, our choices, our suppliers to ensure that we identify with the problem?  It is not enough to talk about change without action.

In my business I want to work with people who see the problem, have owned up to the fact that something is wrong in the world and want to work to fix it.  

It is hoped that my target audience choose me as their mentor in property because they want to take direct action and are ready to buy, build, learn on the job and make a difference in the world not just talk about it.

So, what exactly has protesting accomplished? 

Many will have seen this list. Let this serve as a positive reminder. 

• Within 10 days of sustained protests: Minneapolis bans use of choke holds.
• George Floyd’s murderer was originally charged with 3rd degree murder. He is now being charged with 2nd degree murder.
• The other three officers who stood on scene and did NOTHING to help Floyd are being charged with aiding and abetting 2nd degree murder.
• Breonna Taylor’s Cade has been reopened.
• Louisville, KY’s mayor is ordering an outside review of the entire city police department.
• Dallas adopts a “duty to intervene” rule that requires officers to stop other cops who are engaging in inappropriate use of force.
• New Jersey’s attorney general said the state will update its use-of-force guidelines for the first time in two decades.
• A seminar scheduled in December for KC police that trains cops to kill without hesitation was cancelled.
• MBTA in Boston agrees to stop using public buses to transport police officers to protests.
• Police brutality captured on cameras leads to near-immediate suspensions and firings of officers in several cities (i.e., Buffalo, Ft. Lauderdale).
• Monuments celebrating confederates are removed in cities in Virginia, Alabama, and other states.
• James Miller resigned from his role in the Defense Asvisory Board at the Pentagon in response to the Secretary of Defense’s support of LEOs clearing out White House protestors with tear gas so Trump could take a publicity photo.
• Defense Secretary Mark Esper said he will oppose Trump’s threats to deploy federal troops to stop protestors across the US.
• The Street in front of the White House is renamed “Black Lives Matter Plaza.”
• Military forces begin to withdraw from D.C.

Globally:

• People all over the world understand that their own fights for human rights, for equality and fairness, will become so much more difficult to win if we are going to lose America as the place where ‘I have a dream’ is a real and universal political program,” Wolfgang Ischinger, a former German ambassador to the US, told the New Yorker.
• In France, protesters marched holding signs that said “I can’t breathe” to signify both the words of Floyd, and the last words of Adama Traoré, a 24-year-old black man who was subdued by police officers and gasped the sentence before he died outside Paris in 2016.
• Cities across Europe have come together after the death of George Floyd:
• In Amsterdam, an estimated 10,000 people filled the Dam square on Monday, holding signs and shouting popular chants like “Black lives matter,” and “No justice, no peace.”
• In Germany, people gathered in multiple locations throughout Berlin to demand justice for Floyd and fight against police brutality.
• A mural dedicated to Floyd was also spray-painted on a stretch of wall in Berlin that once divided the German capital during the Cold War.
• In Ireland, protesters held a peaceful demonstration outside of Belfast City Hall, and others gathered outside of the US embassy in Dublin.
• In Italy, protesters gathered and marched with signs that said “Stop killing black people,” “Say his name,” and “We will not be silent.”
• In Spain, people gathered to march and hold up signs throughout Barcelona and Madrid.
• In Athens, Greece, protesters took to the streets to collectively hold up a sign that read “I can’t breathe.”
• In Brussels, protesters were seen sitting in a peaceful demonstration in front of an opera house in the centre of the city.
• In Denmark, protesters were heard chanting “No justice, no peace!” throughout the streets of Copenhagen, while others gathered outside the US embassy.
• In Canada, protesters were also grieving for Regis Korchinski-Paquet, a 29-year-old black woman who died on Wednesday after falling from her balcony during a police investigation at her building.
• In New Zealand, roughly 2,000 people marched to the US embassy in Auckland, chanting and carrying signs demanding justice.
• Memorials have been built for Floyd around the world, too. In Mexico City, portraits of him were hung outside the US embassy with roses, candles, and signs.
• In Poland, candles and flowers were laid out next to photos of Floyd outside the US consulate.
• And in Syria, two artists created a mural depicting Floyd in the north Western town of Binnish, “on a wall destroyed by military planes.”

ALL LIVES CANNOT MATTER UNTIL YOU INCLUDE BLACK LIVES.