Black Lives Matter Banners
Black lives matter Silence is violence What’s next?
How many weren’t filmed? J4F
Respect our existence or expect our resistance
Sit down I can’t breathe
Your black mates are knackered Justice for George Floyd No justice no peace
Fuck the police Fuck the system White silence is violence
We stand with you
I’m not black, but I see you. I’m not black, but I hear you. I’m not black but I will mourn with you I’m not black, but I will fight for YOU!
J4F
The UK is not innocent We will remember the silence forever
From London to Minneapolis Justice for George Love to your family
Stop killing the mandem Stop killing the Galdem Stop killing the Transdem
Black lives matter! Racism exists in the NHS too
“The time is always right to do what is right.”
The Uk is not immune!
The revolution will be live Racism is a pandemic Stand together
We should feel uncomfortable A badge isn’t a license to kill
White privilege and police brutality is real We are not a threat
Get on your knees to pray now Horror without end
It could have been my son
When do I change from cute to scary The least racist is still racist
It is not enough to be not racist you must be actively anti- racist
Justice for Floyd, Arbery, Shukri Abdi, Belly Mujinga, Mark Duggan, Sarah Reed,
Every black life lost The least racist is still racist
Justice for ahmaudarbery Justice for Breonna Taylor Justice for Belly Mujinga
Standing against systems of oppression
How many black sons must we mourn
Still we’ll rise
Tired of making a banner explaining black lives matter
Colour is not a crime Systematic racism is Change is going to come
We gotta make a change We are not neutral End systematic racism
I understand that I will never understand however I stand
Racism is small dick energy The new racism is to deny that racism exists
Being female or queer doesn’t eliminate white privilege
No to racism
No to trump White people must do more Say their names
Black children matter Black love matters Black futures matter
Unapologetically Black Blackity Black
“Revolution is not a one-time event”
This Sri Lankan supports Black Lives Matter
This is an ongoing compilation of banners from international BLM protests - please comment, or send in any more. We take no credit for any of what is written, but are bringing them together in hope and solidarity, and to surround those who cannot attend with voices from the marches.
People are, rightly, very concerned about doing things right, and there has been sharp criticism of the ways that banners are being used at protests. A brilliant criticism of white protesters shrinking a centuries-long battle to meme-like, sentence-long witticisms attacking white supremacy can be found here, by Uzudinma Iweala. Comparing white supremacy to the current pandemic has proved a good way to catch popular imagination, and to proliferate an understanding of the insidiousness and constant fear that white and (post/de)colonial societies exact on their minorities. But the comparison obliterates many essential differences, which Iweala lays out: ‘White supremacy is a deliberate human construct and ideology with identifiable authors and propagators. You do not catch it by touching a doorknob or a subway pole. White people choose to believe in white supremacy every single day, yet they are not afflicted by their beliefs. I am. A virus is not a way of life; it is not a creed willingly or passively agreed to; it does not exist separate from the whims and wants of the people who carry it through society or the life or death sentence it gives to those who carry its burden.’. We must not allow people with power to delude themselves that they are choice-less.
Since Kendall Jenner’s terrible pepsi protest, there has been widespread and necessary criticism of the commodification of protest, and its appropriation by the mainstream. Anti-capitalist action is twisted in a great sales pitch, that has prompted an important hyper-vigilance of people who might be protesting for the wrong reasons. Optical allyship - superficial displays of support that fail to make any change, and are often more like vain attempts to virtue signal - has come under fire. And while social media has proved an incredible tool in what the FT dubbed ‘leaderless rebellions’ (can’t get beyond paywall - if anyone has a subscription please lmk, I would love to read this) internationally, for BLM and in Hong Kong, it has also proved a dangerous sphere for well-meaning people to fill space with meaningless aesthetic nods. Whilst I like the idea of a leaderless rebellion, and its narrative of spontaneous uprising, I take issue with BLM being described as a leaderless movement. To do so is to erase years of struggle and resistance, and the leaders who are here now, and do more than just what social media allows them to do - who create content, highlight injustices and organise communities.
When compiling the above quotes, my sister also messaged around to ask friends for any more quotes from banners that they had seen at the protests, or photos of their own posters. An old friend really helpfully replied with the Uzudinma Iweala article, and some screenshots from someone’s Instagram story condemning the aestheticisation of protest banners. The powerful example of a unified message used was from the 1968 Memphis Sanitation Strike, where all protestors wore identical signs reading “I AM A MAN”, following Reverend Lawson’s speech: “For at the heart of racism is the idea that a man is not a man, that a person is not a person. You are human beings. You are men. You deserve dignity.”
The fight of today owes its existence, its awareness, its tactics and determination to the Memphis Sanitation Strike and many other historic and forgotten protests. But there are many ways to protest, there are many ways to express dignity and humanity and one of these is individuality. Black Resistance has always found its power both in mass movements and in first person narratives. Examples of this are autobiographical works like Narrative Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave; The Autobiography of Malcolm X; Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates. The first person, and the possession of self that it declares, is the struggle in Claudia Rankine’s Citizen. There is a self that has to be fought for, that those who haven’t had to fight could never understand. White protesters should know, and feel, not to join in with chants of “I can’t breathe” or “Hands up, Don’t Shoot”. They are not for us, and we are lucky they are not for us: it’s a responsibility not to mock that privilege for the sake of joining in. Claudia Rankine writes:
‘And still the world begins its furious erasure -
Who do you think you are, saying I to me?
You nothing
You nobody
You.’
Part of the tension between these persons is given voice in the different banners above, and the consideration in each individual tagline or, yes, sometimes the artistry with which it’s written, the careful painting of a fist that has taken time, that has taken pride. These marks of the thought of each individual sit alongside each other in a protesting body of Black people, other POC and white allies, who have to be capable of understanding their difference as well as their similarity. This understanding manifests in a respect of different first persons. The intersection of these when people come together is what we’re trying to record here.