"If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing" - Malcolm X

Two years ago my whole world was turned upside down and like with that metaphorical idea of death by 1000 cuts, we (those affected) all wished that we had paid more attention to those initial cuts in the years leading up to D-day because by the time we realised we were bleeding to death it all felt a little too late and we were less able to mobilise.

Christmas 2024, or a few days before. I noticed a strange vibe in the city as I left work, with a heavy police presence about and when I got off the bus and walked down into the residential area in which I lived, I noticed arguments going on at many of the properties with police officials. When I turned onto my street I saw my kids, and a few others from our little cul-de-sac sat out on the street looking upset, some were crying. There were the officials who looked like police, except they had burgundy uniforms, patrolling the street with many of the parents arguing with them. I noticed that they were all the parents and children of colour on my street. No white families.

My kids ran up to me and told me that a new family had been moved into our house and we were being ordered to live in 1 of our bedrooms from now on. We were told that due to the struggles of white working class folk in this country certain families were being asked to share their resources as a way to help resolve this crisis. I pointed out that I was a single parent and working class myself, how can that be right? There were other houses on my street that were bigger than mine, where I knew the parents were much better off than me. Were they all being asked to make room? It didn't look like it as I saw them peering out from behind their net curtains. I wasn't given any explanation or answer though, simply taken by the arm and ushered into my garden where all my personal belongings lay in boxes. I was told we could only keep as much as would be sustainable for me and my children in one room and that we could only use the communal areas of the house when the new family did not need them. The officers had guns. My children were scared. I decided not to argue at this point and just do as we were being ordered to. So we gathered our belongings and settled ourselves down in our room for the night.

Over the next few hours through phonecalls and social media the full picture began to emerge. We found out that this was happening all across the UK and that every single Black, brown, non-white family had had their homes given over to white working class individuals and families. That it was a military backed government intervention to help resolve the struggles of the white working class but specifically utilising the resources that people of colour had. No all white households were targeted and all attempts at pushing against it or fighting back were met with aggression, violence, and imprisonment by these new burgundy guards.

Obviously, at first we protested because this was just not fair. Why should we be pushed into poverty and cramped conditions because our government had decided that the plight of white working class people is more important than the rights of Black and brown citizens? Why was it our houses and resources and not white middle or even upper class people? We protested and fought but after too much violence and too many Black and brown fatalities, we decided to just try and strike a balance... Maybe they could have just half of our house and resources, not the 2/3 of it that had initially been decided upon. Maybe we could just live together..? Surely that was better than constantly fighting and arguing with a group of people who were also, in their own way, disenfranchised. It was the government, the State, essentially that had screwed them over in the first place and now that same government were doing the same as us. We should be united in that. But somehow that isn't how it panned out.

The white working class grew fat and entitled off the privileges there were afforded and soon decided that the 1 room me and my children occupied was too much...that sharing a kitchen and bathroom with us was not working. The mere sight of us became an affront to their sense of whiteness, of rightness, of righteousness, and they could no longer entertain having to share *their* homes with us... And so it began... The slow erasure of all of our rights and assets. They ganged up on us, beat us, and forced us out of our homes and into the gardens and parks. The state did not stop this, intervene or punish them. In fact they facilitated it by arresting any Black and brown people who fought the whites as part of their refusal to leave. Those who did comply were given tents to live in with camping equipment to sleep and cook with. And thus, on the world stage, they were cast in the light of the great benefactor, ensuring we poor Black and brown folks were protected from the storms, the floods, and the many different climatic events thrown which they themselves had created in the first place. Flawless really.

Again, we protested. Shouted. Were beaten, arrested, increasingly being murdered within the prisons. We went on social media to show the world exactly what was going on here only to find that the same thing was happening in France, Belgium, Netherlands, and Germany. And the rest of the world just watching on, sometimes posting weak comments expressing how awful it was with hashtags like #solidaritywithBlackBrits. But no action.

I lost my job too because the government had decided that white working class people should be given priority in all jobs across the country and that all positions in the cities were reassessed. My involvement in social media reports and activism meant my assessment had a predetermined result. All activists were treated the harshest and not allowed to have any form of employment. Some others stayed on but in altered positions within their companies with much less money. All of us had little money and little food but we all worked together and somehow made it work... We were essentially made into an underclass in the country that many of us were born in, with many of our parents and grandparents having been part of what built this country back up after the war. But now, we were all pushed out of the homes and jobs we once knew and forced to live on the fringes... Live on fringes that were getting increasingly more and more narrow because those working class whites now felt so truly empowered and like they deserved the homes and jobs they were given and that we should be grateful for the scraps we were afforded. They didn't see us as human because the government had made it clear that they were more worthy and deserving than us.

One day, a group of angry young Black and brown men and women got together and decided to take back their houses and possessions by force. They were small, targeted attacks, and in the grand scheme of things, did little against the might, power and force of the State or the whites, because we may be the Global majority but in this country, we were a minority and our numbers and strength had dwindled further through this regime of enforced reduction in assets and rights. This group of angry youths continued to violently express their distaste and objections to the treatment of their people and were cast on the world stage as terrorists. The way the media, the world, saw it the fault was not with the whites who were given our homes, so why should they be attacked? . They had been living in poverty and were thrown a lifeline, so of course they took it... It was even acknowledged by many that it was wrong for the British government to throw that particular lifeline in the first place, but what's done is done. Surely everyone should just aim to co-exist in peace... You cannot change the past, only work hard to build a better future through peaceful cooperation...yada, yada, yada.

Many of the Black and brown people in the UK sided with the angry youths retaliations but also many could not accept that this was how to resolve the situation and could see that with each strike from the angry youths, came a fiercer and more powerful strike from the State and the whites and many believed we would simply be wiped out eventually if the angry youths continued... Those who sided with the angry youths felt that so much of our land - our homes, jobs, and assets had already been taken from us that this was edging dangerously close to ethnic cleansing anyway. And that it was better to die on our feet than to continue to live on our knees.

The attacks from both sides became fiercer with increasingly more casualties on both sides. Interestingly, the way this was being viewed by the audience of the rest of the world was that when the angry youths struck, they were viewed as evil terrorists with little regard for human life. But none of those same people said a word when we were forcibly removed from our homes. Violently put and kept in our place as second class citizens. And when the state or the whites attack us, the media response is that they are simply retaliating and what do we expect? Like what level of social and political amnesia is at work here?

If you're not careful, the newspapers <media> will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing. Malcolm X once said that and I feel like somehow that has already come to pass in our current predicament... No one from the Global community has done anything to help us and although the reality of violence as a solution does not sit well with me, when no one is listening, what else do we do but fight back? And all that happens when we do try is that we are called terrorists and blamed.

I read a comment on one of my social media posts that said "your people are making this worse! Violence is never justified, you need to find a peaceful resolution and learn to live together". And I wanted to write a lengthy response, explaining why his comment was so problematic because, you know how would he feel if his home were invaded? Wouldn't he want to retaliate and fight for his freedom? But I stopped myself because these kinds of people cannot help but view conflict through any lens other than the inherent and deeply embedded racism within which they have been grown. Because when violence is coming from white people - even if those white people have also been historically marginalised - and even if that oppression was not at the hands of the Black and brown people their violence is against, it is somehow never viewed in the same light as when the violence comes from Black and brown people. Because we are viewed, under that lens of racism, as being less worthy, less deserving, and essentially more dangerous and violent. White violence is contextualised within inherent goodness and entitlement. Black and brown violence is contextualised within an inherent lack of value and evil.

Sounds shocking when you read that in black and white but that does appear to be what is going on. Like a form of state sanctioned ethnic cleansing that the whole world is watching and allowing.

I lost one of my children in the violence - he decided to fight with the angry youths and was shot by a burgundy guard. I was told that he was imprisoned initially but found out the truth from one of the youths who was in his crew. That was 3 months ago and I feel numb to my very core. I feel like I am just waiting to die, wanting to die, but I can't because I need to protect my remaining son. We live in a camp just out of the city with many others forced out of our homes. I don't know where this can go from here other than the eventual complete wipe out of all Black and brown people in the UK. I write this hoping someone is reading this now as the violence still rages on and feels moved to do something rather than as an historic artefact being studied by people in the future trying to figure out how such an atrocity could have occured in plain sight with the whole world watching on.

If you are reading this in 2026 though, please help... I don't think we have long left.