St Brendan’s Sixth Form College – Politics Transition Task

In order to give you an introduction to Politics A level and prepare you for the best possible

start we would like you to complete the following tasks. This work will become the foundation of

your first 4 weeks of study and will ease the transition between school subjects and college

subjects. The details are as shown below:

Name:

Handing in: Please bring a paper copy with you to your first Politics lesson in week

1

Key terms when learning UK and US politics

Term Definition

Accountability

Ballot

Direct democracy

Democracy

Devolution

Democratic deficit

Equality

Franchise

Legitimacy

Lobbyists

Parliamentary Democracy

Political apathy

Pressure group

Referendum

Representative Democracy

Think tanks

Universal suffrage

Subject: Understanding pressure group politics, civil rights and democracy in the UK and

USA. This is an introduction to aspects of UK and US politics within the specification and

current affairs.

Task 1 Glossary: Knowing the political key terms will enable you to understand political

language, access the other tasks and make rapid progress when you start. Please complete

the table, finding the ‘political’ definitions of all the terms

Task 1 Glossary: Knowing the key terms will enable you to understand Geographic

language, access the other tasks and make rapid progress when you start. Please complete

the table, finding the ‘Geographical’ definitions of all the terms

b) Using your own knowledge and the articles: To what extent do you agree with the view that

pressure groups are good for democracy?

Task 2:

Using the articles what are the pros and cons of pressure groups and their activities?

For Against

Task 2 Resource Use: Analysing and interpreting resources is a key part of learning in

Politics. Please read the articles provided and answer the questions that are below it.

Task 2 Resource Use: Analysing and interpreting resources is a key part of learning in

Geography. Please read the following article and answer the questions that are below it.

c) Using your own knowledge. We would like you to do some research on the current protests

that have taken place on the issue of race and Black Lives Matter (in the USA and UK). Use

the articles provided on the USA and UK protests and police brutality. In your view:

1. How important is it to you that individuals have the right to protest?

2. How do the BLM protests in the USA and UK differ?

3. Why is police brutality against black Americans still such a significant issue in

American society and politics?

4. For every viewpoint, there should be a counterview that should be tolerated. How far

do you agree?

5. In your view, what type of action should the government in UK take on addressing the

issue of racial inequality?

Task 3- features of UK democracy

You will need to use your initiative to find out about the following aspects/issues

of the UK political system

Pressure groups

House of Lords

House of Commons

Voter turnout

Human Rights Act

Party membership

You can use the following resources to help you:

http://alevelpolitics.com/

https://www.tutor2u.net/politics/topics

Edexcel AS&A Level Politics (Pearson)

Task 3- Produce a summary paragraph for each of the 6 questions below

What is a pressure group? Can you find

two examples of British pressure groups

and two examples of US pressure

groups?

What different types of Lords sit in the

House of Lords? How many Lords are

there and what is their role?

How many MPs are in the House of

Commons? How many MPs form the

majority (Conservative) party?

What is a general election? Can you find

out how many people voted in the

following general elections – 1997, 2010,

2017 and 2019?

What is the Human Rights Act 1998?

State two rights that are protected in

the law

Can you find out how many people are

members (not just MPs) of the following

parties – Conservative, Labour, SNP,

Liberal Democrat?

In what format should the task be submitted?

Handwritten or typed on A4 paper

Make sure that you check spellings and grammar. Try to use as much terminology as you know

and write your name on your work.

Task 4- Challenge Please think about the following, there is no need to write anything,

but if you choose to, come to your lessons ready to answer: How democratic is the UK?

It’s not presidents but pressure groups who lead US politics

Erik Loomis 29 January, 2016 aeon.co Erik Loomis is assistant professor in history at the University of Rhode Island.

Michael Fleshman/Flickr

As the United States enters into another presidential season, the media is once again covering the election as a horse race. CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News constantly discuss the latest polling debate, generate controversies in order to boost ratings, and wonder how particular candidates will lead when events such as the Paris bombings happen again. This personality-driven coverage credits presidents when things go right for the nation and blames them when they don’t. In other words, it ignores the structural limitations of US politics. Yes, the president is the most important single individual in US political life, but the holder of that office cannot overturn a Supreme Court decision, break a Senate filibuster, or force the House to pass a budget. Power in the US is unusually decentralised for a strong nation. The fact that there are so many levers to that power should undermine narratives of presidential leadership. Alas, such complexity would not help television ratings.

We can see how damaging this focus on presidential leadership is on the activism of the citizenry if we look at the aftermath of the 2008 election of Barack Obama. This was a remarkable election not only because Obama became the first African American elected to the nation’s highest office. Obama won in 2008 partly because so many people believed his ‘hope and change’ narrative. They thought that, if they elected Obama, progressive change would transform the US. What they found out was that a) presidents don’t lead social movements, and b) conservatives could undermine the president’s agenda by protests and expressions of anger in a variety of media.

By the 2010 midterm elections, the shine was off the Obama administration. There was a lot of bitterness on the left that Obama had not created a single-payer healthcare system, that he had not closed Guantánamo Bay, that he had not prosecuted the banks for causing the

financial crisis, and that we still had troops in the Middle East. But the fact is, Obama could not have changed any of these things. Too many other people had the power of veto.

Maybe the problem is that we need to change the way we think about power and change. Instead of just waiting for a president to provide leadership, maybe we should go to the streets, the online forums and the rallies to demand the change we want to see. Certainly any understanding of US history demonstrates that this is actually how most change takes place. From the thousands of striking workers in 1934 who helped to convince the Roosevelt Administration to support the right to collective bargaining, to the Civil Rights movement’s decade of organising which finally convinced Lyndon Johnson to fight for a meaningful Civil Rights bill in 1964, activism can often lead presidents instead of the other way around. People organise, and then politicians respond. Electing the right candidate is an important part of that change, but it’s not the only part. We need to recognise and act upon that.

In fact, we are seeing an important upsurge in protests throughout the US and can clearly trace changes in the political parties in response. Beginning with the Occupy movement in 2011 and continuing through the Black Lives Matter movement, the Fight for $15 campaign among fast-food workers, and the recent protests on US college campuses over racial discrimination, Americans are increasingly aware that they need to go to the streets to fight for their rights. By protesting, they can gain media attention and force politicians to move toward their position. For example, the 350.org climate change movement’s protests recently won a major victory when Obama refused to approve the Keystone XL Pipeline. Even conservative states such as Arkansas and Nebraska are approving minimum-wage increases in order to fight income inequality. These are major victories – both in themselves, and because they seem to be pulling the Democratic Party to the left, as the popularity of Bernie Sanders helps to demonstrate.

If anything, the case for grassroots protest is even stronger when examining the Republicans. Despite derisive responses to the rise of the Tea Party as an ‘AstroTurf’ movement orchestrated by wealthy backers, its growth has tapped into real popular discontent. The Tea Party has driven the Republican Party significantly to the right, its politicians fearful that they might anger their core supporters. Donald Trump and Ben Carson are not leading the Republican base. The Republican base is demanding candidates such as Trump and Carson. They are angry at how the nation has turned and have organised against it. For many Americans who are not right-wingers, the rise of this new hyper-conservative politics is frightening. But it should teach us a valuable lesson about the power of campaigners.

The real lesson we should take from presidential campaigns, no matter what our political perspective, is that people organising for change matters. It’s natural to think of presidents as leaders, and to some extent they are. But they are also political beings and they respond to pressure. The rightward drift of the Republican Party and leftward drift of the Democratic Party are both evidence of this statement. The more we understand this, the less we will buy into cheap media narratives of presidential leadership and understand that change ultimately resides in our actions.

Pressure Groups: How Deep Pockets

are Choking American Democracy

By Axel Metz Apr. 24, 2018, theboar.org

Recent months have seen the National Rifle Association (NRA) dominate much of the political conversation in the United States. Whether revelling in the compliments of the President or weathering the storm of anti-gun activism, the organisation has gained traction and attention in measures it hasn’t enjoyed in much of the last decade. This heated social climate, in which unelected superpowers engage in a war of wallets, provides an important opportunity to question the influence of pressure groups in American politics.

Dictionaries will commonly define pressure groups as “non-profit and usually voluntary organization whose members have a common cause”. Though true in principle, such a definition lacks the necessary specificity required of the groups who are, in reality, the most covertly-significant pillars of the political system. Two primary forms of pressure group exist in the United States. Interest groups are those that seek to represent organisations and collective entities, whilst promotional groups endeavour to cater to the wishes of individual citizens. Despite operating under the façade of pluralism, contemporary American society experiences predominantly elitist politics, whereby power and influence are often gained through wealth and status, rather than worthy causes and good intentions alone. As a result, it has become uncomfortably clear that some pressure groups in the U.S. have become excessively powerful, dominating the political scene in ways frequently overlooked by the general public – undermining the democracy upon which the country prides itself.

Traditionally, pressure groups have held a variety of functions, the most important of which being their capacity to represent the minority. They are a means by which regular citizens can have their individual views taken seriously and their grievances articulated; they serve the individual while the government serves the collective electorate. Pressure groups act as an important link between the public and the politician, providing a channel of easy access otherwise limited to bureaucrats and executives – and for these purposes their existence remains important. While positive in theory, substantial inequality between such groups has led to the disproportionate representation of certain points of view. Organisations have become ranked by their financial offering and political affiliations, with their causes side-lined until the cameras start rolling. This isn’t a new revelation, but the extent of the gulf in influence needs to be put into perspective.

The financial disparity between, for example, the spending tendencies of The National Organisation for Women and The Sierra Club reaches into the millions of dollars, with the latter benefiting from billionaire donors such as Michael Bloomberg, despite the morally-reputable causes of both.

With few legal obstacles to gargantuan donations, though, such disparity is inevitable. The dangerous imbalance becomes clear when observing even the ten biggest groups in the U.S. According to figures published by U.S. money-tracker The Centre for Responsive Politics, the third largest, the American Medical Association (AMA), spent an estimated $380 million in lobbying from 1998 to 2018. In the same period, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the second largest group, spent a grand total of $1.4 billion – equivalent to the GDP of countries like Gibraltar and Belize.

Not only do a minority of pressure groups hold a greater influence over others of their kind, they possess an uncomfortable degree of leverage over Congress and government, too. It’s important to note that the aforementioned Chamber has supported almost exclusively-Republican candidates since its foundation, a trait it shares with the NRA, which sits as the largest group in the U.S. by combination of membership and financial assets. Pressure groups seek to influence the way House and Senate members vote by gaining direct contact with congressmen and their staff, often through websites and social media.

They also seek to contact relevant congressional committees, aware of their ability to directly amend legislation relevant to their cause. Some groups even publicise the voting records of congressman and actively oppose or endorse incumbents through fundraising and media advertising. The NRA, for example, publicly grades members of Congress on their perceived degree of ‘friendliness’ towards gun-rights, and with a following of almost 5 million people, this can prove incredibly damaging to an election campaign. In this way, politicians often seek to please the pressure groups rather than pursuing their own genuine interests, in both fear of the threat of a derailed campaign and the hope of a financially-glowing endorsement.

To an outsider looking in, pressure groups appear to act to gain the support of politicians through lobbying and direct action – as is their purpose – but reality suggests that job-security often prevails and the reverse occurs.

The most-Herculean of groups also seek to maintain a foothold within the executive branch itself by creating strong ties with relevant executive departments, especially concerning the federal government’s regulatory work. This is known as ‘regulatory capture’, a theory coined by Nobel laureate economist George Stigler, and poses the question of whether federal regulators are watchdogs or lapdogs towards pressure groups – the latter suggesting that the federal government, much like Congress, acts to keep in good relations with the groups they are under literal ‘pressure’ from.

Some groups even find themselves courted by the White House for their support; the executive is well-aware of the damaging consequences of pressure group disapproval. For example, in 2005, George Bush’s political director Karl Rose had frequent contact with Christian Rights groups in an effort to reassure them of the suitability of Republican Supreme Court judge nominee Harriet Miers. Problems emerge when these federal bodies are thought to have too-tight a relationship with the groups they are supposedly regulating, posing the threat of an ‘iron triangle’ situation, wherein pressure groups, Congress, and the government share the same agenda, so as to guarantee policy outcomes.

While this might seem an initially-convenient notion, in that decision-making would be swift and frequent, it would isolate most people from political decisions, primarily those who do not share the ideologies of the groups involved. In this way, the relationships between some pressure groups and executive departments make these organisations a genuine threat to democracy if the poor regulation of their activity continues. While the likelihood of an iron triangle situation occurring is minimal, since it is rare for the legislative and executive branches to share the same goals (let alone a consensus between both them and the pressure groups in question), it’s very potential poses a dangerous risk to America’s concepts of both democracy and federalism, and the unpredictable nature of politics means it could become a reality sooner than we think.

What becomes clear, then, is that despite their necessity to both represent the views of the minority and provide transparency to a too-often hoodwinked electorate, the influence of pressure groups over the branches of power in the U.S. has become disproportionately excessive, especially when considering their un-elected and essentially un-regulated nature. In any case, the close analysis of pressure groups, just one part of the extensive American political framework, reveals the inadequacy and inequality of the system as a whole. It remains to be seen whether the NRA can maintain its foothold in U.S. politics amongst the seemingly unrelenting increase in gun-control advocacy, but regardless, Washington’s elite have become the lapdogs of the pressure group equivalent, and Trump should choose his next move wisely if he hopes to retain their influence.

US police have a history of violence against black people. Will it ever stop?

The bereaved and brutalized have been calling for

justice for years but the Trump administration

reversed Obama’s tentative steps towards reform

George Floyd killing – latest US updates

See all our George Floyd coverage

In Ferguson, Missouri, Mike Brown’s body lay lifeless on the street for four hours after he was shot

dead by a white officer. Witnesses described him holding his hands up in surrender before he was

killed.

In New York City, Eric Garner told a white officer who placed him in a banned chokehold that he

could not breathe before he died. He repeated the phrase 11 times.

In Cleveland, Ohio, 12-year-old Tamir Rice played on a snowy winter morning with a toy gun before

he was shot dead by a white officer.

That these horrific deaths of unarmed black men and boys all occurred within four months of each

other back in 2014 is no aberration. It is a cycle of American state brutality that has repeated itself

year upon year, generation upon generation.

In 2015 it would be Tony Robinson, then Eric Harris, then Walter Scott, then Freddie Gray, then

William Chapman, then Samuel DuBose. That some of those names have perhaps already faded from

national memory is indicative of the crisis.

In 2016, I sat with Samaria Rice, mother of young Tamir, at a park bench near the site of her son’s

death as she lamented: “When I see any of these murders it’s like the government is throwing more

salt on an open wound and I’m not having a chance to heal.”

Samaria Rice, mother of Tamir Rice: ‘When I see any of

these murders it’s like the government is throwing more

salt on an open wound and I’m not having a chance to heal.’

Photograph: Tom Silverstone/The Guardian

Then, she was referring to Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, both shot dead by police within a day

of each other earlier that month.

Now, in 2020, it is George Floyd, the 46-year-old loving father and staunch community advocate,

placed in a knee-to-neck restraint for almost nine minutes by a white officer in Minneapolis. He died

in the same metro area as Philando Castile. He uttered the same final pleas as Eric Garner.

The nationwide unrest that follows Floyd’s death is undoubtedly more intense than in 2014; the

leadership from the White House immeasurably more reckless, insensitive and life threatening.

And yet, here the country is again.

Violence against black men and women at the hands of white authority is foundational to the United

States, and continues to influence its policing culture to this day.

Precursors to modern-day American police departments include violent slave patrols utilized in

southern states before the civil war, then the legal enforcement of racist Black Codes, followed by

Jim Crow laws. Early municipal departments in growing US cities were overwhelmingly white, and

brutalized vulnerable communities routinely. Thousands of lynchings of black Americans by white

vigilantes went unpunished by the judicial system. And during the civil rights era and well beyond,

peaceful protest has been harshly suppressed by officers sworn to protect and serve.

Just days after I sat with Samaria Rice on that bench in Cleveland, Donald Trump accepted the

Republican party’s nomination for president a few miles down the road.

Trump presented himself as the “law and order” candidate during a dark acceptance speech. The

former Milwaukee sheriff David Clarke led the arena in a chilling round of applause for the Baltimore

police officer Brian Rice, who that day had been acquitted on charges related to the death of Freddie

Gray, whose spine was almost severed during his 2014 arrest. Trump thrust the issue of race and

policing firmly into the culture wars he was fomenting.

Trump’s response to police violence was a marked departure from the Obama administration’s.

Since Michael Brown’s death, which began a nationwide reckoning and rejuvenated the Black Lives

Matter movement, Obama had used his authority to target problematic police departments,

including those in Ferguson, Chicago and Baltimore, with justice department investigations.

He issued an executive order to curtail local departments’ procurement of certain military-grade

equipment. He commissioned a taskforce on 21st-century policing, which memorably urged

American law enforcement to move from a “warrior” to a “guardian” culture.

Although America has a sprawling, decentralized system of policing – the country has roughly 18,000

police departments each with their own use of force policy, hiring practices and oversight

mechanisms making universal reform near impossible – there were at least signs of tentative

progress.

And then Donald Trump became the 45th president of the United States.

Not only did he fight a PR war against those who knelt during the national anthem to pay tribute to

black lives lost and stand against the structural racism underpinning it all. Now a man who called for

the death penalty against five black and brown teenagers wrongfully convicted of a rape in Central

Park in 1989, had the ability, with a stroke of a pen or a nod to his attorney general, Jeff Sessions, to

undo any of the progress made.

The administration acted quickly. Within two months of assuming office, Sessions forced a sweeping

review of court-enforceable reform packages – known as consent decrees – imposed on numerous

problematic police departments. He revoked a directive, issued by the Obama administration, to end

the US government’s use of private prisons – a marker of the first black president’s attempt to end

the

disproportionate incarceration of black and brown men.

Gwen Carr, the mother of Eric Garner, at a Black Lives Matter protest, in New York this week. Photograph: Debra

L Rothenberg/Rex/Shutterstock

Eight months in and Trump freed up local police to once again procure military-grade equipment,

and Sessions had effectively cancelled the US government’s flagship community police program.

But beyond the culture wars and quiet policy rollbacks, the most insidious effect of the Trump

presidency on the battle for equal justice and fair policing was its partial suffocation of the story

itself. Young men continued to die, but in the mania of the Russia inquiry, impeachment and the

scandals upon scandal,the movement for black lives received less and less media oxygen.

In 2018, 21-year-0ld EJ Bradford was shot three times from behind by an officer in Hoover, Alabama.

The incident barely made the news.

In 2019 Willie McCoy, a 20-year-old rapper, was shot at 55 times by officers in Vallejo, California, as

he lay sleeping in his car. His death failed to capture prolonged attention.

In 2020 bloody rioting across Mississippi’s prison system led to more than a dozen deaths. Trump

said nothing.

Last year, after a five-year struggle for justice for her son Eric Garner, I sat with Gwen Carr outside

NYPD headquarters as she suffered the indignities of an administrative trial that ultimately led to the

officer who suffocated her son losing his job – the highest punishment he faced.

“There is no justice at all for Eric,” she said, sitting in the shade during a scorching New York summer

day. “They murdered him and if there was going to be justice, it would have been at the point when

he said, ‘I can’t breathe.’”

A few weeks later, after years of investigation, the US justice department, now helmed by William

Barr, announced that the federal government would not criminally prosecute the officer involved in

Garner’s death. The decision was reportedly made by Barr personally. Trump said nothing.

It is local and state leadership that has shaped any positive steps on police reform in recent years.

The Minnesota attorney general, Keith Ellison, intervened in the George Floyd case to elevate former

officer Derek Chauvin’s murder charge. In recent years many departments have enforced restrictions

on chokeholds and neck restraints.

Earlier this week, Ferguson, which is 70% African American, elected its first black mayor, Ella Jones.

“It’s just my time to do right by the people,” she said.

But for many, incremental change is not enough. The words Samaria Rice said in 2016 have

resonated with me throughout this period of unrest.

“We need to dismantle the whole system and really rebuild it again.”

This article was amended on 4 June 2020 to correct the age Tamir Rice was when he was shot by a

police officer.

Topics

• US policing

• George Floyd

• Race

• Donald Trump

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This article is more than 3 months old

Greta Thunberg in Bristol:

thousands turn out for climate

strike

Teenage activist tells huge crowd: ‘We will not be silenced because we are the change’

Tens of thousands of people, many of them children skipping school, braved heavy rain to join a

climate strike headed Greta Thunberg in Bristol city centre.

The vast crowd fell silent as the 17-year-old activist told them governments were acting like children

and so it fell to young people to be “the adults in the room”.

Police said there were more than 15,000 people at the Bristol Youth Strike 4 Climate event, while

Thunberg estimated the figure as at least 30,000.

As Thunberg spoke, onlookers clambered on to bus shelters and up trees and hung out of windows

to catch a glimpse.

Criticising governments and the media, she said: “Once again they sweep their mess under the rug

for us – young people, their children – to clean up for them. We must continue and we have to be

patient. Remember that the changes required will not happen overnight.”

Thunberg arrived in Bristol by train and was driven to the climate strike in a red Nissan Leaf electric

car.

Wearing a yellow raincoat and woolly hat – a look copied by some of her devotees – she took to the

stage to chants of “Greta, Greta” from schoolchildren and teenagers.

Greta Thunberg among climate activists marching through Bristol. Photograph: Leon Neal/Getty Images

She told them: “We will not be silenced because we are the change, and change is coming whether

you like it or not. This emergency is being completely ignored by the politicians, the media and those

in power.

“Basically, nothing is being done to halt this crisis despite all the beautiful words and promises from

our elected officials. So what did you do during this crucial time? I will not be silenced when the

world is on fire.”

Thunberg flagged up the recent decision by north Somerset council to oppose Bristol airport

expansion as an example of what could be achieved if activists worked together.

The Swedish teenager went on to join protesters on a march through the city centre accompanied by

a samba band. She waved at well-wishers and at one point consoled a child who was clearly

overwhelmed by the experience.

Avon and Somerset police had warned of the potential for protesters to be hurt and urged parents

not to allow children to go unaccompanied.

Bristol Cathedral, which sits on College Green, was ready to open its doors to anyone needing refuge

but the organisers insisted they had put enough measures in place to make sure nobody was hurt.

The poor weather did not dampen enthusiasm. Alison Thomson, who brought along her 10-year-old

daughter, Emily, said: “I thought she might be a bit young but she said this would be her only chance

to see [Thunberg] speak so I agreed.”

Emily said: “I think it’s really important that people understand what is happening to the Earth.” She

was returning to school after the event to give a presentation on climate change.

Emily and Alison Thomson. Photograph: Steve Morris/The

Guardian

Isaac and Maya Swann, 11 and 15, had persuaded their mother, Karen Davies, to bring them along.

Maya said: “We want to help make a change. Greta’s really brave and inspirational, giving up part of

her childhood to spread this message. It was cold and wet but it is was worth it. It was exciting to see

how many people care.”

Davies said: “I was against them taking time off school but last night they came to me and said they

felt if I was their age I would be there. They were right. I’d be in the thick of it. I sent an email to the

school and they were supportive. I think many schools see it as educational. It was a lovely

experience … It’s good to see that so many people can be inspired by one girl.”

Karen Davies with her children, Isaac and Maya Swann. Photograph: Steve Morris/The Guardian

Hannah Burge, 12, and Harvey Hennessy, 16, have organised school strikes in Barnstaple, north

Devon. Their biggest turnout has been 850. “It’s been amazing seeing so many people here,” said

Hannah. “Greta is such a role model for us.”

Mya-Rose Craig, 17, an ornithologist who recently became the youngest person in the UK to be

awarded an honorary doctorate, said: “It’s so cool to see so many thousands of young people here

ready to fight for our future.”

Ed Thompson, a housemaster at Clifton college, took overseas boarders aged 11-13 and the school’s

“green team” to the event. He said: “We have discussed Greta’s influence in school, and she is a true

icon to all ages for her passion, determination, tenacity and likability. The word ‘inspiration’ is too

often used, but she is a guiding light to the next generation for peaceful but powerful activism, and

encouraging love and care for our environment, which is such a strong message for young people.”

People lean out of windows to catch a glimpse of Greta Thunberg. Photograph: Dylan Martinez/Reuters

The crowd was swollen by many students who were missing lectures, tutorials and lab sessions. But

it was not just young people who attended. There were groups of doctors, nurses and even a

collective of wildlife film-makers.

One moment of tension came when police equipped with video cameras moved through the crowd

pointing their lenses at strikers, including a group from the Public and Commercial Services Union.

Some employers had turned a blind eye to workers taking time to attend. Good Energy, a green

energy company from Chippenham in Wiltshire, went further by actively telling its 250-strong

workforce to join the strike.

The mayor of Bristol, Marvin Rees, tweeted:

Topics

• Greta Thunberg

• Bristol

• School climate strikes

• Environmental activism

• Climate change

• Protest

• news

Kathleen Burk, a history professor at University College London, says there is an important difference between anti-racism protests in the UK and America - and explains why images of policemen kneeling could be a significant moment:

What is the point of pulling down a statue? What does it accomplish?

The immediate answer is that the statue itself symbolises whomever it is meant to commemorate - and the pulling down is a symbol of the movement against it.

The statue, theoretically, is now dead. But the symbolic act is alive and becomes a new symbol.

The pulling down of the statue of Edward Colston in Bristol is an example.

It is striking, however, that in the US, in the period since the death of George Floyd, no statues have been pulled down - no groups of protesters in the US have done what the British have done.

Quite likely it is because the death of George Floyd was such a tragedy, and has become such a symbol in itself, that the destruction of a statue at this point would seem almost an irrelevance.

The nature of the Black Lives Matter protests in the US and the UK differ markedly.

Those in the US are focused on two crises: institutional racism and police brutality. Indeed, they can seem inseparable.

What is notably different from the anti-racism protests in the 1960s, such as the Long Hot Summer of 1967 which saw 159 riots, is that now they are multicultural and multiracial, more inclusive.

The real driver is social media. George Floyd was but one black man among thousands killed by the police; the fact that the whole appalling video of a man dying was uploaded and rapidly went viral was crucial to the immediate explosion of widespread protest.

The Black Lives Matter protests in the UK have had a slightly different focus from those in the US.

Yes, people have demonstrated against institutional racism, but the instances of police brutality are so relatively few compared with the US that it is not a central part of the UK protests.

American police are always armed, are frequently seen in combat gear, and are instructed that their first duty is to protect fellow officers, not to protect the public.

Conversely, most policemen in the UK are not normally armed and are trained to police with the consent of the population: their main role is to protect the public.

Yet there is a dawning hope in the US that the events will not only have changed the views of a population which had been rather unconcerned about racism, but that they will have changed the views of the police as to where their duty lies.

Policemen kneeling with protesters is a visual beginning.