Post Brexit Actions

We are many of us grieving - but we have a duty to keep our grieve brief and move in to action. I am not the only person to compile a list of possible actions - nor is this exhaustive. But hear are my thoughts for what they are worth. Pleas do add suggestions in comments section or links to other good ideas. 

• Reach out to comfort people - send texts, flowers love to those who might be feeling scared and depressed.

• Reach out to listen to people - Regardless of how you voted and very especially if your white. We need to understand what racism is. It is no longer sufficient to say you are not racist. We live in a racist system we need to learn about it and how it impacts on the lives of people of coulor. Ask friends what it means to live in a white supremacist world. Read alternative media. Great start is Media Diversified.

• Reach out to confront people - Friend or family says something racist? How are you going to respond? Practice those conversations now before you need to have them. Have you historically missed opportunities? How can you do it better next time?

• Take action. Wear a safety pin if you will but it is no longer sufficient to say you are not a racists. You now need to be an anti-racist. You need to take action. Find local community groups join. Go to rallies. Fall in behind the leadership of migrant communities and people of color.

• Join a trade union

• Join a political party - I have my biases (Labor) but  if your a person of peace and integrity - get involved. I want to see Labor under Jeremy Corbyn do well but I want to see the Lib Dems do well, I want to see the Greens do well and Plaid. 

• Join a local community group working to relief the worst of austerity politics.

• Read- My suggestion for post brexit reading is hooks 'All about Love' and Freire 'Pedagogy of Freedom'. Add your suggestions bellow.

• Reflect how you talk to children - if you have any formative nurturing contact with children - teacher, parent, aunt how are you going to talk to them about whats happening. Many of them are scared and confused.

• Action- Reflection-Action-Reflection keep going to grow.

• Pray

Islamiphobia, miss-directed anger and the borders that need closing.

The following is a collection of more or less collected thoughts

I am deeply disturbed that the Tories perceive that an islamaphobic attack on Sadiq Khan is a winning strategy in London. In the London I know it will back fire. But there are many Londons.

The strategy seems to have even unified Boris and Cameron.

It is a politics of fear and we deserve a politics of hope.

Whizzing round my twitter feed is the question #whereisthetaxzac?

Creeping into my Facebook page from a number of unexpected corners is 'close the borders'!

Lets pause for a moment of reflection on the monarchs 90th Birthday.

Which group of people by their actions restrict your access to resources, increase and guard their own, drive up the house prices where you live so you are forced to move, contribute little and take much? hand that wealth down to their children who they keep separate and away from everyone else, who do not integrate, don't ride the bus or use local schools? you get where I am going right?

It's cliche but when you point the finger there are four pointing right back at you. Not only have many Tory MP's including Zac Goldsmith shared a platform with the Imam Khan is meant to be ashamed to associate with but a succession of British politicians and our dear monarchy have some very worrying relationships with the powers in Saudi Arabia. 

The problem is not where the fingers point but where they eyes look. Upper class white man points we dutifully follow the finger. Anyone who is not a ruling white man pointing at a ruling white man and our eyes follow the 4 fingers pointing backwards.

Vote Sadiq Khan because London deserves a politics of Hope. We are losing our homes, our schools are being taken away from our local control, our communities are being torn apart and our city will end up desolate and absolutely NOT because of the 'them' we our so afraid of but because of the them who have lived among us for millenia.

I was out canvasing once and we knocked on a woman's door she lived in a house at the edge of a council estate opposite her were some very posh islington houses at a guess 5 - 7 big bedrooms. She assured us she was a life long labour supporter. She was very angry that her daughter could not get a house in islington. the direction of her anger - the woman living next door recently arrived in the country with her children all sleeping 9 to a room. Lift your eyes over the road- there is your reason islington residents can't get islington houses, there are the people who have fundamentally changed the nature of islington and there are the people with spare rooms.

Yes the people over the road may use language in a way that is similar to you, and cook food that you can name and recognize but you sit down at the table with each of these neighbours and you will find you have more common concern with the one next door than the one over the road. That is why the media spend so much time telling you to hate your neighbor, because by the way the media is owned by the people over the road as well. Though they don't want you in there house, they are just trying to make sure you don't notice that they took it from the common good for their personal gain.

My grandparents met in a chaple where they went to worship in their native language, my children are now 4th generation Londoners. That language and culture have in the past been silenced and attacked by the policies and legislation of English governments. (The language is welsh). But London being London provided a community and home. The chaple where they met is now an Ethiopian Chaple. That is my London, that's the london I want to live in.

The Queen who I understand to be very popular is the head of state for 16 different countries (and thats not counting the gaelic nations separately). So before we shout shut our borders can we just consider our historic respect, or lack thereof, of borders?

There are however some borders I would suggest we shut down. Shut down the borders to Non-Dom's if they don't live here they don't live here. Shut the borders to offshore accounts. Shut down Islamophobia, Misogyny, racism. Shut down Capitalism (okay now I've lost half of you!)

Salaam Shalom Peace Heddwch