The #BlackLivesMatter movement has swept across the world in a wave that has taken many by surprise. In America, African-Americans are incarcerated at times the rate of white people, are regularly racially profiled and denied their human rights and have poorer health outcomes. A president like Trump exacerbates the disparities between living circumstances, job opportunities and safety. Trump, divisive, contradictory, deliberately inflammatory and undermining of local authorities. Politics polarises, some people think they have the right to demand and order others to do certain things, they forget that rights also carry responsibilities.

Along comes a pandemic, a coronavirus to which no-one has immunity shifting the social balance as economies shutdown, jobs are lost and incomes reduced. Those of privilege believe they are being denied when what they are being asked to do is protect. It’s a sad situation when people can’t understand the difference and the distrust built between a people and its leaders has deteriorated to the point that no-one will listen.

And when images of an African-American man killed by a Minnesota police officer circulated around the world you find the spark sets fire to tinderbox of racially charged anger, sympathy flows from unexpected quarters.

In Australia the civil rights movement hit its zenith in the late 1960s to early 1970s with a change to the constitution to recognise Aborigines and the establishment of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy. Two generations later, the descendants of those black leaders still experience the highest rate of incarceration in the western world. Australia’s Indigenous people make up 3% of he population but are incarcerated at 28 times that of non-indigenous people and four times higher than African-Americans (who are incarcerated at 5 times the rate of white people in the USA).

The deaths in custody are reported at 434 since the Royal Commission in 1991; the reality is, it is most likely much higher as there is question about some entries that seem to be missing from the official records. Australia’s Indigenous people empathise with the pain of their African-American colleagues and so do many non-indigenous people. In the face of isolation measures and with the risk of arrest, Australia held the biggest protests rallies in decades in support of the #BlackLivesMatter movement. In Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, the crowds were consehrvateily reported as 20,000 to 30,000. In reality, from the accounts of people present and images from the skies, they were easily ten times bigger.

The ancestors of Australia’s Aborigines would have been heartened to see the sorts of support for their offspring that enabled the Freedom Rides that broke segregation in the 60s.

But it’s not over. Racism must be expunged and rights must be held in equal measure with responsibilities. The momentum of these protests cannot be lost if we are to better the lives of all people and realise a more inclusive world. We can’t give up. We can’t allow divisive politics and manipulation of people’s emotions to overtake our humanity. We won’t have this opportunity again for a very long time. If we truly care about the next generation, we ned to act now to end racism.