Australians Are Protesting In Solidarity With The #BlackLivesMatter Movement This Weekend
Rallies are being held in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.
Thousands of Australians in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne are expected to take to the streets this weekend and protest in solidarity with the #BlackLivesMatter movement. According to the rally organisers, the protests are being held “In support of the #BlackLivesMatter movement in the US following the recent murder of two innocent black men and a black woman, not to mention the countless other black lives taken at the hands of police”.
Black Lives Matter rally sunday july 17th, starting at noon at state library lawn in Melbourne. Don’t think this stuff only happens overseas
— Khale McHurst (@Khalemchurst) July 15, 2016
The recent spate of police shootings have sparked outrage across the US. A number of high profile artists have publicly taken a stand against the killings and are working to build a campaign pressuring lawmakers to action action. The Australian rallies have been organised to express solidarity with the victims in the US, as well as advocate on behalf of “Aboriginal Australians who’ve been killed and prosecuted by law enforcement too”, according to the Sydney rally’s Facebook page.
Writing in New Matilda, Indigenous writer Amy McQuire compared the reaction the Australian public had to police shootings in the US to that of recent Indigenous deaths in custody.
“Sometimes it’s easy for Australians to look overseas, and believe that the outrages that gave rise to movements like Black Lives Matter are foreign. But for Aboriginal Australia, this is a common story. The problem is, of course, that it is less visible,” McQuire said. This disconnect is something the rally organisers seem to be trying to reconcile with their strong emphasis on expressing solidarity with both the black community in the US and the Indigenous community in Australia.
Indigenous lives matter, too.
— BRIGGS AKA BIG SIGH (@BriggsGE) June 28, 2016
So far this year more than 500 people have been killed by the police in the US. #BlackLivesMatter rallies have been spreading across the US in recent weeks and solidarity marches have already been held in Canada.
Full details of this weekend’s rallies are below.
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Sydney: 12pm at Town Hall. Facebook event here
Melbourne: 12pm at the State Library. Facebook event here
Brisbane: 12pm at Brisbane City Hall. Facebook event here