WHQ BLM & Let Us Breathe 2020

The murder of George Floyd on 25^th May 2020, blew open the global debate on race. For what seemed like the very first time, white people finally saw up close & played out in real time, the type of brutality Black people face from Law enforcement in the USA on a daily basis. 

The phone footage that the whole world saw from that day, really brought home the harsh reality & caused many people all over the world to re live their own experiences of racism.

It was a watershed moment & caused seismic waves right across the globe. Race went the very top of the agenda, social media feeds buzzed & all of a sudden everyone had an opinion & picked a side.

The social media explosion was so intense, that for the first time, many white people actively chose to properly examine their own feelings around race.

There were basically two camps…

Camp one, encompassed all decent people of whatever colour. They felt enough was enough & it was time for a radical & structural rethink of the way we as human beings, consider our feelings around race & inequity. As you’ll appreciate from reading our site & the background to why & how WHQ Club was founded, we couldn’t be more firmly in camp one.

Camp two, was the racists, the closet racists & the ignorant idiots. Their plan was one of denial & deflection. The ‘All lives matter’ brigade basically.

Shortly after George’s murder our friend Ken Masters, who is an Old Skool pillar of the local Hip Hop scene got in touch.

Ken was working with some friends from right across the UK Hip Hop scene to promote positive dialogue & raise awareness in the wake of the murder. He asked if we’d like to be involved & obviously, we immediately said yes. So working together a group of us launched ‘Let Us Breathe.’

The idea was to promote discussion & facilitate change with live streamed zoom broadcasts & also to commission street art at various locations across the UK, to both highlight & support that.

We held regular online zoom calls with an ever changing invited panel of guests, which we live streamed over social media platforms, discussing all aspect of the Black Lives Matter Movement & how it related to life in the UK. Many UK based people we knew took part & at times we had international guests from the USA, Caribbean & beyond join in too.

These discussions allowed ordinary people, to listen in to authentic voices from different positions in the struggle. At times the shows had fixed themes such as ‘Meet the Media’ or ‘Meet the Educators’ or ‘Experiences of Racism’. As time went by, we also did many shows discussing current affairs & the racial implications of what was in the news of the day.

We had some really great guests & many positive, radical & informative discussions. Here are some of the shows we broadcast for you to watch back.

UPLOADING SOON....