In the wake of the #BlackLivesMatter movement, actor Abhay Deol has been asking all the right questions. From urging “woke” Indian celebrities to focus on domestic issues like the migrant crisis to decoding marketing strategies of beauty brands trying to sell fairness products.
Now he has shared the simple reason why the “All Lives Matter” posts on social media are problematic.
He explained that the movement was about equality and not preference saying, “All life is supposed to have equal value, but we have seen enough evidence time and time again, that that is not always the case with black lives. 400 years of slavery has left their communities with little opportunity. The repercussions of slavery have to be undone and that may take decades.”
He further added that we should join the movement by supporting the underprivileged in our own country.
“It’s the same with the caste system in our country, which has existed for over 1000 years. It is much harder for the poor and disenfranchised to achieve the goals they want because of the poverty and prejudice they live and grow up in. Hence I used the hashtag for migrants/minorities/poor in an earlier post, so that I could make BLM relatable to us.”
Changing the hashtag is not enough, we must, “join hands authentically” for change to happen. He concluded by saying,
“The 1st step we must take in order to do that is in recognizing who is most vulnerable in our culture, why are they so, and what can be done about it.”
Here is how people responded to his post:
Thank you, for reminding us that token activism on social media doesn’t help, constructive actions do and inspiring us to begin our own movement.