Lucy's Thoughts

“Until the killing of black mothers’ sons becomes as important as the killing of a white mother’s son, we who believe in freedom cannot rest until this happens” - Ella Baker, African American civil rights activist.  On the 25th of May, George Floyd was murdered by Minneapolis police. ‘I can’t breathe!’ he shouted. ‘Don’t kill me!’. This sounds all too familiar to the last words of Eric Garner, strangled to death in July 2014 by members of the New York City Police Department. In August of 2014, Michael Brown was shot dead by a Ferguson police officer. Similarly, Ryan Twyman was fatally shot by Los Angeles police in June 2019. These are only a small handful of deaths African Americans have had to endure as a result of police brutality in the United States. Appallingly, roughly one in every thousand black males die in the hands of law enforcement and black people are three times more likely to be killed by police than white people. These statistics don’t even take into account ...

Shining a light on the dangers women face on a day to day basis.   Sexism. Feminism. Patriarchy. Three words that are thrown around, ridiculed by many and taken seriously by a disheartening lack of people. If you label yourself as a feminist, people assume you have radical anti-men ideals, when the reality couldn’t be further from that ignorant viewpoint. As a young woman myself, I stand by the fact that sexism still exists and the patriarchy is not as close to being abolished as it may appear in the United Kingdom. Yes, women have suffrage, there have been two female Prime Ministers and there are increasing numbers of women in managerial roles, all improvements that should be celebrated and acknowledged but there is far more beneath the surface, entrenched in society. Regardless of all these improvements, I still feel afraid to go on walks in broad daylight wearing shorts on a hot summers day and I feel untrustworthy of the authorities if I ever had to report a sexual assault...

 Since being in quarantine, I have been through many phases of motivation and creativity, which often weren't permanent as I spent another fifty percent of the time being in a slump. Although this has been an awful time, the silver lining is that I have been able to really sit and think about a lot, and I've realised that this is a great opportunity for me to be more creative than ever! As a 19 year old student, I tend to spend my time distracting myself with clubbing, assignments and boy problems, so I have never before been able to think in this depth, completely distraction-free. I have realised a lot about myself and my future goals, which explains why I have made this blog. This feels a little strange as I used to do this as a little 14 year old with awful dress sense, completely uninformed on the state of the world, but now I've done my GCSEs, A-Levels and a year of uni, I'd like to think I have changed just a bit.  I have been sitting on th...