On the 25 May 2020, George Floyd, a 45-year-old Black man was brutally restrained by a police officer in Minneapolis, USA. The police officer, guarded by three of his colleagues, kneeled on George Floyd’s neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds. George Floyd cried out, ‘I can’t breathe’ but his pleas were ignored, and he died. The incident was captured on a phone camera. The film of another Black man’s unnecessary death at the hands of the police, tasked to protect and serve a community, sparked a new wave of global uprisings against the violence of racist, white supremacist ideologies and the unfair practices that follow from them. In the midst of the COVID19 global pandemic that was already demonstrating how structural racism kills, the deaths of Ahmad Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade and George Floyd in the US marked a tipping point and street demonstrations asserting #BlackLivesMatter, reflected years of frustration at having to remind the powerful in our societies of this basic, fundamental fact.

In response to 135,000 turning out to march, leaders in Britain expressed greatest concern at the demise of a statue that celebrated a man who made his fortune through the murder of twenty thousand Black people, and enslavement of thousands more. In the US, the President suggested that somehow George Floyd would be pleased at the attention given to his death, as if his life and untimely death were nothing more than a cheap PR stunt. Just like the police officer’s inability to heed George Floyd’s pleas of ‘I can’t breathe’, those in positions of power continue to demonstrate their collective inability to hear Black people’s voices.

The global and local #BlackLivesMatter demonstrations have encouraged greater attention to be given to racism, in particular on social media. While Black people will be well-acquainted with the way in which racism operates, many organisations and white people have only recently become more vocal about their concern about racism, and have been seeking advice about what to do from Black people (who remain only 3% of the population) and (historically poorly resourced) Black-led organisations. This demand may inadvertently add to pressure on Black people, many of whom will feel duty bound to offer persuasive responses. Debates that engage with and question people’s threatened identities require great sensitivity; otherwise, they can increase tensions by seeking to understand how racism operates and their roles in addressing it.

Those who have been engaged in campaigning against racism and advocating for Black people, know that while progress can be made, dismantling racism will require concerted action over time as a result of the many ways in which it is intertwined with our social structures. We also know that the struggle against racism is not without cost – increasingly, we are starting to recognise that healing justice work[1] is a crucial part of supporting the wellbeing of communities; heightened and prolonged fear of racism can even be worse for our health than an experience of discrimination[2].

George Floyd’s murder being circulated on social media will have had longer term impact on those who saw it. It will have had a disproportionate impact for those who are also Black, and an even greater impact on Black men, who were most likely to see themselves represented by George Floyd. George Floyd is us Mental health research from Synergi Collaborative Centre[3] shows that Black men are least likely to have access to mental health resources which can lead them to only get help at times of crisis. Experiences of racism, frustrations driven by powerlessness to address that racism, combined with ongoing, heightened discussions about racism can trigger past (and generational) trauma. This contributes to an increase in Black men’s vulnerability to poor mental health.

Building supportive networks around mental health is a particular concern for BlackOut, given the additional stresses and strains caused by homophobia, and the levels of isolation and subsequent loneliness experienced by Black bi/gay and trans men. For Survivors UK, there are challenges in normalising and destigmatising mental health interventions - they are developing more direct strategies encouraging Black men to come forward and engage with counselling, and talking therapies in response to traumatic sexual abuse.

While we have known about disproportionality in access to support for Black men in mental health, and poor mental health has been identified as a factor in a number of Black men’s deaths in police custody in the UK[4], change has been disappointingly slow in coming. Black men organising to visibly support each other’s mental health has the potential to provide a legacy and networks that would aid progress on this issue that has been stalled for too long.