Llanelli Backlash over Anti-Black Lives Matter comments made by Member of Senedd for Mid and West Wales.
On Wednesday 1st July, a socially distanced crowd, numbering around 30 people gathered in Llanelli Town Centre outside the office of Neil Hamilton the AM/MS for Mid and West Wales.
The Llanelli constituents delivered an open letter to Neil Hamiltons’s Llanelli UKIP office, which scrutinised his recent ‘divisive and opportunistic’ remarks made about the Black Lives Matter protests.
The letter which can be found in whole here, noted “The first step is to become aware of the racism that exists and stop denying it…Your article tries over and over to divide people. This is not an argument between white and black, it is between racists and everyone else.”
Outside his office there was an impassioned speech made by Tara on her experiences of racism in the UK and how these experiences have impacted her life.
The letter hits back at Hamiltons’s claims that many of the Black Lives Matter protests have “escalated into riots”. There have been over 20 protests in Mid & West Wales alone in the past month, all of them peaceful, and all of them socially distanced.
The letter goes on to state “Let us explain white privilege again. White privilege does not mean you are privileged in the broader sense. All sorts of factors can make your life easy or hard. White privilege means the colour of your skin is not an extra challenge on top of that.”
“Many people are not actively racist, and do not wish anyone any harm, but still allow racism to go on around them. By denying that racism exists they are failing to do all they can to stop it, and that helps it to flourish in the shadows”
As an elected member of the Senedd, paid from the public purse, you have a responsibility to the public. Spreading false information about Black Lives Matter, as you have done, is not just wrong, it is dangerous. We are concerned that inciting hatred and building anger could lead to violence.
We would like to ask three things of you;
- To publicly correct the factual errors in your article in the same formats they were communicated.
- To undertake not to deliberately spread disinformation in the future, and above all not to use lies to build anger that could lead to acts of violence.
- To treat all members of the community with respect.
The protest organized by Llanelli Stand Up to Racism, was in response to an article written by the MS Neil Hamiliton titled ‘Who’s standing up for Britain’.
You can sign up for updates about Llanelli Stand Up to Racisms future events here.
