The Black Lives Matter protests offer us a space to finally heal intergenerational trauma

For the last year my peers and I have been carrying out an historical research project into community relations with police in Hackney. Using archival data, oral history and documentary filmmaking, we have been pulling up the roots of the tensions with police that are now normalised for many young people in our community. The research has thrown up countless tragedies where black people have died or been seriously injured in police custody.

In 1977, a 19-year old black man called Michael Ferreira was stabbed by three white youths on Stoke Newington High Street. Instead of seeking proper medical attention, Stoke Newington police officers decided to question Ferreira extensively before calling an ambulance. His premature death later that night became a focus of anger in the black community with his funeral becoming the site of mass protest and mourning.

In 1983, another young black man, Colin Roach, was found dead in the foyer of Stoke Newington police station with a shotgun wound to his head. Whilst the police and the coroner’s inquest ruled “suicide”, the community claimed foul play with the Roach Family Support Committee quickly set up in order to demand a public inquiry. Regular protests were carried out throughout the 1980s, demanding truth and justice.

Whilst these tragedies continued in the late 1980s and 90s, for my peers growing up in Hackney, we were first exposed to this pain directly in the summer of 2017. Another young black man, Rashan Charles, died whilst swallowing a package of paracetamol and caffeine when he was restrained by an officer of the Territorial Support Group (TSG) on Kingsland Road. Seeing the CCTV footage of Rashan lose consciousness was both an agonising and defining moment for many of us growing up in the borough. Much like our parents before us, we feared that “we could be next”, as we have seen on placards in the streets.

More than this though, after seeing the officers’ full exoneration by the courts and the Independent Office for Police Conduct, we felt betrayed. This was the moment I felt that the system wasn't simply damaged but it was against us.

The impact of these cases, from Michael Ferreira to Rashan Charles, amount to a kind of intergenerational trauma. Each time communities are denied justice, support and accountability, deep wounds of collective pain are felt and spread across families, friends and peers. Rashan’s case led us to believe that our society was not one where justice could be given. Monica Bell, associate professor of law and sociology at Yale, calls it “symbolic statelessness”; the idea that the system won’t be there to protect us when we need it. Instead, as the saying goes, there’s “No Justice, Just Us”.

Whilst we all meet and know the “good” police officers, growing up in the “hood” in Hackney often means growing up to resent the “feds”. A constant stream of TSG bully vans, CIDs, sirens, helicopters, section 60s and raids on our estates confirms our worst paranoias from a young age about the police and the state being out to get us. This everyday experience feeds the trauma handed down to us as we walk our streets without feelings of liberty or autonomy.

As a Stop and Search monitoring project, we frequently get asked what needs to be done to rebuild trust and confidence in the Met Police in disadvantaged communities. In these exchanges, low trust and confidence is often treated as a problem of misguided youth or prejudiced elders as opposed to real grievances around racism and mistreatment. This framing means the solutions given are often weak and superficial; a community football match here, an extra police training day there. Yet given the deep collective injuries our communities have suffered, we can’t be expected to fix the current wounds with sticking plaster solutions.

Institutions – the police included – need to be bold if they are to survive and acknowledge their part in this traumatic history, which is played out by policies, practices and people. If institutions are not willing to do this then they are not fit for purpose. Whether it’s the TSG or the IOPC, if they cannot acknowledge fault and change in the ways necessary, then they may need dismantling.

Instead of piecemeal reform, we need a space where communities can fully understand our past, have our truths of our history acknowledged and move towards a shared space of healing, creativity and hope.

Whilst many in the media associate Rashan’s name with “riots”, for our peers the protests around his passing were one space where this creativity could be found. Away from the cameras, we met every night near the spot where he died, engaging in therapeutic reflection by candlelight, sharing stories around his memorial, debating and speaking our truths.

Our project at the archives has been another example of creativity coming from trauma. Sharing lessons between current and past generations, we learn not just about injustices suffered but also of the ways to organise a movement, fight for our rights and heal our community.

This week, at the Black Lives Matter protests, we found this safe space again. As we marched down the streets dressed in black, in mourning and in power, surrounded by friends, families, old and young, screaming Black Lives Matter until our voices were lost, we remembered their names – Belly Mujinga, Mark Duggan, George Floyd, Rashan Charles – and laid our placards on the ground like a shrine.

In the wake of this movement, our communities can realise their truth, end their gaslighting by those in power and speak freely and authentically about radical ways to change our society. From this place of power and knowledge, we will find the space where true healing and justice can begin.

Emmanuel Onapa is a researcher and campaigns manager at Account, a youth-led police monitoring group based in Hackney