Church leader pens response for Express & Star after White Lives Matter graffiti appeared on South Staffordshire bridge

The appearance of the graffiti on the footbridge overlooking the A449 near Himley near Wombourne prompted numerous online responses including from far right supporters clearly based abroad.

"When somebody daubs in big letters ‘White Lives Matter’ across a bridge and we say it isn’t racist we’ve got a problem. The person responsible was making a direct political statement.

The term came about in response to the movement ‘Black Lives Matter’, which found its peak after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis in 2020.

Since then several right wing extremist groups in the UK, Europe, and the United States have coined the phrase ‘White Lives Matter’ to raise the profile of the protest against black people gaining equal rights. They use this phrase to justify their aggressive tendencies towards people of other races. Some of the extremist groups have the notion that they are keeping their country pure by keeping power in the hands of white people only, and that people from other ethnicities or colour have no rights.

A slogan like ‘White Lives Matter’, daubed across a public bridge on a major highway can only set the cause of equality and diversity back decades. Thank goodness there are people and councils who found that graffiti totally unacceptable.

I remember growing up in the streets of Wolverhampton in the 1960s. It was a decade when false prophets like Enoch Powell said there would be rivers of blood running through the streets of Britain if they didn't sort out this immigration crisis. Racism would rear its ugly head across all the subsequent decades right up until the present day.

No, I don't believe that most white anglo-saxon people in this country run around thinking that their lives don't matter. I don't think most of the people who live in this country think that they have no rights. I do think most people are worried about the state of the economy, they are worried about immigration, people are worried about the environment and where we're going with it. But to put up in an incendiary slogan like ‘White Lives Matter’ and it can only help to fuel the right wing hatred and rhetoric that we have seen across Europe, which is still prevalent in the United States of America and keeps on rearing its ugly head in Great Britain blaming all minorities for their country’s woes.

Here everybody is equal, everybody's lives matter, everybody has a worth, everybody is precious. And that's why we all need to work together to make sure that people do not get marginalised because of the colour of their skin, or because they speak with a different accent, or they come from another part of the world.

We need to make sure that every life matters by supporting those who find their lives at the bottom of the pile. And that's why there is a campaign called ‘Black Lives Matter’ to remind us of the marginalised people who are forgotten. In fact, the term Black Lives Matter is a cry for help.

It’s easy when you’re not at the bottom of the chain to feel that everybody is being treated equally, but until you walk a mile in my skin, you’ll never know how hard it’s been for the last 62 years.

If you tell me that the world was at an equal place and nobody is treated with indifference, I will tell you that you live in cloud cuckoo land.

My parents were invited here by the very same Enoch Powell, who said their presence would cause rivers of blood to run down the street. What kind of mixed message was that?

The litany of offences against black people over the years is incredible. Only five per cent of black women make it into leadership roles.

The two sisters who were killed in London and whose bodies were photographed like trophy killings by the policeman who found them. Chris Kaba murdered; Stephen Lawrence murdered.

Not forgetting The Windrush Scandal, people who have lived here legally for generations, then suddenly told that they’re going to be deported back to the country of their origin.

There are hate groups that can justify every wrong that’s been done to other groups. When a person puts up the slogan ‘White Lives Matter’, are they really saying, ‘white lives matter more than yours’. When a ‘Black Lives Matter’ campaigner mentions those three little words it seems to strike fear into the hearts of those who don’t want to see equality.

Fortunately, there are those who can see through this slogan and it is an affront to them. They are not prepared to see the countryside adorned with it.

Martin Luther King Jr loved everyone. He worked and demonstrated with black, white, and Asian people in his quest for civil rights across America. The truth is we need one another.

I would like to stand alongside those people who have the sensibility to realise we need each other to stand for justice and truth – I hope I can stand alongside you.

So don't fall into the trap of believing that 'White lives Matter' is just a benign statement that means nothing or means levelling up equality, it is used by those who seek to divide our communities into separate groups who fear each other.

We are better than that.We need each other. Let’s stand together.