For close to two weeks now, the streets of cities across the United States have been filled with the chants of Black Lives Matter protests.

“I can’t breathe,” they yell, in reference to some of the last words spoken by unarmed black man George Floyd, who died after an officer restrained him with a knee to his neck for more than eight minutes.

Protests have spread across the world, including around Australia over the weekend.

Indigenous lives matter. Post continues below video.

But before them, a very different type of protest was taking place by those who felt disgruntled by government restrictions put in place to flatten the curve of the coronavirus pandemic.

People in the US, and yes, in major cities here in Australia too, held signs demanding their freedoms back. They wanted to get haircuts, or play golf, or in the most extreme cases believed the pandemic was created by elites to control the masses.

A month on, people are marching against police brutality and systemic racism.

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To see photos of the different causes side-by-side is to see, well… white privilege, where the inconvenience of a global pandemic is the most pressing, dangerous or inconvenient thing you can imagine.

To protest over a haircut seems frivolous at the best of times, and in contrast to the “I can’t breathe” chanting, it puts that privilege on full display.

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Read more:

• It's not enough to say "I'm not racist." 5 antiracist things you can do in your daily life.
• How to have a conversation with someone who keeps saying 'All Lives Matter'.
• 12 books to read about racism abroad and in Australia.
• 400 deaths, zero convictions: Australia's national shame.

If you have the means to do so, you can actively help the Black Lives Matter cause in Australia and the United States by donating to organisations working towards racial justice, such as the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Women’s Alliance and the Justice for David Dungay Fund to support the family of David Dungay Junior, an Aboriginal man who died in a Sydney jail. You can also donate to the Black Lives Matter Global Network here. If you can, consider regularly donating to Indigenous-run organisations and First Nations causes.
Other active ways to help include signing petitions, attending peaceful protests, listening to BIPOC, raising their voices, educating yourself on racism and privilege and ensuring we are all taking part in the conversation to dismantle systemic racism.

Feature images: Getty.