THAT INSTAGRAM POST YOU READ DOES NOT MAKE YOU A CIVIL RIGHTS LAWYER: A THREAD.

When I was 21 I joined a group of people who were interested in ensuring that young black boys/men in socially deprived areas were not being unfairly treated by the police
and knew their rights. 1/

During this time I read a lot about the work that he Huey Newton did whilst setting up the black panthers and it became clear to me that it was important not just to know what the police can’t do but to be able to understand and articulate it correctly. I made this a focus 2/

What we didn’t want, but had seen was situations where black boys were becoming ‘argumentative’ with the police and ending up in more trouble because they THOUGHT they knew their right then they would have if they didn’t know their rights. Common when dealing with authorities 3/

Now we’re at a time in this country where rules & legislation are changing rapidly and a lot of people don’t agree with the rules and want to make some form of stand against them which in many ways I understand but you can’t do this if you don’t understand structures in place 4/

People have been posting & sharing on Instagram & Twitter for some time now different information about laws that you do & do not have to follow & rules that are & are not laws. Some of these people (my friends)I have challenged, many of them do not understand their own posts. 5/

What I am now seeing, unfortunately is people who run small businesses & individuals who are paying the price of following advice from people who do not understand the advice themselves, people being fined & seen their businesses close, permanently. Who does this serve? 6/

I understand that people are not happy with the rules, but please, do not send people blindly into situations that are going to negatively impact them so that you can claim to be some sort of ‘resistance leader’. If you want to help, know before you show & read before you lead 7/

Be clear, reading an Instagram post that you cannot verify in anyway is not ‘research’, sharing information that you don’t understand is not ‘helping’ 8/8