The chair of Liberal Democrats for Racial Equality Roderick Lynch was on Politics England today talking about the Black Lives Matter protests taking part around England.  Why are people taking to the streets in the middle of a pandemic?

He talked about how inequality in housing and health and higher rates of poverty are a matter of life and death every day for black people.

When you think about it like that, you can understand their need to highlight how tough life is and how much of the burden of the inequalities in our society they are being forced to bear.

An article in today’s Observer shows how BAME people and single parents are taking the hardest financial hit from the pandemic. And when they were already struggling long before Covid-19 took over our lives.

Approaching half – 44% – of non-BAME individuals whose working hours have declined during the crisis have been furloughed, while 7% have found themselves unemployed.

By contrast, only 31% of BAME workers who have experienced a drop in the hours they are working have been furloughed, while more than 20% have lost their jobs.

BAME household earnings have fallen from an average £441 a week to £404 over the course of the crisis. Non-BAME groups saw their average weekly earnings fall from £547 to £503.

And single parents have faced an eye-watering fall in their weekly incomes:

The earnings of single parents fell by more than double the amount experienced by households with children and more than one adult.

Their average weekly household earnings fell £36, from £511 in February to £475 in April.

But single-parent households saw their average weekly earnings fall by £73, from £326 to £253 over the same period.

The Government should be looking at how to tackle this unacceptable inequality.  Instead, Conservative MPs seem to be getting their ducks in a row to blame the protesters if there is an increase in the virus. They would do well to reflect on how they have presided over the largest death rate in Europe, how they faffed about for weeks before locking down half-heartedly, too late and how they are now releasing lockdown way too quickly without a proper testing and tracing system in place.

The protests this weekend have made me acutely aware that I need to understand more about the hardships which disproportionately affect black communities. I’ve been reading the Anti Racist Educator, a Scottish site designed to eliminate racial bias in our education system and to support educators. It’s really useful in showing how the education system reinforces the structural racism in our society.

I’ve also found this from Seed the Way very helpful. It is basically a table of suggestions of ways to challenge overtly discriminatory ideas. We’ve all heard colleagues, friends and family members make comments that are, bluntly, unacceptable. Too often I’ve looked at my shoes, bit the inside of my cheek until it bled and said nothing to keep the peace. The suggestions range from assertively stating that a comment is way beyond the pale to challenging how someone’s levels of comfort and perspective might affect their view of a situation.

Basically, I want to be a much better ally so I’ll be reading, listening and putting into action suggestions from organisations like Black Lives Matter and LDCRE to play my part in building that fair, free and open society that is at the core of Liberal Democrat values.

I know that many of you will have the same thoughts. What resources have you found useful and what are you doing to help tackle these deep and intolerable inequalities?

* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings