NEW YORK • As massive crowds take over streets across the US in support of black lives, “white silence is violence” has become a recurring theme, a push to spread awareness that discrimination in a country built on racism extends far beyond police brutality.

Krista Knight, a playwright who protested this weekend in Manhattan, was among the many demonstrators wielding signs with slogans like “complicity” to indicate their solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement.

It’s the first time the white 36-year-old has marched for the cause, but staying home “is like sending the message that I don’t care”.

“Silence is indicating complicity,” she said.

The Black Lives Matter movement was founded in 2013 in response to the acquittal of the white man who shot dead Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old black youth, in Florida.

Since then, it has grown rapidly worldwide, founding dozens of chapters and organising disruptions to draw attention to systemic ills — often ignored by white Americans, who are statistically affected the least by such issues — including police brutality, as well as housing, education and health- care disparities.

The movement fuelled a growing consciousness and organising framework for years, building some of the forces necessary to foster the current explosion of protests.

And according to Candace McCoy — a criminologist at the City University of New York who has written on protest tactics — “one of the major differences in these protests, compared to others in the past 30 years, is the significant percentage of white people protesting on behalf of equal rights for black people.”

She compares this mobilisation to the demonstrations for civil rights of the 1960s, in particular the Aug 28, 1963, “March on Washing- ton for Jobs and Freedom” spearheaded by Martin Luther King Jr.

Even former US President Barack Obama has noticed a difference: It’s “a far more representative cross-section of America out on the streets peacefully protesting, who felt moved to do something because of the injustices that they had seen”, he said during a recent digital town hall. “There is a change in mindset that’s taking place.”

Ross, a 25-year-old musician who has lived in cities including New Orleans, Houston and New York, found it unnerving to see his black friends flinch at the sight of police. It’s vital, he said, to march in the name of equality for “our friends, our neighbours”.

The marches that have for more than a week blossomed from New York to Los Angeles, including in many small towns and rural areas nationwide, are attracting older generations as well. — AFP