At the request of Belfast City officials, the Black Lives Matter protest from the corner of High and Main Street on Sunday, 12-12:30 p.m. in Belfast has agreed to temporarily move to Post Office Square, because of the tension and unsafe presence of a group of anti-mask protestors who have insisted on coming to the corner at the same time, for the past two weeks.

The folks in this group refuse to wear masks or consider social distancing, have refused our requests to go across the street to another corner,  and refused to consider moving when asked by the same City officials.

The BLM group is doing so for the following reasons:

1) to keep those showing up for BLM healthy and safe, since the other group is not wearing masks or maintaining social distance; 

2) to avoid confusing passers-by  about our message and intent; and

3) to avoid negatively impacting local businesses which are already struggling during this pandemic. 

While the City Council and the Belfast Police support this move and I, too, want to reduce tensions on the corner for the reasons noted, we are not the ones who should be moving — what this means is that we are all having to give in to bullying, and the issues that this brings up, are much bigger than Belfast.

Bullying, and a disregard for our common welfare seem to be ramping up as we see an administration that is still refusing to acknowledge both the surging pandemic, and election results that have repeatedly been shown to be fair and clean.

I am talking about the risk to our democracy here, both in Belfast, and the nation.  

Meredith Bruskin lives in Swanville