“as evidenced by statistics revealed by the Metropolitan Police last year, we cannot ignore the fact that the majority of men held responsible by police for gun crimes, robberies and street crimes in London are black.”

I completely believe it too coming from such a trustworthy source.

“In my view, the destruction of the high street in Tottenham and in other areas across the capital goes hand in hand with the mainstream perception of young black men.”

When I watch this blacks only riot on my TV, I keep seeing guys with pale skin attacking the police and looting.

Guess there must be something wrong with the colour on my TV, because as we all know only black people riot.

Must get that looked that.

Robert, it’s people who follow the hip hop street culture who are rioting.
They can be of any race, but are mostly black or mixed race majority groups.
Like my local ”SMN” crew in Thornton Heath, who are probably in action at this very moment.
See this youtube? That guy on the right is white.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fjql5Qjd47I

the disconnect is more generational than racial. youth unemployment at 20%+, home ownership is an impossible dream for increasing numbers of people entering the labour market. add this to the pension crisis were we will have to work longer for poorer pensions and it isnt hard to see why people feel disenfranchised.
at the same time you have the baby boomer generation who, on the whole, did very nicely out of the housing market and are about to retire earlier on final salary pensions.

@OP, Bieneosa Ebite: “This, coupled with the low proportion of minority ethnic journalists in mainstream media, means the representation of young black men is often fuelled by gaps in knowledge or stereotypes…”

Black kids from respectable families appear in press stories about a great young athlete or a twenty year old opening a new business. The star of the story may not even have come from a respectable background but has settled down.

Journalists (irrespective of race) feel comfortable with such stories because the star is a bit like them. They attended school with someone like that.

Journalists (irrespective of race) do not feel comfortable in the company of people who adopt BNP slogans, gangsta nonsense or Indian/Pakistani/Bangladeshi extremism. We have gaps in our knowledge because there will only be a few who can bridge the cultural gaps.

So whilst acknowledging that the ethnic composition of journalism is skewed, I don’t believe that race is important. We need different people.

well today I saw was not black they were white people who were storming a shop, and then marching out the door with new phones and new computers, perhaps it’s black people who cannot be seen in the dark so we only see white, yep that’s it.

^ Imposter

Funnily enough I haven’t noticed the racial element to this (partly because most of the footage has come from helicopters and it has been difficult to see peoples’ faces).

Is there a significant element of this due to adoption by British youth, particularly black youth, of an American cultural narrative and “street culture”? One can’t help but remember the (apparently reasonable) stereotype of first generation Caribbean immigrants as rather conservative, religious, strict disciplinarians. What changed?

The European discourse on race and the narrative of racism is adopted from an analysis by Americans of their own civil rights problems in the 60s. Did we absorb too much?

To hear a British youth talking about “the Feds” is as incongruous as a streetwise New York kid talking about “bobbies”.

@9. Ian B: “Is there a significant element of this due to adoption by British youth, particularly black youth, of an American cultural narrative and “street culture”?”

Perhaps. I love Cab Calloway, Louis Jordan, American noir fiction and films. And I would not wish to go there.

In the mirror, thankfully, the UK looks nothing like the USA.

“..the destruction of the high street in Tottenham and in other areas across the capital goes hand in hand with the mainstream perception of young black men..”

The mainstream perception would seem to be correct then. As for “this small criminal element” the crime figures you raised show blacks are disproportionately involved in criminal activity. So the element is criminal but not small.

Indeed, the problem is the perception of this vile scum.

Not the vile scum.

Err

Didn’t LC have a piece just last week saying police powers are out of control?

Looks like it doesn’t it.

This will undermine the Left for a generation.

@13 – What, the police’s mis-response, on many levels, which sparked this? And their ineffective response since?

No, completely out of control, take your narrative elsewhere, reality is busy.

The good news is that the BBC certainly aren’t giving any life to this hateful stereotype. The rioters are described as ‘youths’, ‘protesters’ or ‘young people’ in all their reports.

@14

The all powerful police did absolutely nothing. They originally held off because of fears of provocation (36 charges so far??!). Lefty notions about the growing police state have been discredited once and for all.

Yeah check out this video, is very important this issue and should be circulated widely.

Man on Midlands local news says he’s ashamed of being black – all pictures show looters to be exclusively black or mixed-race men. But I do understand. They’re disempowered etc got no life chances etc can’t get a job etc etc.
Funny how Poles and Philippinos can find the wherewithal to travel a thousand miles to get a job in the UK.

Happy Now……I’ve added crip.

We are seeing what results from a depression/ recession of this magnitude, calling people who cannot find work , scroungers work shy has resulted in these people feeling out side of society.

I have a disablity and not to long ago a women walking past me stated I was one of those scroungers workshy, I have been hunting for work, using a private paid job agency to find work, since I have given up with the job center, ten years of hunting 1300 job application has given me one reply, one interview.

God help those living in London, this morning the BBC asks the people of damaged shops most are Asian most have restaurantsturaunts most employ their own people Asians.

This will now spread to other cities , you will see the rich moan about chav hoodies and the likes but I’m seeing as many whites as I’m seeing Black this is not a black issues.

Down the road is the Olympic games games protected we are told by thousands upon thousands of police.

In Birmingham it appears to be a black issue. At least one black man is not afraid to say so. The buildings burnt down were in Handsworth too. And I forgot to say – “society has let them down”.

am concerned about the long-term impact this criminal activity, by a small number of young black men, will have on the overall perception of black men which is already highly distorted in the mainstream media. When was the last time you read a positive news story about a young black man in the mainstream media, and how often is this the case?
two points
1. It is large number of black youths
2. I am the first to blame the right wing media but not on this issue. When is the last time you hear a positive story about the white working class. In fact the media find it amusing to parody the white working class as either EDL thugs, chavs or vicky pollards

It is true, there are a number of young black men who feel disenfranchised and that their voices are not valued or heard. As a result they are not plugged into the day-to-day civic activities that some of us take for granted.

Cobblers, the problem lies with your community.
1. Most black youngsters think that life is easy and that they always get big money (either as a footballer, rap star or more likely drug gangster or thief)
2. Do they join political organisations to improve their lot. Not just gangs. The white working classes suffered more poverty in the 19th C than this lot but they organised themselves to bring about civil change.
3. Afro Carib women are too aggressive when they deal with figures of authority and this seeps down to the young. No respect for anyone in society
4. Most of their fathers are feckless and are useless role models.
5. Stop the west indian / USA gang speak. Look at people like David Lammy, who is articulate and speaks in the correct fashion.
6. Stop the materialism, that goes for young whites as well.
7. Stop romantising drug gangsters.
8. Also what the hell is a community leader.
In GCSE’s the black carib youths do quite well, so use that talent in a positive way and stop feeling sorry for yourselves and look at the Asian and chinese community who work their socks off to enrich their lives

Guttman @21:

You do realise that early industrial organisations were ‘just gangs’, yes? Whose main form of industrial action was running around breaking and burning commercial property, and battering members of their own community they didn’t like…

Personally, I agree with the lady from Hackney who was having a rant in a youtube video last night.

You do realise that early industrial organisations were ‘just gangs’, yes? Whose main form of industrial action was running around breaking and burning commercial property, and battering members of their own community they didn’t like
The luddites were really 18th men terrified about their jobs. In those days John if you didn’t have a job you starved.
It wasn’t a case of robbing a store for booze or a video.
Anyway I was talking about the 19th C , organising themselves into unions and starting the Labour party, which you well know

Also were the luddites , small business man coming together to protect their rural lifestyle.
Maybe a cross between the Taxpayers and countryside alliances

@22: “You do realise that early industrial organisations were ‘just gangs’, yes? ”

The Luddite movement which started in Nottinghamshire?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite

Much nearer in time and perhaps a better analogy with the present were the Glasgow gangs of the 1930s?

“By the 1930s Glasgow had acquired a reputation throughout Britain as a hotbed of gang violence and was regarded at the time as Britain’s answer to Chicago, the Scottish Chicago. The gangs at this time were also referred to as Glasgow razor gangs, named after their weapon of choice. One of Glasgow’s most notorious gangs were the Billy Boys, a sectarian anti-Catholic gang, who were formed in 1924 by William Fullerton after he was attacked by a group of Catholic youths. Many gangs in the East End of Glasgow were both sectarian and territorial whereas in other districts they were primarily territorial.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gangs_in_the_United_Kingdom

But don’t overlook the Richardson Gang:

The Richardson Gang was a 1960s group of criminals in South London, England.

Less well remembered than their rivals the Krays, they nevertheless had a reputation at their peak as being some of London’s most infamous and sadistic gangsters. Also known as the ‘Torture Gang’, their “speciality” was pinning victims to the floor with 6 inch nails and removing the victims’ toes with bolt cutters.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Richardson_Gang

So basically from the responses \I’ve seen the people are determined that whatever their preconcived idea of the people involved is is what they are determined to stick to.

In all the footage I’ve seen theres been plenty of white folk in there. Not ones that look overly taken with hip hop culture either (in other words not whites who think black, thus black being the root cause still).

We’ve seen a mental few days of people using whatever excuse is there to start kicking off – if you ask them I’m sure some will talk on about dissatisfaction – its an easy answer when the truth could be ‘everyone was kicking off so here I am’. Is it too much that we put all our personal prejudices to one side while we understand where the past few days has come from and have some objectivity when the post mortem starts?

Bob , those were organised gangs, and yes they were idolised by some in their community, especially the Krays. For what reason I haven’t a clue.
But gang culture is widespread amongst the west indian community.
I haven’t seen its like since I served in northern ireland in the 70′s.
But for every Willaim Fullerton there were 10 Jimmy Reids. You can’t say that about the west indian community

@25 Bob B

It’s actually quite interesting how ethnic gangs seem to have effectively entirely replaced indigenous gangs. The days of Richardsons and Krays are long gone; now we talk of Yardies, Triads, etc.

It seems that in general, if a society has large immigrant populations, they will become the organised criminal class. Think of the Mafia in America, the “type species”. Probably because they are (a) low in the social order, so crime is tempting and (b) the ethnic solidarity provides a power base within which to operate; it’s worth remembering that such gangs generally terrorise their own communities as much as, or more than, the host community, often verging on becoming a form of “local government”, collecting taxes and even providing some services(!).

The takeover of British crime by ethnic gangs may be an example of competition, but it may simply be that many of the communities that were once the hosts for indigenous crime gangs have been fragmented or obliterated. The “old East End” with its Old East End population doesn’t really exist any more. So, the breeding ground is gone. If so, it might seirously suggest that the best solution to ethnic gang violence is to break up the communities as ruthlessly as the indigenous communities were broken up in the post war period, with mass population movements under the aegis of the State.

Whatever, it means we’ve gone from ghastly old moll Barbara Windsor screeching “they only dan it to their own! They lavved their mams!” to Duggan’s girlfriend and her “he was involved in stuff, but not aggressive” attempt to paint him as a nice gangsta.

In several news reports of the looting, there have been references by reporters to people turning up in “expensive cars” and filling up the boots with loot before driving away. That’s hardly consistent with the legend of protests by deprived black yoof out to attract attention to their social plight.

@27: “Bob , those were organised gangs, and yes they were idolised by some in their community, especially the Krays.”

Compare this news report from a few years ago: “Colin Gunn, a ruthless gangster from Nottingham, has been found guilty of using a corrupt detective to get sensitive police intelligence. That verdict’s lifted the lid on astonishing revelations about his criminal empire.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/nottingham/content/articles/2007/08/02/colin_gunn_jeremy_ball_report_feature.shtml

Colin Gunn in Nottingham, like the Krays in London, used the old tried ‘n’ tested Robin Hood way of being a generous benefactor to his local community to buy their loyal support. The Mafioso use similar methods.

@28: “It’s actually quite interesting how ethnic gangs seem to have effectively entirely replaced indigenous gangs. The days of Richardsons and Krays are long gone; now we talk of Yardies, Triads, etc.”

Absolutely. It’s time we had another cool and analytical look at the history and culture of gangs to see what we can learn – perhaps starting with insights from Martin Scorsese’s movie: The Gangs of New York (2002) for a Transatlantic historical perspective.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gangs_of_New_York

Ethnicity has long been a factor in gangs – hence the New York gangs and the Mafia. The Feds finally managed to nail Al Capone for not paying his taxes, which is food for thought.

Actually illegally not paying tax links to the rants from the right on the other thread

“Happy Now……I’ve added crip.”

My apologies I thought it was a wind up.

@16 – The police have control though cooperation, given we’re NOT the police state you drool over. There are simply not enough of them in this country to control things when they get this out of hand.

Politicians could step and and promise that the issues will be addressed, and that community relationships will be rebuilt. That the Police and communities will work TOGETHER.

Instead, even if the riots are crushed, it’s just a delay.

“Discredits the left, discredits the left” cries the mindless ticker of the right. Oh grow up.

33 Leon Wolfson

Politicians could step and and promise that the issues will be addressed, and that community relationships will be rebuilt. That the Police and communities will work TOGETHER.

Why is it the job of politicians or the police to (re)build “community relationships”? Isn’t that the job of, er, the community? And anyway, what “community relationships” does this phenomenon indicate need “rebuilding”? Relationships between whom?

@34 – Do you really thing this level of anger builds overnight?

And of course it’s not a one-way street. Do you really think the level of social cleansing being carried out by the Tories – looking to force people out of rented accommodation and social housing – wouldn’t cause tension, or disconnect people who are being ripped away from the communities?

That Labour didn’t properly reorganise the police as their own reviews told them to, and on which the Tories have also done nothing?

Then there’s stop and search abuse, the perception of toothlessness and uselessness of the IPCC, the way Police have been wrong again and again in incidents involved with *deaths*…

Try and pay attention, perhaps?

I watched BBC and Sky the night the riots started in London. I was shocked and could not believe that people reacts that way. The riot were definately started by blacks, see the video evidence. Why are they doing this? “because they can”. UK wake up before black become the majority in the UK, they will take your country and chase whites into the sea. Same is happening in USA.

@36 Thank you for that racist perspective.

@36: “Why are they doing this? ‘because they can’.”

Sadly, that’s true. A couple of black girl teens from Croydon were interviewed on the BBC news Tuesday evening. One said: With the police not around we could do what we wanted.

There was no thought of the consequences for others – businesses have been wrecked and homes lost along with personal belongings in many parts of London.

Inevitably, there will be questions about maintaining security during the Olympic Games scheduled for next year. I read in the news that the Russians have already stepped up to offer Moscow as an alternative venue.

I was reminded of that widely acclaimed novel by (Nobel laureate) William Golding: Lord of the Flies (1954):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_of_the_Flies

the big problem of under representation among minorities and the youth is that they largely dnt vote. it not rocket science why every government panders to the wishes of the grey vote. if you dnt vote you are the equivalent of the person in a shop with no money, the shop assistant wnt bother with you.
if the minorities, urban poor and youth turned out in large numbers at the ballot even the tory scum would be forced to listen

@39 – And vote for whom?

For the Tories, right wingers?
For New Labour, paternalistic and with right wing views on many issues?

Some did turn out for lib dems, gave them 22%.
Guess what that got them? (No coincidence down to 9% now)

There has to be a credible alternative, and with all three major parties following the same identikit line in these riots, there is simply none. This is why we need PR so badly, so the coalitions-that-call-themselves-parties can be smashed, and people can vote for people to truly represent them.

@39 Tom: the big problem of under representation among minorities and the youth is that they largely dont’ vote.

It’s no accident IMO that turnout by the electorate of all age groups at the last three general elections has been low by historic standards:
http://www.ukpolitical.info/Turnout45.htm

See also this for a database of constituencies rated as safe at the 2010: “The Electoral Reform Society says over half of seats at the election are safe.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/apr/07/election-safe-seats-electoral-reform

On the evidence, many folk felt there wasn’t much point in voting.

@40. Leon Wolfson: “There has to be a credible alternative, and with all three major parties following the same identikit line in these riots, there is simply none.”

During the current disturbances, politicians from significant parties (I have to include the Greens, Welsh and Scottish Nats) will hold the line that criminal activity is criminal activity. The political debate will start afterwards, not during.

@42 – At which point it’s smouldering, after being beaten down, and will erupt on a regular basis. It’s very unlikely to do anything, and would need a massive amount MORE than the right words and promises now, certainly.

But as I said elsewhere, that takes leadership. To be able to condemn on one hand and deal with the issues on the other. This crop of politicians are needed both hands for “condemn”.

(Forget the Olympics, for starters…)

To the Prime Minister and the Authorities:
…and the latest piece of evidence to emerge from the IPCC?
“Handgun found at scene of fatal shooting of Mark Duggan not thought to have been fired at the Police” – or indeed “at all”.
So yet another young black man, or suspected gangster, dies at the gunpoint of the Metropolitan Police. This doesn’t preclude him from criminal activity, but exactly the same can be said of the Metropolitan Police. The bullet found lodged in the police radio that mercifully saved a life has been identified as a police hollow-point; so the dum-dum bullet that was used to shoot Mark Duggan went straight through him -or ricocheted- and almost took another life. Which is odd because the reason that such ammunition is used is to avoid over-penetration and “cause maximum damage and be less likely to splinter and cause harm to bystanders”. So the none-police issue handgun that was recovered from the MPC gun-crime/taxi scene wasn’t fired, and, given the contradiction in reports between Thursday last and today, may – or may not – have belonged to Mark Duggan.
A few hours later a sixteen year old girl challenges the Tottenham riot police in front of her for answers about Mark Duggans’ death and is beaten to the ground and then to a pulp, by riot police with battons……and then things really kicked off.
Here’s a quote from a national newspaper on Monday 9th August.
[ ]Police Commander Adrian Hanstock told reporters police were caught off guard.
“A peaceful vigil was hijacked by mindless thugs,” he said. “We couldn’t have anticipated that level of violence.”
Sky News said one of its camera crews came under attack early Sunday and the crew withdrew.
The mayhem started as a community vigil for 29-year-old Mark Duggan. The father of four fired a handgun at an armed policeman Thursday who returned fire and killed him. The police officer’s radio deflected Duggan’s bullet, the reports said.
Today’s statement by the IPCC, (already awash with enquiries into high level scandal, bribery, corruption and perverting the course of justice charges brought against the Met and other forces) is a stark contrast to the statement made by the Met last Friday. In fact it all but proves beyond a reasonable doubt that the heavy-handed tactics of the Police – combined with the insouciant disregard of politicians – are most likely the root cause of the worst riots in Britain’s history: along with the following few facts and statements’
Young black males are the single most disenfranchised group in British society. The highest rates of unemployment, highest prison occupancy rates, highest re-offending rates, highest gun crime statistics, highest victim rates, with a high association rate of depression – but look, don’t take my word for it, have a look at this quote from the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee, 2nd report vol.1 “Young Black People and the Criminal Justice System” published in May 2007.
“Summary
It is important to place young black people’s overrepresentation in perspective: in 84.7% of offences in 2004–05 involving young offenders aged 10–17, the young people involved classified their ethnicity as white. In 2003–04, 92% of black young people aged 10–17 were not subject to disposals in the youth justice system. However, statistics show that young black people are overrepresented at all stages of the criminal justice system. Black people constitute 2.7% of the population aged 10–17, but represent 8.5% of those of that age group arrested in England and Wales. As a group, they are more likely to be stopped and searched by the police, less likely to be given unconditional bail and more likely to be remanded in custody than white young offenders. Young black people and those of ‘mixed’ ethnicity are
likely to receive more punitive sentences than young white people.
Data gaps prevent us from building a comprehensive picture of young black people’s
Over-representation in the criminal justice system. However, the evidence we received suggests young black people are overrepresented as suspects for certain crimes such as robbery, drugs offences and—in some areas—firearms offences. Young black people are also more likely to be victims of violent crimes. There are variations in the over-representation of different groups within the ‘black’ category, and between females and males. We can say with greater certainty that the patterns of offending vary between different ethnic groups than that the level of offending varies significantly.”

From the shooting of Cherrie Groce, which sparked the Brixton Riots of 1985, through the death of Wayne Douglas that sparked the 1995 riots, from the death of Stephen Lawrence to the death of Mark Duggan last Thursday the common recurrent factors are young black men and the police. And I can see from the evidence of my own eyes as well as from things like the Commons Report above, that young black men are marginalised and the Police are institutionally racist, misogynistic and prone to lying and perverting the course of justice “at the drop of a hat”. Notwithstanding the death of Daniel Morgan in 1987 or Ian Tomlinson in 2009 or the deaths of *****************, I rather feel that the responsibility for the current riots lies as firmly with the Metropolitan Police and this apology for a Government that currently infects No10, as it does with any other component of the probable causes.

The cost of two dubious and illegal wars, the profligacy and financial ineptitude of banks and financial institutions and the high level of corruption across the two previous political periods has cost the taxpayer dearly and caused the wholesale denigration of our social system. We’ve just wasted £10.3 billion on two overdue and over-priced aircraft carriers and spent a record £30 to £50 MILLION on investigating the Met in relation to the death of Daniel Morgan ALONE. God alone knows what the cost of the investigation will be when the IPCC has finished investigating the Cleveland and Phone Hacking enquiries, never mind the cost of compensation or the cost of supporting injured servicemen through rehabilitation: and that paragraph is but one pixel in the HD picture of social justice in and for Britain.

And then we get a pile of faecal rhetoric from a butter-boy with a three thousand pound smoking jacket, excreting the same pernicious twaddle as his savant home secretary that stems from the righteous indignation of Imperial and Patriarchal “decency” seeking eagerly to cry the rule of law whilst covering their own shitty footprints across the wasteland of political Britain. We can not only call these riots and lootings “acts of sheer criminality” we can call them Legacy. We can not only condemn this violence David, we can look at the root and branch causes of why it came about. We can not only call the increasing incidents of violence “copycat” behaviour and rubbish the real truth of why our young men and women are on the streets destroying their environment; we can look at the truth of poverty, desperation, disenchantment, disenfranchisement, non-inclusion, no-futures, no pensions, wage-slavery, spiralling costs, poor outcomes, un-attainable tuition fees, increasing taxes with decreasing services, corrupt policemen and politicians who appear to be almost immune to the true weight of “justice” – and we can look with great perspicuity and much resentment at the appearance and meaningless good-speak of a Prime Minister at the wheel of the ship of state that has gone “somewhat out of control” and suddenly hit the rocks of indigence.

No one in their right minds could do anything but condemn the violence, looting and horror that has let loose on the streets of our city’s: and no one in their right minds could do anything but look to the upper echelons of society to find underlying reason, mirror imagery, poor example and like-for-like when it comes to acts of sheer criminality. You, your cabinet of ass-clowns and your immediate political criminal predecessors, as well as the world of corporate commerce, are as equally to blame for the Tottenham riots as any hooded teenager weilding a paving stone through a shop window. Pap wealth, meaningless aspirations, empty lives fuelled by desperation and cheap alcohol, the big brother generation presented with “everything” by the corporations and “nothing” by the state that now finds out the price to its cost – and the society that thirty years ago didn’t exist is suddenly “big” and most definitely “broken”. Looks like we’re all about to feel the full weight of the consequences…

Nice distraction Dave, nice try, fuck you very much, from the bottom of my heart as a community serving conscientious middle-of-the-road housewife – really, fuck you so very very much……

Oh pleeezzzz…disenfranchised and not represented???? Stereotypes (the whole world is prejudice, we all hate black people…of course it has nothing to do with people’s behavior). Check the facts and stop the excuses. That’s why they stay disenfranchised. Who is doing the crime to whom? The police in London need to declare Marshall Law and “shoot to kill”. They’ll think twice next time.

@44 +10,000
Very well said

@44 Rachelle:

Compare this killing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkYAnLtAm40

And listen to this BBC interview with two teen girls from Croydon:

Two girls who took part in Monday night’s riots in Croydon have boasted that they
were showing police and “the rich” that “we can do what we want”.

The pair who were drinking wine looted from a local shop at 09:30 BST on Tuesday morning, spoke to the BBC’s Leana Hosea.

Croydon was one of several areas plagued by unrest on Monday night, on a third night of riots in the capital.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14458424

@47 – The very reasons why, on one side we have young people who have felt restrained only by the police, and on the other we have the far right who feel free to call for blood in the streets is a sign of how deep the problems lie.

New Labour’s paternalism and oft-right wing impulses and the Tories have lead us here.

How about a dose of the actual left for a change?

“New Labour’s paternalism and oft-right wing impulses and the Tories have lead us here.”

IMO that is just facile rubbish.

It has no regard for the stream of black-on-black killings, which have been going on for years.

The riots have far more to do with the differentially poor educational attainment of blacks compared with other ethnic minorities. There have been years of warnings that unskilled jobs are becoming increasingly scarce and will become even more so in future.

Prior to the financial crisis, there were many reports in the news about immigrants, especially from eastern Europe, taking the jobs going because employers valued their skills and attitudes to work:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article5913970.ece

“In the first year of the Coalition, 87 per cent of the 400,000 newly created jobs have gone to immigrants — as Britons fail to chase work, according to new official figures uncovered by the Labour MP. Under previous Labour administrations the figure was about 80 per cent.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/8585750/Frank-Field-Migrants-take-nine-out-of-10-jobs.html

What is appalling is the lack of shame about the state of “the community”. Rachelle’s justifying diatribe above is typical. It’s all somebody else’s fault. Duggan is described as a young black man, when he was just a criminal, and being a criminal is risky.

What’s that, I should say, “suspect criminal”? No. His own girlfriend has casually admitted he was “involved in stuff”, offering merely that he “wasn’t aggressive”. Where is her shame, at being the girlfriend of a criminal, of having children by a criminal, who will be raised in a criminal atmosphere, in a family funded by the proceeds of crime? Where is the shame in Duggan’s family; at the instant of his death, rather than be saddened that their wayward son came to a sticky end, they are immediately organising, alongside professional political organisers like Stafford Scott, for a confrontation with the police.

There seems to be little attempt to address the question of how much “marginalisation” is self inflicted, or how much of the higher level of interaction with the police by the black community is self-inflicted. It is no use being coy; black communities are riddled with gangsterism, violence, and pre-civilised “warrior” codes of behaviour between males and between male and female.

Simone Wilson was knowingly and deliberately the consort of a bandit, sharing in his plundering of weaker persons for their benefit. There is a law against men living off the “immoral earnings” of women; it is time that women living off the (non-sexual) immoral earnings of their menfolk thought a bit about the morality of that. And showed just a hint of shame at doing so.

I am white. I am poor. I grew up in a poor neighbourhood and my mother struggled just to put food on the table and keep a roof over our heads. Like many other people I am sick to fucking death of hearing that people are justified in preying on their fellows due to “disadvantages”, egged on by self-serving activists and politicians. If I had gone over to the dark side and become a professional criminal, and I had been killed as a result, my mother would have been sad, and ashamed that her son had turned out that way. She sure as shit wouldn’t have blamed “society” and acted as if it was all the fault of the police.

Duggan made his choices, and the people around him have made theirs. It’s time they looked critically at themselves, instead of blaming everyone but themselves when a young thug is driven to an early grave entirely by his own avarice and preparedness to prey on his fellows.

From the opening post:

I am concerned about the long-term impact this criminal activity, by a small number of young black men, will have on the overall perception of black men which is already highly distorted in the mainstream media.

It’s been known for years that London Road in Croydon can be a dodgy place late at night and in the early hours of the morning. I used to cycle that way to work for 4am starts at the nearby industrial estates, and it was not a good place to be sometimes. It’s the kind of place where you used to see those yellow police incident boards, before they stopped putting them up because they were making people scared. Like this:
http://www.urban75.org/brixton/photos/images/brix109.jpg

I’m not living in Croydon any more and have only seen things on the TV and internet.
But this does not surprise me whatsoever. It’s London Road last night – after 55 seconds.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-14464295

Those people have been around there for years. They just aren’t looting most of the time. But they are still living there. It’s difficult not to be aware of the realities of that film clip. And one of them is race.

@50 – So low grade criminality is worth a death sentence?

So there were not mistakes made, not least leaving the family standing outside a police station for four hours, until it got dark and a mouthy teenager got battoned, kicking off riots?

When there’s no respect for society in the City, what respect do you expect others to have for it?

@50 Leon Woflson

Don’t put words in my mouth please. I did not say that low grade criminality deserves a death sentence, let alone an extra-judicial one. Before moving on though, one must ask what is “low grade” exactly? Maybe the police are lying, but they say he had a loaded weapon; and honestly sceptical of Plod as I am, I don’t believe they opened up a hail of bullets for the fun of it. He may have been quite “high grade”, or maybe that’s reseved for Raffles The Gentleman Thief, I dunno. Gangsterism terrorises communities, and I don’t like the idea of trivialising that as “low grade”.

I was discussing how sad it is that people associated with such thuggery and criminality appear to have no shame about it. As I’ve said before, it’s the same as that ghastly Barbara Windsor and other old East End types defending the old gangs there. These people are scum. They prey on their fellow men. You would think there would be some shame about that, but no, not a jot. When people have no “morals” in that regard, it is hard to see how a community can better itself, at least those members of it who are happy to enrich themselves by preying on other ordinary people.

@53 – And the example needs to be set from the top down, no? There are a few scandals you may want to examine. Also, consider that the corporate “personality” is, by the definition of the mental health profession, that of a psychopath. (See the excellent film “The Corporation”).

Regardless, the gangs themselves do simply not seem to be playing a major role in these riots (although a few scores have, no doubt, been settled – along with two shootings). The death toll remains at just two, including Duggan.

Moreover, you are once more pre-judging the evidence. Maybe you have as little faith in the IPCC as the people on the ground?

@54 Leon

Yes that’s it. It’s all the fault of “the corporations”. It’s increasingly fascinated me over recent years the realisation of how much of a slavish copy of the American Left, the European Left is. Hence the terminology. “Corporations”. We call them companies here, you know. Words fly across the Atlantic, don’t they? “SUV”. We never called them SUVs, until the American campaign against them was imported. We even have young thugs talking about “the Feds” of course.

This is a large part of the problem really. Most of the modern Left’s discourse was developed on American university campuses from the 60s onwards. The racial discourse, developed to address America’s internal race problem, crudely fitted onto the quite different issues of European immigration. The American discourse on gender- even the use of the word “gender”. Why were British students campaigning against Viet Nam, a war that Britain was not involved in? Copying the American student movements. And on and on.

So, we have the American discourse on “the corporations”, copied lock stock and barrel. It would be nice to see the British, or European, Left, think up one original idea. Unlikely to happen, but we can hope.

So now, we have British youngsters copying American “gangsta” lifestyles, and trying to find their own Rodney King, and British poltical thinkers dutifully describing it with an, again, American discourse.

We never had any plantations, nor mass slave population, nor Jim Crow. Nor has British capitalism much resembled American capitalism, nor does our political structure, nor our history of broad industrial nationalisation and State control, nor our welfare state.

You wouldn’t know it though. Mentally, we’re all in Los Angeles fighting the remnant fallout of the Civil War; just like the Americans are. Apparently.

@55 – Funny, the film I’m referring to is Canadian.

And I’d argue quite the opposite – the right here are obsessed with the American right, and since they frame everything in the same arguments, the Left (who don’t have the same stake in defining the framing on everything) end up using it anyway.

You’re stuck in Lala-Land, sure. But some of us know Britain, and actually care about the issues here. Politicians trying to fix America’s issues in the UK are a good part of the road to the current situation.

The evolution of language via *culture* is an entirely separate issue. Take that up with Holywood.

the Left (who don’t have the same stake in defining the framing on everything)

How hard was it to keep a straight face while you typed that?

Not at all. I’m not a New Laborite faux-left commentator, after all.

@51: “Those people have been around there for years. They just aren’t looting most of the time. But they are still living there. It’s difficult not to be aware of the realities of that film clip. And one of them is race.”

Definitely. Those damaged and looted shops along London Road, Croydon, are mostly owned by Asians.

Btw the staff in the looted superstores along the Purley Way, Croydon,which is only about a mile away, are almost all ethnic minorities – I was shopping there last Saturday.

In my local district high street shopping, which is less than two miles from the burned furniture store in Croydon, there is a small shop which sells educational resources. It is owned and run by a Carribean lady – I’ve been in there. Her customers are mostly parents who are looking to getting their kids through the 11+ entrance exams for the three maintained (not fee-paying) grammar schools nearby, all of which are hugely ethnically mixed. Two of the three schools regularly achieve better average A-level results than Eton.

Those are the realities.

@50 – So low grade criminality is worth a death sentence?

A MOP carrying a gun isn’t “low grade criminality”. And no, it isn’t worth a “death sentence”. But it does increase your risk of being shot by firearms officers.

@60: “But it does increase your risk of being shot by firearms officers.”

The fact is that besides the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes at Stockwell, the Police have known form on the misuse of firearms unrelated to the race of the victims. As posted before:

“Officer cleared after killing a man carrying a table leg” [2005]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2005/may/13/ukguns.hughmuir

“Three Sussex officers avoid prosecution over fatal operation and subsequent cover-up which was damned by two separate inquiries

“In a small Sussex seaside town, at 20 past four in the morning, James Ashley was sleeping naked in his bed. Seconds later, he was on the floor, shot dead at a range of 18ins, by a police officer using a powerful Heckler & Koch carbine.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/secrets-lies-and-.htmlit-after-police-shoot-naked-man-in-bed-685719.html

Or the shooting of Mark Saunders:

Fifty-nine heavily armed police surrounded barrister Mark Saunders before he died, an inquest heard yesterday.

Officers carrying an arsenal of more than 100 guns, including rifles, carbines, shotguns and handguns, were deployed to ‘contain’ the 32-year-old, who was holed up in his £2.2million house with a shotgun.

The 59 police, all from specialist firearms units, were called in when Saunders started blasting out of the kitchen window at neighbouring homes.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1316240/Mark-Saunders-inquest-59-police-marksmen-tackled-barrister-shotgun-siege.html

Bob B,

There are about 20,000 authorised firearms operations a year. Conventional weapons will be discharged in 10 or fewer of such operations – i.e. 0.0N%. One or two of these might ‘go wrong’. I’m not sure if “form” can reasonably be established from such statistics.

When things do ‘go wrong’, there seems to be a ‘tendency’ if that’s not too strong a word to cover up, close ranks, misinform etc. But I think we have to be careful in terms of not making it look as if every time firearms officers are deployed there will be an unlawful shooting and then a cover up, because that simply isn’t true.

As for Mark Saunders, I don’t know how many firearms officers should be deployed to an incident of that kind.

So who shot the officer then

We have much to concern us about the Police separately from the shooting of Mark Duggan and unrelated to race:

Police officer facing manslaughter charge over death of G20 protester
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1204271/Police-facing-manslaughter-charge-death-man-G20-protests.html

But this about the riots from an Asian journalist has the ring of truth:

These riots were about race. Why ignore the fact?
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/katharinebirbalsingh/100099830/these-riots-were-about-race-why-ignore-the-fact/

There is growing evidence of the targeting of Asians in the riots. The riots were not about a cry of protest by the alienated and dispossessedI – try this interview with riot girls in Croydon: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14458424

It was all a bit of fun. And recall this black-on-black killing in Croydon, which also speaks volumes about the social values of “the community”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkYAnLtAm40

Bob B, why do you keep lying about ‘the [black] community’? Why do you conflate gangsters with ‘the community’? I’ve given you links to community initiatives about stopping black-on-black violence but you persist in propagating the lie that no-one gives a crap about it.

Most of the time you seem like a reasonable chap but sometimes you don’t half go off the rails.

@65

Just for once to consider the documented facts:

Gang members jailed for life over teenage girl’s murder – Two east London men found guilty of killing innocent schoolgirl at Hoxton takeaway in botched revenge attack
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/apr/12/gang-members-teenage-girls-murder

Darko-Frempong was gunned down as he left a community centre on an estate in Tulse Hill, south London.
The gunmen fired from a silver car near a children’s playground before speeding off.
http://www.metro.co.uk/news/865615-teen-shot-dead-on-tulse-hill-estate-named-as-nana-darko-frempong

Daniel Omari Smith, 22, was gunned down while returning to his car after buying food at a KFC in Harrow Road, near Paddington, shortly after midnight.
http://www.harrowobserver.co.uk/west-london-news/local-harrow-news/2010/05/27/kfc-visit-ends-in-gun-killing-116451-26529271/

A teenager has been killed and another is critically injured following a knife attack in north-east London.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/6534231.stm

Etc, etc, etc . . .

But there were no riots after those killings. On the evidence, “the community” doesn’t give a hoot at another black-on-black killing.

Nob B, no-one denies the extent of black-on-black violence. Contrary to your lie that ‘“the community” doesn’t give a hoot at another black-on-black killing’, several initiatives exist in an attempt to reduce / stop black-on-black violence. They were started because of its extent.

Do stop lying. Thanks.

“Nob B, no-one denies the extent of black-on-black violence. Contrary to your lie that ‘“the community” doesn’t give a hoot at another black-on-black killing’, several initiatives exist in an attempt to reduce / stop black-on-black violence.”

ROFL! Just a few talking shops now and then while the black-on-black killings continue?

It evidently hasn’t occurred to you that “community initiatives” can meaning virtually anything from mumbo-jumbo to community action.

The proof of the effectiveness of the “initiatives” will come when the killings and gun crime cease – and by reports, most gun crime connects with the black community.

I’ll continue to go by the reports in the mainstream media . . .

Bob B,

he proof of the effectiveness of the “initiatives” will come when the killings and gun crime cease – and by reports, most gun crime connects with the black community.

You may well be right they are ineffective but, given that you don’t even acknowledge their existence, that seems a moot point.

I’ll continue to go by the reports in the mainstream media . . .

As I said to you in another thread where you persisted in propagating the same lie about ‘the community not giving a hoot’, one of the complaints from such initiatives is that the mainstream media doesn’t appear to be interested.

I dare say effectiveness is reduced somewhat if there is little media interest.

Any who think I’m lying might like to check on the links posted up in this thread to press and media reports of real events.

Some folk find those reports hugely embarrassing for their personal cause so they call me a liar to divert attention and hope readers won’t follow up the links.

55. Ian B

“Yes that’s it. It’s all the fault of “the corporations”. It’s increasingly fascinated me over recent years the realisation of how much of a slavish copy of the American Left, the European Left is. Hence the terminology. “Corporations”. We call them companies here, you know. Words fly across the Atlantic, don’t they? “SUV”. We never called them SUVs, until the American campaign against them was imported. We even have young thugs talking about “the Feds” of course.

This is a large part of the problem really. Most of the modern Left’s discourse was developed on American university campuses from the 60s onwards. The racial discourse, developed to address America’s internal race problem, crudely fitted onto the quite different issues of European immigration. The American discourse on gender- even the use of the word “gender”. Why were British students campaigning against Viet Nam, a war that Britain was not involved in? Copying the American student movements. And on and on.”

Two British right-wing favourties imported from America –

Welfare and Workfare.

Maybe somebody can explain the killing of 3 South asian youths by blacks.These young heroes were seeking to protect the businesses in their area from the onslaught of criminals.The blacks rolled into the south asian community and started hurling racist comments and eventually they topped it off by driving their car full force into the 3 young men killing them in cold blood. The father of 2 of the murdered boys appealed for calm.

England has to explain why they will lump any non white group into the same pile.Asians are not Africans and will never be.I do not see Asians killing blacks but it seems that anytime blacks wish to kill Asians there is an attitude of allowance and needing to understand them.

Why is it that south asians can settle all over the world and despite being bullied and made fun of in every corner of the globe we can manage to maintain our culture,have kids with the highest grades and hold down 2 jobs. I am fed up with having to be the lumped into the same ‘minority’ pile instead of identifying the specific race.

^
If your racist bullshit was true that south asians are inherently pure and have such a pure culture there wouldn’t be any corruption or crime in India would there?

“Political and bureaucratic corruption in India are major concerns. A 2005 study conducted by Transparency International in India found that more than 45% of Indians had first-hand experience of paying bribes or influence peddling to get jobs done in public offices successfully.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_in_India

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_India

When south Asians used to catch hell from the National front and the BNP I remember seeing them on TV calling THEMSELVES Black you fool, in fact even now whenever asians are suffering racism they very often come on TV referring to THEMSELVES as being Black and seeking to use Black people for help and solidarity, and many Black people did indeed show you solidarity. But when Asians win businessman of the year awards they ALWAYS refer to themselves as Asian and never Black.