When riots like those in London occur, it is so hard for people to simultaneously try and understand the social causes without confusing understanding with support for the violence. Here the former editor of Race Today tries to explain the conditions in which young black men live to a BBC newscaster with no interest in understanding:
From ColorLines:
68-year-old Darcus Howe, a broadcaster and columnist, who lives in South London where riots have been taking place offered some context this morning for BBC News viewers. Howe told a BBC News anchor that political leaders had no idea what was coming but if they had taken a moment to “look at young blacks and young whites with a discerning eye and careful hearing” they would of heard messages of what to do prevent this.
The Trinidad and Tobago native who says he’s been in London for more than 50 years goes on to tell viewers about his young grandson who can’t count how many times he’s been stopped and searched by London police.
And when the news anchors asks if he condones the riots he gives her a piece of his mind. “Have some respect for an old West Indian negro and stop accusing me of rioting. Have some respect, I have grandchildren. You sound like an idiot.”
Howe is a notable British writer and is the former editor of the magazine Race Today.
Another video making the rounds online is an elderly woman walking around in Hackney on one of the first nights of looting. “Get real black people, get real. If we’re fighting for a cause, let’s fight for a fucking cause” she tells people in her neighborhood that are looting.
Here is the woman trying to explain that unfocused rioting will only hurt the people in the community and is not a real insurrection:
If we’re fighting for a cause, let’s fight for a fucking cause
Unfortunately, discrimination and lack of hope can breed destructiveness.
The New Yorker provides this succinct background:
Like the 1981 riots, this weekend’s riots come early in the term of a Conservative Prime Minister at a time of deep cuts to public and social services. Tottenham, which has a large African-Caribbean population, has the highest unemployment rate in London, and the eighth highest unemployment rate in the U.K. Many of the jobs in the area are dependent on public funding. In the vacuum left by vacationing senior politicians, David Lammy, the Labour M.P. for the area (“from Tottenham, for Tottenham”) was left largely alone to deal with the media over the weekend. Standing near the hulls of burned-out buildings, Lammy told reporters, “The vast majority of people in Tottenham reject what’s happened. A community that’s was already hurting has had the heart ripped out of it.”
Read more http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2011/08/london-burning.html#ixzz1UZfQtPuj