I don’t know if this is an American thing only, or not.
My city has had demonstrations; I’m literally just over the rver from a curfew; I have friends living in a curfew city.
This is just…awful. It’s bad for almost everyone who isn’t white, but let me personalize for a bit.
My wife believes in America – she’s given over 20 years of service, and been to sandy countries where things go bang. She could be earning squillions more in the private sector, but she believes in service.
I am a dual citizen. It surprised me how much I took after America post-oath; at first it was just an administrative inconvenience so I could live with my wife. And then I gradually became a believer in what America could be – call it the American dream.
And I’m lucky; we live in a prosperous little city that leans very Democrat, is race friendly and LGBTQ friendly. Our police have been great while this shit storm has happened.
And not for the first time, I feel America is broken. It is a profoundly racist and misogynist country, and when I talk to my rugby players, I find:
1. Wow, even the ‘liberals’ are…let’s just say oblivious.
2. The minority ones have lives and pressures I just can’t comprehend.
I’m not sure I knew where this one was going to go. But it did make me think – just how different is Britain?
dai says
Can’t speak for UK right now, but Canada has some issues with policing of black people. This happened in Ottawa a few years ago.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/siu-investigate-hilda-street-arrest-hospital-1.3694114
A policeman has been on trial for manslaughter, but I think even 4 years later this has not been concluded.
I guess it could have been the trigger for race riots, but it wasn’t. There have been demonstrations in Montreal in solidarity with what has been going on in the US and I think there was also a small amount of violence there. Ottawa is a pretty sleepy place though.
Areas of Toronto are effectively ghettos with relatively high gang related crime, no serious riots there I believe since the G20 riots in 2010 which weren’t race related. There were riots in Vancouver 2011 when they failed to win the Stanley Cup …
Billybob Dylan says
We’re in the city of Los Angeles, although we’re 24 miles from downtown LA. We’re only 6 miles from Long Beach. Fortunately there’s been no issues here in San Pedro apart from one fancy sneaker store that was looted at the weekend. We are subject to a 6:00 pm to 6:00 am curfew, which makes the shopping a little tricky if you need something on a weeknight.
The thing that concerns me most about things like this is the outrage but then nothing happens (viz school shootings). One day something has to happen for the better, but I really don’t where it’s going to come from.
You could blame the current administration and their lack of leadership and poor decision making. When I’ve spoken to friends and neighbors, they feel useless, they feel like their deeds or actions won’t make any difference. They’re reluctant to contact the authorities or their councilman, representative or senator because they think they’re all corrupt and they won’t be heard. Let’s hope that’s not the case come November.
Fintinlimbim says
What’s happening now will be a picnic compared to the chaos which will ensue if the policeman gets off, as well he might.
Freddy Steady says
@fintinlimbim
Surely he won’t though, surely?
Slug says
It is quite possible that he will:
http://www.citypages.com/news/experts-derek-chauvin-will-likely-beat-third-degree-murder-charge/570918851
Sitheref2409 says
If he beats that charge, the Feds may go after him separately. It’s a shot to nothing for Trump.
dai says
The charge has been upgraded to second degree murder.
Freddy Steady says
I’m believe the “officer” had previous too.
Mike_H says
Previous complaints about his conduct in double figures.
Freddy Steady says
You have to wonder how he still had his job.
Tiggerlion says
Apparently the police union is very powerful and keeps getting these ‘bad apples’ reinstated. Amazing, isn’t it? Where else are unions powerful in America?
Mike_H says
More interested in serving their membership than the public, it seems.
Where the USA is unionised, the unions are extremely powerful. A lot of US workers are unable to join unions and still be employed, because their employers just won’t tolerate union membership. Conversely for some kinds of work, you can’t get the job without being in the union and you can’t get into the union unless you get invited or are related to a union member who will sponsor you.
Tiggerlion says
Bob Kroll is the union chief. Here’s an article about him:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/05/minneapolis-police-union-bob-kroll-us
Billybob Dylan says
Two words – Rodney King.
Gary says
Living in Italy, I sometimes feel that, in comparison, other countries don’t really know what racism is. Even America. (Of course America does have racism, and it also has a lot of racist violence. It has a lot of violence in general. Outside of the organised crime world, Italy has very, very little violence of any form.)
America has racist policemen. It also has black policemen. Italy has no black policemen. At all. It has no black politicians. No black civil servants, or lawyers, or teachers, or doctors. Black people here work in factories or fields, or as carers for elderly Italians. Or they beg in the street, sell trinkets on the beach, or deal drugs. I have never, in forty years of living here, encountered a black person in any other role.
The Italian system, with the requirements of its bureaucracy, is stacked against foreigners. They are outside the close knit family/local community mentality. Foreigners here are second class citizens. Foreigners perceived as coming from poorer countries are third class citizens.
Americans, quite rightly, make a big issue of the racism in their country. Italians don’t at all. They deny it exists. In America, and Britain, the police are accused of discrimination due to their stopping black people more than they do white people. Here, such discrimination is considered completely normal by everyone. The police walk up and down train carriages looking specifically for black people in order to check their documents. It’s considered normal. Black people are frequently stopped in the street and asked for their documents (I have never once been stopped). It’s considered normal.
Italy -or at least Puglia, where I live- is an apartheid in denial.
Mrbellows says
40 Years!? That is incredible.
Gary says
Thank you.
davebigpicture says
I’ve often wondered, did you make a conscious decision to live in Italy rather than the UK or did you get there by a series of events. Could it just as easily have been France?
Gary says
Very much could have been anywhere. I just wanted sun. The first sunny country job offer I came across was in Puglia.
Lodestone of Wrongness says
I worked for a company with offices in virtually every European country. Our monthly meetings, where us important people bored each other to death with impressive presentations on why we had yet again failed to meet our targets, always ended with us going out to expensive restaurants to get pissed.
I was constantly amazed at the casual racist and sexist banter of my colleagues, jokes that even some of my more right-wing UK acquaintances would not countenance were common. For a long while the Italians were in a league of their own – Franco, originally from Puglia, a seemingly liberal kind of guy had an ingrained George Wallace view of black people. I avoided sitting near the Italians, the Spanish and even some of the French because I knew somewhere near midnight the conversation would turn nasty.
And then the Eastern Europeans arrived. I started sitting next to Franco, such a nice guy.
Gary says
Homophobia is rife here too. Educated liberals see nothing at all wrong with making jokes about ricchioni (“faggots”). There’s no malice involved, just pure undiluted ignorance (fuelled to some extent by Catholic morals).
Lodestone of Wrongness says
That was the thing – so many of these highly educated guys (always guys) were simply ignorant.
And as an aside, the Italian office in Aprilia outside Rome had around thirty women working there. Without exception they all came into work each morning as though they were understudies to Sophia Loren, make-up, jewellery, plunging necklines, short skirts – I always assumed they felt pressured by the male (always male) bosses to look ‘feminine’.
Arthur Cowslip says
Very thought provoking, Gary. I’ve never really thought about Italy like that. And I thought Scotland was bad – we are a multicultural hotpot compared to what you are describing.
Guiri says
Spain is very similar. In 15 years in my middle-class, left-leaning, international professional life here, out of hundreds, I’ve never had a black, asian or south-american colleague. Plenty of Spaniards, brits and other Europeans but nothing else. And that’s Madrid.
A few years back it was my turn to be president of the resident’s association in my block. As I sat down in the meeting the mostly elderly vecinos who couldn’t generally have been kinder or more welcoming to me and my family, were getting increasingly het up about ‘immigrants’ – probably the time when Zapatero was helping undocumented immigrants sign-up to the system. I pointed out that the president of the meeting (i.e. me) was an immigrant. ‘Oh no no no no no we don’t mean people like you.’ So, white, middle-class Europeans are fine…
10 + years later there are two pandemic inspired food-banks at either end of my street with queues stretching hundreds of meters. Very very few Spaniards in them, if any. Very little integration in those ten years.
Meanwhile an increasing number of Spaniards, even in a relatively humilde barrio like this one, are banging their pots and pans nightly at 9pm against the left-wing conspiracy lockdown which might reduce their wealth slightly, encouraged by Vox (beyond the pale far-right populists, now being voted for by members of my normal Spanish ex-family who I am still fond of).
So, while racism doesn’t get talked about much, society here just is. Not aggressively so generally, but it’s always there.
And I say that as someone who loves (most things about) the place and calls it home.
Billybob Dylan says
Guiri wrote: “I pointed out that the president of the meeting (i.e. me) was an immigrant. ‘Oh no no no no no we don’t mean people like you.’ So, white, middle-class Europeans are fine…”
I’ve had exactly the same conversations with people here. All the time I lived in the UK, about 35 years, the thought that I’m white, male and middle class never, ever crossed my mind. Now every time you see something on the news involving a cop and an African American, I think thank god I’m white, male and middle class.
Diddley Farquar says
This is a sadly familiar scenario but seems more brutal than before, especially from the police side, although plenty of police have acted decently too. Hard to know with social media how true a picture one is getting from events. Trump can end up gaining appreciation if this drags on and people feel it’s gone too far, regarding rioting. Then again he’s bringing in troops and that could backfire badly if seen as over reaction, with innocent people getting shot, particularly if they’re white of course. Some of the scenes protestors and media have filmed are shocking and vile. Really troubling. The difference is it’s more easily filmed and shown nowadays. White supremacists see an opportunity. They are the most dangerous terrorists now but Trump wants to make Antifa the terrorists, who are not even really a unified group. You can’t underestimate Trump and those who work with him. They know how to manipulate this so it seems those not on their side are all to blame. I think though his antics are losing him support from those who are not natural Trump voters. But then how does it all play out? Disastrously?
deramdaze says
I think this could be a deal breaker for Trump, as it’s not as though he won the 2016 election by a landslide.
Therein lies my chief concern and it is VERY, VERY WORRYING.
We know what an arrogant, privileged Trump is capable of, what about a cornered, possibly about-to-lose-an-election Trump?
SteveT says
I was born and grew up in Birmingham. In the 60’s the first Caribbean family came to live in the small suburb I lived in. I remember the first day that the 2 brothers started at school- there was curiosity but no racism – we were perhaps 9 or 10 and such things didnt exist in the minds of 9 or 10 year olds. The older of the brothers became a very close friend As we progressed to senior school Carl and I were both utterly useless at Woodwork and Metalwork Our French teacher was also fluent in German and we asked her if instead of doing Meatlwork or Woodwork she would teach us German. She did – we were there only kids in the School learning Gerrman twice a week in our own private class. The bond grew between us. By this time of course there were many more Black families settled in Birmingham and of course Asians too. Sadly it coincided with the Skinhead culture and the most vile racism you could imagine. I recall a football match between Birmingham City and West Brom – the late great Cyril Regis was at the start of his illustrious career and I recall dozens of bananas being thrown onto the pitch. It was disgusting.
A couple of years later I was 17 and in my first job after school there was a girl I was friendly with at work who had a Jamaican boyfriend. He invited me to one of the famous ‘blues’ parties that the Jamaicans frequently held in Handsworth. There were perhaps 4 white faces in a room of 50 or 60 Jamaicans – we were treated with an abundance of kindness Not long after that and as a culmination of the shameful treatment of Blacks in Birmingham there were the Handsworth riots which looked as if they would spiral out of control.
That became the turning point in Birminghan for a new normal where Blacks, Asians and Whites live harmoniously together. It is perhaps the most ethnically diverse City in the country outside of London and I am proud to call it the City of my birth. We have come a long way in this country but still have a long way to go One thing that pleases me greatly though is that our kids and their kids are being brought up accepting of racial diversity to the point where there is absolutely no question of racist thoughts It is a progression from my parents generation through my generation to where we are now.
It shouldnt have taken this long of course.
Vulpes Vulpes says
Walking along just kicking stones, minding my own business.
I read your account with a growing feeling of recognition. I was born and grew up in Plymouth, where you simply never saw a black or asian face, but then I moved to Bristol in the late 1970s, looking to start my first job after university.
Everything you experienced in Brum – where I worked for some time at offices on the Hagley Road next to the Five Ways roundabout – echoes my experience in Brizzle, right down to the great privilege and pleasure of going to the blues. I moved out of the city 25 years ago, to a small village about 15 miles into the sticks, but I still gravitate to Bristol for gigs, for work (when available!) and for meals out, and it too has a cosmopolitan feel that brings me great pleasure.
It’s especially ironic, given its past as a slave trading hub, that it should now feel relaxed with its mixed ethnicities. I just hope to goodness that other places – like Italy, and certainly Puglia it seems – don’t need to take the best part of three centuries to catch up. But I don’t really have much hope that they will avoid this ghastly iniquity stretching on and on for many years to come, and at huge cost in unecessary grief.
Kid Dynamite says
re: Plymouth. My secondary school took in about 120 kids each year. Over seven years there I shared the space with well over a thousand other junior Plymothians. Out of all those children I remember exactly one non-white face.
re: Bristol – Race issues aren’t always relaxed here. The local police force were in trouble a couple of years ago for tasering an innocent black gentleman in a case of mistaken identity. Amazingly, the victim was one of their own race relations advisors.
Vulpes Vulpes says
Yes, I know it’s not all sweetness & light in Brizzle, but by God it’s a lot happier than countless other places.
Even when things really kicked off in 1981 I managed to walk home from work to Montpelier – right past the end of City Road – and be surprised when I saw on the idiot box what was going on down on Grosvenor Road, all of 800 yards away!
Bristol’s riots in 1831 made the St. Pauls kerfuffle look like a picnic!
Twang says
My school too. He became head boy on account of being clever, charming and tough as all get out on the rugby pitch in the first 15. Everything I wasn’t, basically.
Billybob Dylan says
Racism is a classic case of nurture versus nature. No-one is born a racist.
Baron Harkonnen says
So true Billybob.
RobC says
Some great insights on this thread, and it does provide some much needed optimism and balance about our own state of affairs. Sure, we have problems. No denying that. There’s no utopia anywhere, but for the larger part we’re a pretty welcoming and relaxed country these days, especially in the light of comments on this thread. I get pretty sick and tired of the usual leftist pundits telling us time and time again what a despicably racist bunch we are, and Tommy ‘England is the most racist country in the world’ Chong can shove that bong up his arse for good measure.
chiz says
Rob, we just passed a law to stop immigrants coming here to work in fields and wipe old people’s arses.
RobC says
I’ll pass that on to Boris and co, Chiz. In the meantime…
‘Sure. We have problems. No Denying that’.
RobC says
On the upside, Starmer’s sensibly going to honour Brexit (queue the Corbynistas screeching ‘Elitist!’) and I honestly thing that this current shower will not do a full term and be out on their arses. So it’s a win win of you’re left of centre Brexit, which I am along the lines of Benn, Galloway, Pilger etc. Not forgetting Corbyn, before he caved.
chiz says
“we’re a pretty welcoming and relaxed country these days”
RobC says
The majority of ordinary people are in their attitude to race. They’ll always be a minority of knuckle draggers, just as they’ll always be a minority of well off liberals quite happy to exploit immigrant labour.
fortuneight says
Is it a minority? My mixed race son-in-law doesn’t think so.
RobC says
Obviously I wouldn’t presume to speak for him of course and I don’t know where he lives. In my experience it was far more rife in the 70s as we know, and I remember my Sikh friend at school being on the receiving end of a few unpleasant jibes from others, as was myself because of my Irish heritage. From the 80s to this present day I’ve lived/studied and worked in a variety of jobs from building sites, shops, offices and in later years hostels and day centres. London/Liverpool/Blackburn/Chester and down here in the West Country where I’ve lived quite a few years now. I can honestly say that I’ve come across very literal racism aimed at fellow BAME co-workers/colleagues/friends etc, and when I did see it, said person was either ostracised/sacked or ‘sorted’ so to speak. A scum minority can have a very unpleasant impact on an individual/community, and I’m sure there’s also clusters, but I honestly think that per head, a minority it is.
RobC says
Speaking of stoners, David Crosby has said on twitter a few times that we’d be his first choice of country to live in other than the US, if he could afford to.
Mrbellows says
I thought he was broke?
Mike_H says
Hollywood broke, not Detroit Projects broke.
Nice boat, big ‘ol house(s) full of nice stuff but feeling a bit short of readies with the taxman knocking at the door.
RobC says
Not even in the Hollwood broke league. Sold his boat long ago, and is now selling off some of his guitars to keep the wolf at bay because his only real income is/was from touring. The main reason why I’m against Spotify as a matter of principle. It screws artists.
SteveT says
@RobC he will need to cut his hair first.
Vincent says
If David Crosby moves in, I’m leaving.
DrewToo says
Mr. Sithere – I read you post and felt like i could have written it. I am also in a prosperous little Democrat city. I have also lived here for a little over 20 years and have grown to love the US – but damn it – it feels like it is falling apart.
I am lucky to have traveled a lot – selling industrial equipment in the red and blue states and I am convinced the silent majority just wants a fair, equitable, multi ethnic society – but – the extremes are pulling this apart. Every faction has its own beliefs and truths – and if you don’t fit – then you don’t belong – and at times the left are as bad at this as the right.
Also having a President and administration talking in terms of “battle grounds” and “dominating” helps nothing.
I am hopeful for a very different country next year……….
Billybob Dylan says
I had an idea for a movie years ago, but never did anything with it. It started off with a young black girl, who lives in the poor part of town, walking home from school. There’s a robbery at the local convenience store and the LAPD are trying to apprehend the thieves. The girl gets caught in the crossfire, is critically injured and rushed to hospital. A young eager attorney, new to the bar, investigates the incident and discovers she was shot by an LAPD weapon. There is uproar over yet another shooting of an African American by a white cop. The attorney convinces the girl’s father to sue the LAPD. The girl makes a full recovery. The father, a very humble chap, chooses not to sue the LAPD and instead gives a press conference with the police and makes an incredibly heartfelt, eloquent and sympathetic speech, and now that his daughter is well and back home, he’s happy to let bygones be bygones.
The father’s speech is so well received he’s invited onto the public speaking circuit where he becomes a big hit. He makes good money, buys a nice house in a nice part of town and everything seems hunky dory. However one night he attends a party after a public speaking engagement and has a little too much to drink. Fumbling for his car keys he bids everybody goodnight but they all convince him he shouldn’t drive and should take a taxi instead. He refuses. And that night on the way home he drives the wrong way down a one-way street when he hits a white cyclist.
That’s as far as I got.
Black Celebration says
Well I’d like to know what happens next.
Billybob Dylan says
So would I!!
deramdaze says
I not a conspiracy theorist, never have been, but is the Madeline McCann story really more important in 2020 than the fallout from George Floyd’s death?
Someone in the public eye, probably black, is going to suggest “no, it isn’t” if they haven’t already, and they will be taken apart for it … but I would agree with them.
Billybob Dylan says
I was listening to Radio 2 at my friends house last night when the news came on and the lead item was the Madeline McCann story. My mate Dave said “Oh, so there’s no corona virus or riots anymore then?”
It’s a sneaky tactic.
fentonsteve says
Call me a cynic, but my first thought was “What is Cummings trying to cover up now?”
Alias says
Apparently the story is a year old.
deramdaze says
What?
Correction to above post:
I AM a conspiracy theorist.
RobC says
Of course it’s deliberate. There’s nothing these venal minions of Seth would not stoop to. All of them, Tory or Labour. They have long form on this and have the majority of the MSM in their grubby pockets.
chiz says
So how does this conspiracy work? Cummings rings up the German police and asks them to release new information on a suspect, then calls all the newspaper editors and tells them they’ve got to run it on their front pages because there’s something else he wants to keep off them? Then he persuades the McCanns to call it ‘the most significant breakthrough in 13 years’?
deramdaze says
No.
A story not as important as another story (another two stories) finds itself on the front page of every tabloid when the country should surely be concentrating on other things.
It’s not a conspiracy, just very convenient at a time when those in authority should be held to book.
hedgepig says
The story came out in the German press two days before it hit here, by the way. They thought it was a story too.
The McCanns sell newspapers. They’re reliably bankable. That’s the only convenience – it made some publishers some money.
deramdaze says
Always follow the money, for sure.
But it is convenient.
1. The Government”s ham-fisted approach to this virus is side-lined.
2. The taking up of the issue of unfairness in our society, following George Floyd’s death, is also side-lined.
Not convenient?
Very convenient.
chiz says
“The McCanns sell newspapers. They’re reliably bankable. That’s the only convenience – it made some publishers some money.”
That’s the one. Not conspiracy, not convenience, just commerce
deramdaze says
Money, for sure, follow the money … and very convenient.
Quite clearly, obviously, without any shadow of doubt … very convenient.
mikethep says
And conversely, there’s probably a reducing amount of money for newspapers in coronavirus and riots.
chiz says
..and the further you go down the conspiracy rabbit hole, the deeper it gets. Why did the papers devote 10 days of headlines to Johnson’s SpAd’s childcare arrangements? WHAT WERE THEY HIDING? Hmm? Eh? Oh.
Sitheref2409 says
Piers Morgan is a prize bell end.
But he asked the right question: if the kid had been a poor Black child, would we have spaffed GBP11 mill on him or her?
David Kendal says
I don’t know the money involved, but a lot of police effort went, eventually, into finding the killers of Stephen Lawrence and Damilola Taylor, for example. And the killing of Victoria Climbie, led to an enquiry into why none of the authorities picked up on the obvious abuse she was suffering. And of course, there was the MacPherson report arising from the Stephen Lawrence case.
Was all that “spaffing”?
Sitheref2409 says
In 2016 1,141 children were abducted. How many of them have had this kind of campaign for them?
I think using the Lawrence case is maybe not the best example given that the police mishandling of it actually led to the MacPherson report calling them “institutionally racist”.
How many missing children from impoverished backgrounds, who have gone missing, have had these kinds of headlines and money spent on them?
David Kendal says
I don’t know. I’m not sure of your point, to be honest. Certain cases will get publicity, and it can’t simply be because race or class, as there instances of killings and abuse of people from many different backgrounds which are pursued by the media. As well as the ones I’ve mentioned, here’s another, Andrew Norfolk of The Times, pursued the case of the Rotherham sex abuse gangs, where the victims were mainly poor and white. The Lawrences were, rightly, helped by the support of the Daily Mail among others, although it was clearly their own huge efforts which were the most important.
Just because there are many cases where justice is not done, do we put down as “spaffing” the efforts of people who do try to get it?
Leicester Bangs says
That figure of 1,141 sounds high to me. And anyway, the overwhelming majority will have been parental abductions. Stranger abductions are very rare. Stranger abductions where the child is not returned rarer still.
For a kid to simply vanish while in an upscale holiday resort, and for it *not* to generate the kind of coverage we’ve seen — now that would be weird.
mikethep says
The McCann case is like the Lindy Chamberlain dingo stole my baby case in that the parents came under suspicion very early on. That’s a gift for ‘newspapers’.
hedgepig says
I suspect this will be unpopular, but am I alone in feeling like comfy white people on the internet have taken a couple of very USA-specific issues (racial brutality, militarised policing) and just made it all about us? Loud chest-beating, talk of privilege that would read exactly the same if you substituted the words “original sin”, loud competition to be the best ally etc.
A friend of mine texted me that we’re now at the “public self-condemnation” stage, where you get more points for saying “YES, LORD, I HAVE BEEN RACIST IN THE PAST” than for saying “um, I’ve kinda tried to be a good person and don’t think I’ve been part of anyone’s oppression actually”. It feels a bit religious in tone at this point, and that seems to me to be distracting from the actual thing, which is that the American police are pretty unarguably institutionally racist and keep killing black people.
Why do we have to join in with the whole IT’S OUR FAULT TOO business? It feels narcissistic. I don’t care what anyone says otherwise, the UK is self-evidently not suffering from the same level or type of racism that you find in the US. It exists, it’s awful, but saying “we’re just as bad” and screaming DON’T SHOOT US and FUCK THE POLICE at unarmed UK officers (while in the middle of a pandemic, let’s not forget) just seems weird and like people online just want to make it about themselves. We’re not America. Marching against our police on the basis that they’re just as bad as American police feels like going on a protest against the NRA in Portsmouth.
RobC says
Well said. The cult of victimhood, and yes, virtue signalling, is not at all helpful and when taken to extreme is insulting to those on the end of genuine oppression, just like screaming Nazi at anyone who has a conservative/different opinion, is abusive to the victims of the Holocaust. Privileged middle class white kids bussing into poorer ethnic minority communities, trashing them, and then going home leaving the said communities to bear the consequences isn’t exactly what Martin Luther King or Gandhi would have had in mind either.
hedgepig says
I don’t really feel qualified to judge what’s happening in America, but what I see on the v. little social media I have, and what I see happening in the UK, just makes me go… uh. What?
Posting a black square on instagram and “amplifying black voices” by re-posting something a black person has said is just a way to feel like you’ve done your bit, and to feel superior, without actually doing anything. Also, and I know this is probably gonna get someone’s back up, I’m not clear why white middle class Brits need to be getting involved or doing anything about this – I’m prickly on the whole subject of white privilege, being myself one generation away from absolute working class poverty. I do think it exists, but collectivising guilt is a recipe for horrible stuff.
Sitheref2409 says
Is your argument that UK is a fundamentally non-racist society?
If it is, I suggest you’re deluded.
if it isn’t, then what exactly is your issue with people protesting? Or is it just that you don’t like white people protesting about injustices that they haven’t suffered?
hedgepig says
No of course not, and the way you know this is I said so explicitly in my initial post, but if you want to be angry with me I guess that’s just the internet for you.
People in the UK screaming at UK police about things that US police have done is pretty dumb though.
Sitheref2409 says
Fun fact – did you know that Blacks in Britain die in police custody at more than double what their population would suggest?
8% of deaths are Black; they are 3% of the population.
Maybe the UK protestors are aligning two causes?
hedgepig says
What are the absolute numbers there, though? They’re tiny. 163 people in total have died in police custody in a decade. One person = 0.6%. Drawing conclusions from small sample sizes is very bad statistics.
In the US, 2000 people died in custody between 2002-5, by way of comparison.
A much more interesting, though less dramatic and screamable-about, conversation is the intersection between ethnicity, poverty and crime. The real scandal is surely the increased chance of a black kid being born into urban poverty, and thus more at risk of other poor outcomes. But really systemic stuff like that is about boring stuff like housing and education and maybe UBI, which is harder to yell at a copper about and doesn’t fit on a placard.
Screaming “DON’T SHOOT US” at a famously unarmed police force remains dumb, though.
Sitheref2409 says
Yeah. I hear if you’re Brazilian and called Jean Charles de Menezes, the famously unarmed police won’t kill you by mistake.
Oh, so only a small number of people died in police custody disproportionate to their size of population. That’s OK then.
Can I ask? My City has a very good police record. Is it OK for me, and others in our rugby club, to go to DC to protest and bring water and medical equipment for other protestors? Or are we not close enough to the issue? How close should we be? I’d like to know, because you seem pretty fucking certain that being in the UK is too far away.
hedgepig says
I’ve no wish to get in an argument with an angry stranger on the internet, thanks. You think what you think, I’ll think what I think.
Alias says
Big up @sitheref2409
Sitheref2409 says
Let me add to this:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jun/06/a-black-mans-life-is-not-valued-attack-on-year-long-delay-of-uk-police-death-inquiry-darren-cumberbatch?CMP=share_btn_tw
There have been over 1700 deaths in Police Custody since 1990. No-one has been convicted of anything.
Dalian Atkinson died after being tasered.
Smiley Culture died after a single stab wound to the heart following a police raid. The IPCC report was never made public, nor released to the family.
Rashan Charles died after “unorthodox” restraint was applied and the officer didn’t call for first aid.
There are others. But sure, tell me there isn’t a problem with the police; tell me that there isn’t a real problem for minorities with the police.
Johnny99 says
Very well said @hedgepig.
RobC says
Unfortunately, it is a fact that largely black/poorer communities have been suffering from random indiscriminate lootings, violence and some instances businesses being torched during the protests, and the larger proportion of the Antifa set are white/non local.
Mike_H says
And so we comfortable white educated people with nice homes and stable families bicker about the rights and wrongs of the minuteai of the issue and the anger gets dissipated and pretty soon it’s all forgotten about until the next time.
There is still a LOT of racism here and congratulating ourselves that we’re not as bad as America or Spain or Italy doesn’t cut it for me.
There again, as it happens, I think looting and burning people’s homes and businesses in riot situations is really dumb as it detracts from what you’re actually rioting about. UK protesters attacking UK police officers about something that happened 4000 miles away is pretty dumb for the self same reason.
chiz says
UK protesters attacking police officers about something that happened 4000 miles away as the Covid infection rate rises is all kinds of dumb whatever way they try to spin it.
RobC says
I think that it’s more an issue of class inequality than deliberate systemic targeted racism. Too many underpaid or unemployed struggling with all the personal and social ramifications of this, and of course, it will include a disproportionate number of BAMEs. This is inequality is a moral wrong of course, and not a fact of life or of your own making as Thatcherites tell themselves from their comfy perches. I’m not a full own socialist, but an actual system that works to distribute capital far more fairly within communities at large to the benefit of all will go a long way to freeing those trapped in a cul de sac of poverty and therefore we will start to see the fundamental changes that we need start to happen.
chiz says
‘The cul de sac of poverty’ doesn’t sound so bad, to be fair. No through traffic, a bit of garden, handy for the shops.
This town rips the bones from your back
It’s a death trap, it’s a cul de sac
Alias says
A friend of mine is a white GP, her husband is a black academic. When he is driving and they are together in the car they regularly get pulled over by the police. When she is driving on her own in the same car it has never happened. The reason is not his driving, must be something else.
RobC says
Well it ain’t Mount Palomar.
* I could have said ‘endless cycle of’ but I hate cliches. I avoid them like the plague.*
Badlands says
As a well-known comic whose name i can’t remember once said, “I can’t stand these people who say that all metaphors are crap!”