Problems cannot be addressed unless people are willing to tell the truth. As with so many other things in this country, we stick our heads in the sand and refuse to speak out about it.
She then came to national prominence after she spoke at the 2010 Conservative Party conference in support of the party's education policies and criticized the state of the British education system. She was subsequently controversially suspended from her school and forced to resign a few weeks later, despite a campaign to have her reinstated.
Mike said:http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/katharinebirbalsingh/100099830/these-riots-were-about-race-why-ignore-the-fact/
Watched one interview with a rioter and he said it was about having all the things whites have............................. what about respect?
London riots hit home for former bobbies
Watching rioters wreak havoc on his hometown — a city he used to serve and protect — is devastating for a Calgary cop.
"It's pretty sad to see your own hometown, where you're born and bred, burning — people running and looting in the streets, smashing in shops and attacking the police," said Const. Rich Wall, a London, England native who served with the Metropolitan Police for 10 years before his 2005 move to Calgary, where he works for the High Risk Offender Program (HROP).
Riots descended on London — and later other U.K. cities — in the wake of a 29-year-old man being shot dead by police during an arrest attempt last week.
It prompted what Wall calls "yobs" to come out of the woodwork, unleashing anger over tough times in some of the city's lower-income, ethnically-diverse and youth-populated areas.
"It's very run down and it has been for a very long time and people are a little bit fed up mainly with the economy," he said.
"But there's a high, high youth population in these areas, they're some the most gang-infested areas in London and they're some of the most violent areas in the country so it doesn't take an awful lot for one small incident to spark an absolute fury."
However, England's police forces have spent millions of pounds training officers to work in diverse communities, he said.
"I would probably say that the British police, when it comes to dealing with racial groups or multicultural communities — and don't forget London is one of the most multicultural places on Earth — they're probably one of the best in the world," he said.
Sgt. Paul Cuthill, who served with the Kent Police Service near London for 13 years before moving to Calgary in 2009, said this is a case of gangs and opportunists "using the shooting of a young man as a springboard to carry out the attacks that they want to."
Cuthill admits England's police history is not lily white, but said this is a different generation of officers and those issues, for the most part, have dissolved.
"It's no secret to anyone who knows the history of the British police within England that there has been race relations and tensions within the communities," he said.
"If I stood here and said that police officers are perfect people then I would be lying because I can guarantee there are lots of stories of police officers who have acted illegally and in a corrupt manner.
"However, I'd like to say that 99.9% of the people that I worked with were hard-working decent people who just wanted to be good police officers.
"It's the minority of police officers that behave in that manner and do things are not what they would expect from a police officer that tarnishes our name."
The riots that broke out across England this week were the consequence of years of built-up resentment among Britain's young, mostly black, underclass, the Caribbean-British writer and activist Darcus Howe told The Huffington Post on Wednesday.
"It's an insurrection of a generation of poor, primarily, black people from the Caribbean and from Africa," said Howe, who became something of an Internet sensation on this side of the Atlantic after his recent appearance on the BBC turned into a testy exchange over his claims that the authorities were failing to listen to the riots' underlying cause.
snip....
"That was the catalyst, and residing in the catalyst is the cause," Howe said. "And the cause was the constant stopping and searching of young blacks."
hypocritexposer said:Looks like you are wrong flounder:
The riots that broke out across England this week were the consequence of years of built-up resentment among Britain's young, mostly black, underclass, the Caribbean-British writer and activist Darcus Howe told The Huffington Post on Wednesday.
"It's an insurrection of a generation of poor, primarily, black people from the Caribbean and from Africa," said Howe, who became something of an Internet sensation on this side of the Atlantic after his recent appearance on the BBC turned into a testy exchange over his claims that the authorities were failing to listen to the riots' underlying cause.
snip....
"That was the catalyst, and residing in the catalyst is the cause," Howe said. "And the cause was the constant stopping and searching of young blacks."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/10/darcus-howe-london-riots_n_923896.html
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904006104576499631544932082.html?mod=WSJ_hp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsSecondRiots Stoke British Ethnic Tensions
Race Relations Come to Fore After Birmingham Car Attack Kills Three Asian Men; 'An Eye for an Eye'.Article Video Interactive Graphics Comments (183) more in World ».Email Print Save ↓ More .
.smaller Larger By GUY CHAZAN
Violence flared anew in London and across Britain, although overall conditions appeared much calmer than in previous evenings. Bruce Orwall has the latest from London.
.BIRMINGHAM—Three Birmingham men died early Wednesday as they sought to protect local businesses from rioters, showing how the violence that began four days ago in London and spread to the U.K.'s other big cities is stoking long-simmering ethnic tensions in some of the country's most racially diverse communities.
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Reuters
Mourning locals at the scene where a car hit and killed three men Wednesday in the Winson Green, area of Birmingham, England.
.The three men who died, all Asians, were hit by a carload of suspected looters. West Midlands police arrested a man near the scene and launched a murder inquiry. Witnesses said the man, the driver of the vehicle, was black.
The deaths capped a night in which rioting was quelled in London but spilled seemingly at random to other parts of the U.K. In Birmingham, the deaths led to an outpouring of anger from the city's large population of Asians.
"People are saying it's a race issue now—blacks against Asians," said Mykel Douglas, a black youth worker and resident of Winson Green, the working-class district northwest of Birmingham city center where the incident occurred. "It's like the ethnic groups are at war with each other."
Outside the family home of one of the dead men, identified by local media as Haroon Jahan, a group of young Asians—mainly ethnic Pakistanis—vowed vengeance. "People are very angry," said a bearded man in a shalwar kameez who declined to give his name. "There's going to be retaliation. An eye for an eye."
U.K. Riots
View Interactive
.See the location of some of the rioting that has taken place around London.
.Local police appealed for calm. "Like everyone else in Birmingham, my concern now will be that that single incident doesn't lead to a much wider and more general level of distrust, and even worse, violence, between different communities," said West Midlands Chief Constable Chris Sims.
That message was echoed by Haroon Jahan's father, Tariq Jahan, who said the event was "not a race issue" and that locals shouldn't resort to vigilantism and settling scores. "It's already bad enough with what we are seeing on the streets now without other people taking the law into their own hands," he said in an interview with the BBC.
The wave of unrest sweeping Britain broke out last Saturday in the north London neighborhood of Tottenham, where a peaceful vigil to protest the police killing of a local man, Mark Duggan, degenerated into the worst wave of riots and looting in the capital in 30 years. The unrest then spread to other underprivileged, multiethnic parts of London and subsequently to other cities including Manchester, Liverpool and Birmingham.
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Police investigators at the scene where a car hit and killed three men Wednesday in the Winson Green, area of Birmingham, England.
.In Manchester, hundreds of youths looted shops and set fire to cars and buildings on Tuesday. Local police said they had arrested 113 people, mostly on suspicion of criminal damage. Firefighters said they responded to 155 fires in the city. About 100 businesses and some police vehicles were seriously damaged, officials said.
"What we have seen are serious and unprecedented levels of violence and criminality on Greater Manchester's streets," said assistant chief constable Garry Shewan, who described the events as the "most sickening scenes" of his career.
In the early stages of the unrest, the violence was largely confined to poor areas marked by high unemployment and social deprivation. That pattern has shifted at times, however, as riots broke out in Gloucester, a market town in western England normally immune to social unrest. Nine people were arrested after a gang of youths smashed shop windows and threw bottles and rocks at police vehicles.
And while most of the violence in London was characterized by looting, particularly of stores selling sports clothing and electrical goods, outside of the capital it took on an antiauthoritarian tone. In the central English city of Nottingham, five police stations were attacked with firebombs, with one set on fire. Police cars and a high school were also targeted.
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Zuma Press
A worker cleans up the street in front of the ruins of a burnt-down furniture store in London on Wednesday.
.Dr. Judith Rowbotham, an expert in criminal justice studies at Nottingham Trent University, said relations between the police and some local people have been strained in recent times. "There is a feeling that the police are not there to serve the community," she said.
Wednesday afternoon, Nottingham was braced for more. "People are going home early and checking whether they know where their kids are," said Helen Feeley, working in a newsagent shop next to the boarded police station that had been firebombed. Police stationed themselves near a housing project where much of the violence has taken place, as young boys on BMX bikes circled at a distance.
"None of this is going to stop unless there is some payback to the police," said a boy of 15 who declined to be named.
Violence in Birmingham's Winson Green area began Monday night when gangs tried to ransack a gasoline station on the main shopping street and stole a TV set from an Indian social club. The next day, a group of about 40 young men came out to try to avert further trouble, while local businesses closed early.
Tofsirul Islam, a 22-year-old student who lives nearby, said he suddenly saw a black car drive down the middle of the road at high speed, directly into the crowd of vigilantes. He said the three men flew into the air as the car rammed them. Its windshield was completely shattered, its fender mangled and its hood sprang up, he said.
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Associated Press
Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron speaks to the media outside No. 10 Downing Street in London on Wednesday.
."He could have slowed down or swerved to avoid people," Mr. Islam said. "Maybe he didn't intend to kill them, but he was definitely looking for trouble."
Mr. Islam claimed the driver and his two passengers—who he said were all Afro-Caribbean—had come to the area to loot shops. West Midlands police refused to comment, saying it was too early to connect the incident to the disturbances that affected other parts of Birmingham on Tuesday night.
Residents of Winson Green spoke highly of the three men, named by local media as Mr. Jahan, Shahzad Ali and Abdul Musavir—saying they were familiar faces in the community.
"Shazad was a nice guy who never looked for trouble and never would've harmed anyone," said Mr. Islam, who knew him. Mr. Islam's brother Shofiqal, who said he went to school with Shazad, described him as "intelligent and well-liked by most of the other students."
Locals gathering at the Faiz ul Quran mosque and madrasa, where relatives and friends of the dead men met for a memorial service, were outraged that the deaths had come during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
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Photos: U.K. Riots
.Winson Green, where white working-class families live cheek-by-jowl with immigrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Poland in cramped red-brick Victorian terraces, has always been relatively peaceful, residents say.
However, relations between Birmingham's black British and South Asian communities have long been marred by tensions. In 2005 there were full-scale intercommunal clashes after a pirate radio station DJ aired allegations that a black teenage girl had been gang-raped by Asian men.
Still, the latest disturbances surprised many. "I don't know why this is happening to us," said Mohammaed Saghir, manager of the Punjab Kebab House. "This isn't London."
—Alistair Macdonald, Jeanne Whalen and Peter Evans contributed to this article
hypocritexposer said:The color of the rioters does not matter, but what we are seeing is the result of decades of Leftism
flounder said:hypocritexposer said:The color of the rioters does not matter, but what we are seeing is the result of decades of Leftism
:lol2: :lol2: :lol2: :disagree:
For me, the deepest issue at play here is one of responsibility. Who is responsible for law and order in our nation? Who is responsible for the behaviour of our young people? Can we blame the state when parents have been allowed to abdicate responsibility for the behaviour of their children?
The biggest problem our country has faced over the last two decades is that everyone thinks the government should do everything. Personal responsibility and community responsibility have been replaced by state responsibility. If the riots have shown us anything, it is that this approach does not work.
Politicians have been part of this process, and some on the left may have even encouraged our young people to riot. The liberal intelligentsia encouraged posh kids to protest and riot over student fees – and now poorer kids have joined in and we are all appalled. How can you complain when you supported such activism only a few months ago?
In a way, we are all responsible for the riots, whether directly or indirectly. We watched the previous government talk up rights for young people but with no mention of responsibilities. We have allowed our welfare system to prop up immoral lifestyles. We have not taught all our young people that an entitlement culture is morally wrong. And we have paid the price for this liberalism. Now we need to collectively grow up and take responsibility for responsibility.
flounder said:hypocritexposer said:The color of the rioters does not matter, but what we are seeing is the result of decades of Leftism
:lol2: :lol2: :lol2: :disagree:
Brendan O'Neill
London's burning: a mob made by the welfare state
Yes, there's a 'political context' to the riots: it is that British youth have been so suckled by the state they have zero sense of community spirit.
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/10970/
Painting these riots as some kind of action replay of historic political streetfights against capitalist bosses or racist cops might allow armchair radicals to get their intellectual rocks off, as they lift their noses from dusty tomes about the Levellers or the Suffragettes and fantasise that a political upheaval of equal worth is now occurring outside their windows. But such shameless projection misses what is new and peculiar and deeply worrying about these riots. The political context is not the cuts agenda or racist policing – it is the welfare state, which, it is now clear, has nurtured a new generation that has absolutely no sense of community spirit or social solidarity.
The principal core, dysfunctional values learned from the upper-middle class are unrestrained individualism and liberation from responsibilities. The liberal dream of the 1960s was that unrestrained individualism and a loosening of morals would lead to freer and better society. Instead of the "dream," the 1990s turned into a "nightmare" for the underclass.
