2011 UK riots: Racist’s getting it twisted

This week’s UK riots have been viewed quite gleefully by racists as a ‘black thing. This has set race relations back about 10 years and when the next election comes the BNP will be trying to use this as a vote winner.  But black people should not sit idly by and let this happen.

It may be hard to have conversations with non-blacks right now but make sure if you get into any discussion you point out the number of white faces you saw on the news. If you have insights into the underlying cause of the shopping spree then speak up. Do not let them forget that this started with yet another death in police custody. Police shot and killed Mark Duggan on 4 August in a sting operation. Duggan was unarmed!

The peaceful protest in Tottenham turned into a madness after the police attacked a 16-year-old girl. Had the police quelled the disturbance there and then, people viewing on TV would probably never have had the balls to pull off the copycat rampage around the country. In Tottenham the public was given a clear message, the police are weak and/or too afraid to cause another incident so they are hanging back. From the time the riot started the police were damned if they did and defiantly damned because they didn’t.

There will be a lot of analysing over the next few weeks and I hope people realise that there are many underlying reasons why the shit hit the fan in this way. I’ll throw a few out there for you to consider:

• Our current government are corrupt, from Cameron down.
• Police have let the public down (phone tapping, deaths in custody)
• The bankers fucked us up the arse and we said thank you, have some money.
• Nick Clegg is a piece of shit who promised much and fucked the students up the arse.
• The conservatives have not and never will recognise the man in the street. They came in and immediately proceeded to take away support for the everyman.
• The government came down harder on the everyman and chose to ignore those tax avoiding companies.

These are just a few thoughts that show that the people rioting over the past few days do not have just one reason to be disillusioned. Some may have taken the opportunity to get free stuff for all the reasons above or just one. And I acknowledge that there were some career criminals out there getting paid. But at the end of the day, it wasn’t a black thing, so let’s not get it twisted!