These riots were about race. Why ignore the fact?

From The Telegraph:

Katharine Birbalsingh

Katharine Birbalsingh is the teacher who exposed the failings of the comprehensive school system at the Conservative Party conference last year. Katharine has been teaching in inner London for over a decade and plans to set up a Free School in south London to help to serve underprivileged children. Her book, To Miss with Love, is out now. Follow @Miss_Snuffy on Twitter to see what Katharine’s doing now. Katharine’s personal website is www.katharinebirbalsingh.com.

These riots were about race. Why ignore the fact?

A burnt-out carpet warehouse in Tottenham (Photo: Getty)A burnt-out carpet warehouse in Tottenham (Photo: Getty)

What colour is Mark Duggan? Mark Duggan is the man who was shot dead by the police on Thursday in Tottenham. The Tottenham riots last night were sparked when people protested his death. This morning, I first heard of the riots on the radio, then on the television. I read articles on the internet. But oddly, no one would say what colour Mark Duggan was. No one would say the unsayable, that the rioters were, I suspect on the whole, black. Then, finally, Toby Young’s Telegraph blog post on the riots was published. Is Toby Young the only  journalist out there who will dare say that these riots are about race?

Still, one paper did carry a photo of Mr Duggan. When I saw the photo, it confirmed what I knew instinctively: black youths once again have set London alight.

Some of the black kids I used to teach will tell you that the riots are absolutely justified. A number of adults would agree with them. Everywhere I read that the protest was understandable because “people are very angry”.

I’d like to know what they’re angry about. Mark Duggan is dead. He was shot by the police in a shootout. Duggan was in a minicab and shots were fired from both the cab and the police elsewhere. A police officer was hurt in the incident and a bullet was found lodged in a police radio. Either Duggan was shooting at the police or the driver of the minicab was. Either Duggan was in the wrong place at the wrong time and his death is a terrible tragedy – he was caught in the crossfire – or he shot at the police and the police defended themselves. Whatever the explanation, the police did not kill this man in cold blood.

Yet, a friend of Duggan who gave her name as Niki, 53, said marchers had wanted “justice for the family” and “something had to be done”. She said some of them lay in the road to make their point. “They’re making their presence known because people are not happy. This guy was not violent. Yes, he was involved in things but he was not an aggressive person. He had never hurt anyone.”

I wonder what “involved in things” means? I also wonder whether the police officer who was hurt at the scene believes Mark Duggan never hurt anyone. “Something had to be done”? She makes it sound as if the police are killing black people every other weekend and finally someone decided to take a stand.

At school I remember watching a presentation given to the kids by Trident, the Metropolitan Police Service unit set up to investigate and inform communities of gun crime in London’s black community. I didn’t know what Trident was then, and it struck me that all of the photos of people shot (the idea was to scare the kids) were black. So at the end, I approached one of the policemen and asked him what percentage of those involved in gun crime were black. I kid you not, but my question made this thirty-something white man who was, after all, trained to deal with the black community and its issues, turn pink.

He explained that about 80 per cent of gun crime took place in the black community. I smiled uncomfortably. But no, he said, it was worse than that. Then he told me that 80 per cent was black on black gun crime, and that of the remaining 20 per cent about 75 per cent involved at least one black person: black shooting white, or white shooting black. I pushed to know more. While he kept saying his stats were crude and he didn’t have scientific numbers, on the whole the whites who were involved in these shootings tended to be from Eastern Europe.

Was any of this ever mentioned in their presentation? Of course not. Just like the news about the Tottenham riots doesn’t mention race either.

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.

 

About Eeyore

Canadian artist and counter-jihad and freedom of speech activist as well as devout Schrödinger's catholic

2 Replies to “These riots were about race. Why ignore the fact?”

  1. Further, all the riots we see in England are just the tip of the iceberg, riots are a result of the deterioration of the infrastructure by over immigration of peoples who do not support the status quo of the main stream culture, creating ghettos and all that ghettos manifest.
    These areas contain originals as well as many from other racial origins, and the actual race is not a relevant factor, but rather, the socio-economic aspect of the marginalized.
    There will only be more of this in all developed countries who continue to import by the tens of thousands, refugees, immigrants who do not integrate, and further, who inevitably end up at the bottom of the social ladder, either on state tax payer welfare, or earning just enough to survive and the frustration of this disenfranchised level of society is eventually going to erupt in social disorder, which is precisely what we are seeing in England.
    These marginalized large groups do not need much of a catalyst to ignite. Sadly, every so called political and religious and philosophical person, as well as every media person, journalist will have their take on what is going on from single parent families, to race to just trying to blame the hooligan mentality and this will be cured by stonger water cannons, and jail time consequences.
    Culture and over immigration will never be mentioned.
    Meanwhile, Canada continues to follow in this direction with huge masses of people coming in each year and joining the marginalized bottom class on the social scale. They are the survival level citizens, controlled by water cannon if need be. The Edmonton somolis are just a foreshadowing of this sad situation which will eventually blow up in our faces as it is in the face of the Britianers today.

    Enoch Powell’s words reverberate.

    Harper drums up economic business in Brazil, instead of encouraging massive christian emigration programs to Canada so that we have more immigrants who share at least some of the values inherent in this Country.

    But our system is broken, and there are no jobs for the majority of those coming to this country and precisely why they end up at the bottom of the social order, marginalized, and creating foul disorder, unrest, crime, and a breakdown of infrastructure.

    Those who do make it to the middle class and higher, bring with them the influence of cultures that are so opposed to our norms and values, that they change our very basic values from within, and reorganize if not deteriorate our infrastructure on business and educational levels.

    For those who want to see, it is right in front of your noses, the lowering of standards in every aspect of life, from not washing hands before preparing food, to the shoddy workmanship in all civic areas such as road repair, or the construction industry, lowered standards in medicine and schools, service industries, cheating and lying becoming accepted in a culture where once a handshake was enough to make and keep a deal between honest individuals, crime becoming accepted, and the left under the values of ‘christian’ good, creating a culture in which anything but the truth is the norm.
    The silent majority will continue to sip lattes
    Eager to read the new great authors, Steyn and Geller, but chapters still doesn’t have their books on sale???

  2. Morticia I agree with you, the riots will spread to more areas in Britain and to other countries, the world economic situation is speeding the process but this was coming no matter what happened in the economy. The failure of the European nations to insist in the immigrants assimilating into the base culture made the clashes a certainty. Yes race is part of the issue but culture is a much larger part, and one that will fuel the coming violence all around the world.