Riots

[Nick Armstrong]

I saw Starkey on Newsnight. I usually find him bracing, a refreshing change (even when I think he's talking balls) from the normal bland readers-of-central-office-press-releases who turn up on Newsnight or Question Time these days

That debate about the riots was not his finest hour though - he didn't seem able to get his point across with his usual lucidity. I knew what he meant about non-black youth having immersed itself in and assimilated the street / rap / gang culture which I understand to have originated in black culture, so that skin colour seems beside the point these days - white, asian etc etc are all doing the hand gestures, the patois etc of black rap culture which glorifies materialism ('bling' innit) and violence. But he made the points so clumsily, it seemed to me, that the others on the programme mauled him badly and made it seem that he was talking nonsense. Uneasy watching.

[eighthobstruction]

I am biased towards all historians. I therefore think that Starkey deserves to be heard a bit. He is right to mention Powell's "Rivers of Blood" speech. There are always key reference points in politics that need revisiting time and again. You could have looked at the election of Obama with reference to the prior election of Bush, Clinton and Bush. Alternatively, you could view its symbolism in the context of Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King. I know which one I instinctively chose because that reached to the heart of it. Some 18 or so years after Powell's moment, his name was virtually unmentionable in my circles. I had witnessed a few attitudes on the streets in South London - "Enoch was right". I remember going stark raving mad one Christmas Day in the seventies when our local Enoch decided to launch into his manifesto. Age and experience give one the confidence to say "let him speak". This is, in fact, the true mark of a liberal. The guy was actually similar to his political hero - erudite, well-read and highly intellectual, albeit with greasy hair and the stains of dinner on his suit - and a great deal more complex than the Blairs and Camerons of this world could ever be. For that reason alone, it is just stupid to block the ears in horror and revulsion.



.

Lat you are beginning to generalise ad hoc....The man is on NEWSNIGHT for goodness sake....100's of thousands are listening....Re Rivers of Blood, he was only saying that it had happened only in a different way [i.e. there is a black and white underclass a bit hot under the collar]. They may be rioting together thisweek....but generally they will not be together next week, i.e. the riots were a 'come all ye ' event. Nobody amidst the riots was looking who they were next to, they were looking for sneekers and logos and electronics. There will be a certain amount of integration [if you can call it that] of black and white youth using a subculture patois [I said that in about my third post on this thread.] This patois thing was obviously a little minor hobby-horse thesis that Starkey was keen to air for 'street cred'....it is not a 'reason' for rioting; as he was putting forward incredibly inarticulately, it is a symptom of living in a sub-culture ,nothing more than that.

We did listen to him , but generally reject the words of a man of HISTORY, not contemporary sociology. He is a man now far from his roots, who tries to make sound bites whenever anyone allows him on a news programme. He is a self publicist, making a living. That discussion would have been much better left to the two other 'experts', who seemed to talk sense yet had to deal with Starkeys inadvertant rascism and lack of judgement, which became what the discussion was about [i.e. Starkeys prat fall]....

edit 30mins later: yes I feel much of what Lat says in the last para is correct !....

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

i think Lat's last para in #492 says it better than Starkey who did have a point but did not quite make it ...

mr pee i still feel that you are not for real and are trolling so will not respond in terms of substance to your posts ...

[eighthobstruction]

It would be very difficult to respond to a Peepost....because all they are is agreeing with right-wing links and disagreeing with anything else....rarely a post that extends to a paragraph, or contains anything that strains the mind....it must be busy in that box-office in Chichester, no time think obviously....

[Ariosto]

Even if there were time to think ... would it happen?

[Globaltruth]

Phew the last few posts on here are for a me a bit of a relief to read.

I missed the programme (or should that be 'show'), instead read the incredible hoo-ha in the media, then sought out the clip; and thought I had entered a parallel universe, where the hysterical reaction ('a career-ending performance from Starkey'!) was completely at odds with the point he was so inadequately trying to make.

So thanks to everyone from about post #491 onwards for your posts.

[amateur51]

Here's an interesting piece from New Scientist magazine - why respectable people turned to looting

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20789-uk-riots-why-respectable-people-turned-to-looting.html

[eighthobstruction]

My own little hobby-horse thesis at the moment [thought of it Friday]....Is that many of the parents of today;whose children were out rioting last week, were participants in RAVE CULTURE in the 80's and 90's.
My experience of this comes from being on the fringes of it as Drugs and Alcolhol Worker during this time. Also my son was a MC and recorder producer of this type of music [still available at a club near you in the West Country], and many friends [leftie-liberal-hippy etc] went to events, and created events. It followed on from the Punk movement and Anti-Thatcher movement of 80's. There was mass trespass, taking over warehouses illegally for 'party raves', and obviously much drug taking, Ecstasy being the main one,but just about every sort of drug involved [very little alcohol, or fights etc]. So every weekend I would estimate 3-4 million people of 16 -35 years were doing several things illegal and really really enjoying it....very few people were making a lot out of it, and along the way a few fields and buildings were trashed to a certain extent.THIS is where white and black culture really crossed over and met and united under drugs, music and partying [and I guess disobedience][defying the law]....it was not considered SOCIAL CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE, because that would have been a 'downer'....the people were there for fun and only fun primarily. It was also where a new sexual promiscuity started [post AIDS], where much much more skin was getting shown on the dance floor by women [Well it was usually so hot]....ending up with people a few years later in Ibiza dancig in bubbles with hardly any clothes at all [sex on he dance floor]....places of very few inhibitions through one thing and another....THEN CAME RAP much later....and Then these Ravers became parents

Most of these people are now parents and find it hard [to be brief] to discipline their children, because of their own freedoms they smelled in the 80's and 90's. They feel unable to censor their own children, as it would be hypocrisy....Catch_22 ain't it But then again ....Along came RAP, juice for another generation....and rather than happy partying of 80's we got heavy drug dealing via the Yardies taking advantage, and material consumption (blinge, logos, brands conspicious consumption etc) lotsof binge drinking , fights , turf wars etc....[as I say I am trying to make it brief]....

[Nick Armstrong]

My own little hobby-horse thesis at the moment [thought of it Friday]....Is that many of the parents of today;whose children were out rioting last week, were participants in RAVE CULTURE in the 80's and 90's.
My experience of this comes from being on the fringes of it as Drugs and Alcolhol Worker during this time. Also my son was a MC and recorder producer of this type of music [still available at a club near you in the West Country], and many friends [leftie-liberal-hippy etc] went to events, and created events. It followed on from the Punk movement and Anti-Thatcher movement of 80's. There was mass trespass, taking over warehouses illegally for 'party raves', and obviously much drug taking, Ecstasy being the main one,but just about every sort of drug involved [very little alcohol, or fights etc]. So every weekend I would estimate 3-4 million people of 16 -35 years were doing several things illegal and really really enjoying it....very few people were making a lot out of it, and along the way a few fields and buildings were trashed to a certain extent.THIS is where white and black culture really crossed over and met and united under drugs, music and partying [and I guess disobedience][defying the law]....it was not considered SOCIAL CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE, because that would have been a 'downer'....the people were there for fun and only fun primarily. It was also were a new sexual promiscuity started [post AIDS], where much much more skin was getting shown on the dance floor by women [Well it was usually so hot]....ending up with people a few years later in Ibiza dancig in bubbles with hardly any clothes at all [sex on he dance floor]....places of very few inhibitions through one thing and another....THEN CAME RAP much later....and Then these Ravers became parents

Most of these people are now parents and find it hard [to be brief] to discipline their children, because of their own freedoms they smelled in the 80's and 90's. They feel unable to censor their own children, as it would be hypocrisy....Catch_22 ain't it But then again ....Along came RAP, juice for another generation....and rather than happy partying of 80's we got heavy drug dealing via the Yardies taking advantage, and material consumption (blinge, logos, brands conspicious consumption etc) lotsof binge drinking , fights , turf wars etc....[as I say I am trying to make it brief]....

Thought-provoking, 8th, thanks!

[amateur51]

the people were there for fun and only fun primarily. It was also were a new sexual promiscuity started [post AIDS],[/B]

Eh?

[eighthobstruction]

Eh?

Yep, it might been safe sex....but there was a lot of it going on....[ref condom sales figures circa 85....]

[amateur51]

Yep, it might been safe sex....but there was a lot of it going on....[ref condom sales figures circa 85....]

I'm having difficulty grasping what you're saying here eighth - are you saying at the Ecstasy 80s-90s was a "post-AIDS" era?

[eighthobstruction]

I'm saying that everything past approx 1982 is post the discovery of HIV/AIDS....simples

[amateur51]

I'm saying that everything past approx 1982 is post the discovery of HIV/AIDS....simples

Simple possibly, but certainly an unusual way of expressing that fact

[eighthobstruction]

I'm an unusual kinda fella !!....