Stop & Search and racial profiling

[Guest]

In the light of the drubbing that Diane Abbott took on this board over her remarks about white people using divide and rule, I found the results from this research very disturbing

http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2012/jan/14/stop-search-racial-profiling-police

An interesting article from Daily Mail too

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2083288/Stephen-Lawrences-mother-Doreen-greeted-black-white-wishers.html

And finally an interview with Neville Lawrence

http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2012/jan/14/saturday-interview-neville-lawrence-stephen

[Serial_Apologist]

Thanks for posting these, Ams,

In the second Guardian item, for the first time we really get to hear what Neville Lawrence has gone through, and it shouldn't surprise.

[Stillhomewardbound]

Well, everyone knocks the police and ain't that rotten unfair. Quite a bit of the time, yes.

However, where the Met has failed catastrophically, and been allowed to do so by successive governments, is to recruit a police force that reflects the city's own demographics.

Hence, predominantly black and ethnic areas such as Hackney and the like, are policed largely by white officers.

Yes, these groups are part of the problem because they have refused to put themselves forward for these roles in any numbers, but this has been flagged as an issue going all the way back to the 70s.

[Simon]

Yes, these groups are part of the problem because they have refused to put themselves forward for these roles in any numbers, but this has been flagged as an issue going all the way back to the 70s.

Undoubtedly. But the root of the problem lies in the fact that such ghettos have been allowed to spring up in the first place. Multiculturality and multiracial societies do not work. Fact.

That's not the fault of the individuals per se, but a consequence of the reality of humaity. Expecting large groups of people with vastly opposing cultures, belief systems, moralities, behaviour patterns and histories to live harmoniously together is cloud cuckoo land. Hence the crime, disorder, disease, social tension and poverty in parts of our cities where such groups exist. The proof is there for all to see.

Equally relevant and of equal weight in the proof is the fact that we see few such problems in our monocultural rural villages where there is a common background of similar people often going back for centuries. Such societies can, and do, absorb individual families from other nations very happily - but despite their tolerance would still struggle with inundations of immigrants from other parts of the world.

[greenilex]

Try living in Hackney, Simon. I swear it's OK.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Equally relevant and of equal weight in the proof is the fact that we see few such problems in our monocultural rural villages where there is a common background of similar people often going back for centuries.

The nature of the history of these islands is one of multiculturalism. Were it not so, we would all be "Celtic" Britons. "Inundations" (far less peaceful than more recent immigrations) from Italy, Germany, Scandanavia, France "go back centuries" and have been so absorbed into the Britain of today that it is easy - and sometimes convenient - forget that they were ever anything other than "British". The acceptance of immigrant Huguenot and Jewish comunities was racked with racist hostility and violence, but nobody now could even recognize anyone of Huguenot ancestry, and anti-Semitism is confined to the psychotic wing of the far Right. The Daily Mail article suggests that we have reached a stage in history when members of our society with African/Asian ancestry are becoming as "accepted" a natural part of the national culture by the majority of the indigenous, "centuries old" communities. In the towns and cities, co-existence and co-operation has changed the "common background" of at least two generations of people, so that obvious unfair policing becomes a matter of disgrace and outrage to everybody.

This level of civilization perhaps hasn't yet reached your "monocultural rural villages". But don't despair: there's always hope.

Best Wishes.

[Flosshilde]

our monocultural rural villages ...

Why do I find such a world-view so depressing? I'm sure that if he tried Simon would find a wide range of 'cultures' existed among the superficially similar people inhabiting his village. Of course, 'superficial' sums up Simon's approach - if they all look (more or less) the same, they must all be the same.

[Anna]

Why do I find such a world-view so depressing?

And does the Church clock stand at three, and is there honey still for tea? Simon probably went into deep mourning over Nigel Pargetter ,,,,,,,

[John Skelton]

That's not the fault of the individuals per se, but a consequence of the reality of humaity. Expecting large groups of people with vastly opposing cultures, belief systems, moralities, behaviour patterns and histories to live harmoniously together is cloud cuckoo land. Hence the crime, disorder, disease, social tension and poverty in parts of our cities where such groups exist. The proof is there for all to see.

Equally relevant and of equal weight in the proof is the fact that we see few such problems in our monocultural rural villages where there is a common background of similar people often going back for centuries. Such societies can, and do, absorb individual families from other nations very happily - but despite their tolerance would still struggle with inundations of immigrants from other parts of the world.

Are you claiming as a "fact" that "crime, disorder, disease, social tension and poverty" haven't been common and frequent problems in "monocultural" societies (to use your extremely questionable term, but let that go for now), urban and rural? If you are that is I think the most astonishing, gobsmacking, anti-historical, non-factual thing I have ever read on the internet.* Where on earth were you educated?

*Which is saying something .

[Simon]

No doubt the usual ostriches will come along and have their say, and a few others will pop in and make irrelevant comments. As FHG has managed to do, already. There might even be a couple who will misinterpret, exaggerate or confuse what I wrote in order to make a "point" of their own. Oh sorry - that's already happened too, I see. :-)

But eventually, perhaps, someone with some kind of a rational brain will attempt to take apart my post sentence by sentence and show me where it is inaccurate, fact by fact. But maybe better not hold one's breath, eh?...

bws to all.

PS I've not been there for years, greenilex. Don't do big cities anymore in the UK - find them too depressing.

[Flosshilde]

Well, we've had a couple of posts from Simon, so he can go back to his monoculture (which usually indicates, or eventually creates, a sterile envirnment in which nothing flourishes); we'll just cut & paste the above comments from him into other threads wherever they seem to fit.

[Anna]

But eventually, perhaps, someone with some kind of a rational brain will attempt to take apart my post sentence by sentence and show me where it is inaccurate, fact by fact. But maybe better not hold one's breath, eh?

Best not Simon, hold breath, put on your rose tinted specs and retreat the the crime free, affluent, disease free, social tension free, Peak District where the (as I think you described them once) the ex-soldiers, 'rough and ready but salt of the earth' know their place and tug their forelocks to the Gentry. I live in a monocultural, rural, environment and we certainly have poverty, crime, disease and social tension. Must be something in the water where you are

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

No doubt the usual ostriches will come along and have their say, and a few others will pop in and make irrelevant comments. As FHG has managed to do, already.

I suppose that makes me an unusual ostrich?

However, inconvenient though my comments may have been to what I will charitably refer to as your argument, the fact that social tensions have repeatedly been enacted and resolved in the "depressing" cities throughout history remains ... well, a fact. The cultural changes absorbed from these resolutions are what become the "common background" of subsequent generations. Even in the "rural villages" (?are there "urban villages"?) which like to think of themselves as "monocultural".

Oh, and Happy New Year, by the way. Your Alphabetical Associations thread is flourishing.

[Lateralthinking1]

The last time I saw soldiers on a cliff in a countryside they were gurkhas. They though are about to be cut because Joanna Lumley was becoming dangerous. No doubt it was decided that she needed to be taught a lesson for criticising a politician. That is her then put firmly back in her box.

The one thing that you could always guarantee if you laid down your life for Queen and Country was that Parliament would take a very dim view if you returned with arms and legs hanging off. It was a big inconvenience. You had to fight tooth and nail for the proper support and were then rarely given it.

Now it is worse. Today's message for the returning troops is "Cheers for risking it all for our system - anyhow your job is axed. Dave." I would have thought that no one would suffer psychological damage from unemployment more than those in the military for they really believe in "the system". What a horrible shock to find that the greatest viciousness is here in dear old Britain.

As for multiculturalism, any ghettos are wholly created by the government and the media. Faith schools are rubbish. I'd ditch the lot. Radio, TV and the press go on about race in a way that few people do in reality. It is incessant. The immigration levels are unreal and I would say that if everyone arriving here was white and British. In fact, I'd say it then more forcefully.

Without such hindrance, multiculturalism would work. In fact, it does work in many places. Geneva, for example.

[John Skelton]

But eventually, perhaps, someone with some kind of a rational brain will attempt to take apart my post sentence by sentence and show me where it is inaccurate, fact by fact. But maybe better not hold one's breath, eh?...

It would help if you would point out where the facts ("fact by fact") are in your post.

"Hence the crime, disorder, disease, social tension and poverty in parts of our cities where such groups exist. The proof is there for all to see." Crime, disorder and disease have always existed in "our cities." As they have outside "our cities." "Our" history is riddled with the effects and the narratives of "crime, disorder, disease, social tension and poverty." It's never been without them. There was no Golden Age. You might do better to look at the political and economic systems over time that have perpetuated inequality and created social tension and poverty before blaming 'outsiders'. The latter being a strategy, of course, which any number of dubious people have had recourse to at various junctures in "our" and "other" histories.