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This is culled from BalckBritain newsletter. Its an interesting
reading, as lately we(Blacks in Britain) are going through that cycle again,
when we lock horns with the media and the police.
Enjoy
Manneh
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Title: Fear of the Black man
Dated: 11/03/2002
Author: Simon Woolley
As a Black man when the vast majority of Fleet Street press simultaneously wax
lyrical about you, and it’s nothing to do with your sporting prowess, you
suspect something is desperately wrong.
Mike Best, editor of The Voice, must have had that nauseating feeling after
three days of a media storm in which he was its reluctant hero. Best, publicly
lamented about the criminality on London streets, particularly ‘Black gun
crime’, and without qualifying his words stated, ‘We may need to think about
increasing the levels of Police Stop and search'. And with those few unguarded,
unqualified words Mike Best opened up the flood gates of bigotry, and
stereotype that would once again demonise Black youths.
It mattered little when he did qualify his first statement to argue: 'Of course
any increase in ‘stop and search’ must be 'intelligence led'. Sections of the
media had already got what they wanted: a prominent Black man who they would
wilfully misinterpret as wanting, like them, crude blanket policing that twenty
years ago alienated and angered a generation of Black youths. The conviction
of ‘So Solid Crew’ member Ashley Walters, for carrying a loaded gun only added
to their righteous indignation of Black youths.
This media calamity is a tremendous blow for Briton's Black communities. Black
Britons have been desperate to clean up the streets of crime for some time now.
There are brave initiatives such as Operation Trident which have embarked on a
honest and frank discussions with Black activist, community workers, local
people and the police in a bid to effectively tackle crime. All agree that a
criminal is a criminal is a criminal, Black or white. They also agree that
the ‘hammer to crack a nut’ approach to policing the problem was neither
effective nor helped to build police/community relations.
It’s all well and good for supporters of the crude ‘Stop and Search’ policies
to say, ‘If you’ve nothing to hide you’ve nothing to fear’, but if you are
thrown up against the wall by the police and you dare protest, you could, like
many a young Black man, find yourself in the back of a police van, beaten and
charged with assault on a police officer. It happens. I’ve witnessed it first
hand when my friend Raymond Pyatt was arrested. He was lucky the jury believed
our version of events. Others have not been so fortunate and had their lives
destroyed.
In hijacking this complex debate, sections of Fleet Street have dragged it back
to the dark days of the 1980 ‘Sus laws’ (when the colour of skin was the main
factor for being stopped by the police) and in doing so have highlighted their
latent fear of the Black man - a fear which until now has only bubbled beneath
the surface. It is this fear that has labelled generations of animated Black
school children as aggressive. Even in later life if a Black person dare show
any passion in debate or discussion they are branded, quick as flash, an ‘angry
Black man or woman’. Anything you say thereafter is dismissed as irrational.
The language of the press over the last few days has also demonstrated at best
a lack of understanding of Black people and at worst a gross lack of respect.
Top of the list must be the Telegraph who headlined a leading article by Janet
Daley, ‘The blacks we betrayed…’ Further on in her uninvestigative journalism
she points to ‘the mean streets of Brixton where the terror is really out of
control’. And to add to her notion of a ‘murderous, gun-crazy, gangland,’ (all
her words) she labels it ‘Black on Black crime’. When was the last time you
heard ‘white on white crime’ or ‘Chinese on Chinese crime’? Exactly - never.
This notion of ‘Black on Black’ crime ignores basic criminality by one person
on another, and instead conjures up a picture of a barbaric people who are
determined to destroy each other.
When this media frenzy finally subsides the challenge for all of us are three
fold: First, deal effectively, and proportionately with criminals whoever they
are; secondly, as has been promised but not delivered, deal with the causes of
crime: poverty, depravation and little hope; and, finally, that we all have the
good grace to distinguish criminals from community, animated behaviour from
aggressive behaviour, and troubled areas from murderous, gun crazy, mean
streets.
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