As regards Uncleji’s post about Bangladeshi youths now involved in criminality learning their skills in the anti fascist groups that confronted the NF and early BNP this is I am afraid a definite urban myth which needs to be debunked.

I was involved in organizing the first self defence groups in the east end in 1976. Various forms of these existed at times of heightened racial tension finally petering out in the early nineties.

As it seems the average age of Bangladeshi drug dealers and muggers is about twenty it is clear that non of those currently involved in criminality could have been a part of the self defence groups. The last Bangladeshis active in that movement are now in their thirties and the earliest are my age getting on for sixty.

Terry Fitz

If you really have to go down one of the alley’s then you had better learn to front it out and give them the decision as to whether they want to use a lot of energy in kicking your head in or wait for a better and weaker opportunity to present itself…

Personally I would choose the black kids, as experience as taught that they are less likely to be violent (but I wouldn’t really want to bet on it.) white kids tend to sense that there is something not quite “right” about me and would certainly want to say something which might lead to confrontation . I’ve never been called a “paki” “yid” or “Turkish bastard” -(none of which insults really apply in any way as far as I know, I guess they were feeling their way) by a black kid…

The point about punks in Brixton brings back memories. During the real slating of the black community by the tabloids in the late seventies most of the muggings I knew about were actually being done by a bunch of white, Scottish punks. How do I know? I couldn’t possible reveal that! I’m a nice civilised blogger now!

I’m not suggesting that a person sits there and works out probablilities but I’m saying they make a decision based on their fears or perceptions – that is the rational part.

Sunny, I think it’s understandable that a person would make this choice, though by any rational understanding, it is at least partly racist (i.e. overtly fearing or hating another group on the basis of their group membership). I think it’s understandable because these things are societally produced generally, not usually the product of a pathological individual. It’s okay to say that it’s not good to discriminate against Black teenagers against White teenagers while acknowledging that this is what many people do and it’s a social and personal issue. Whatever gets emphasized tends to be acted on. Otherwise, we should be more terrified of a car accident than hijackings, according to this chart from National Geographic.

This, additionally, is why it’s all the more important not to justify these behaviors in terms of rationality, but in terms of mercy and openness towards irrational human responses in a state of fear and terror. This is also a good reason why fear and terror are intrinsically productive of racist behavior. And it’s also a good reason to make sure you pick your news sources carefully. No sense in watching sensationalist and biased coverage of local crimes like most local TV news shows in the United States.

I’ve only been robbed once (13 years old at Kebab shop by big black guy who first showed me a giant scar across his chest, then told me he “aint going back ta prison” and then put a knife to my chest and told me to “hand it over, bruv”…what can I say……Croydon!

Funnily/sadly enough, this was in full view of the 2 kebab shop staff who watched it all and then didn’t even ask me If was ok afterwards. In fact, because I didn’t have my £20 anymore, they wouldn’t give me the kebabs for my family that I had just ordered.
pretty upsetting…….I was pretty hungry.

I learnt from my mistakes though, and the second time I was on the verge of getting mugged by a group of young black kids at night, I did the only thing that I thought would protect me….I acted like Dustin Hoffman from Rain man!

I kept shouting at myself and twitching in the hope they thought I was some kind of mutant freak!
Boy did it work! I never saw them again!
Insanity 1
Normality 0

…despite those 2 episodes, I’m not scared of black kids and groups at all anymore. It’s groups of white kids…and there is a pretty simple reason for this..

CCTV footage on BBC tends to show white teens doing crazy shit on young asian men! Like using them for target practise and shit! Chucking bottles at their head, doing the karate Kid 1 move on them, stamping on their face and basically acting like sadistic animals.
This kind of leads me to believe that those gung-ho chav groups have nothing to fear and are so off their heads, they would do anything for “a laff”

My main issue with hypocrisy is that it appears to be so deeply engrained and prevalent in most people that i know, that I find it hard to merely talk about it without falling into a state of despair..everyone talks about peace, justice and ‘respecting others’ but how often do people practically exemplify that in the course of their day? maybe I’m missing something, but it feels like everyone is an angel on Blogs writing about ultra-respectable tolerance and cohesion ETC, but then I wonder if they severly change their tne when they walk outside their rooms. Isn’t this the daddy of hypocracies?

Juggy/Terry Fitz – really perceptive points, which flow in with what Sonia was saying about everything being about ‘race relations’.
It’s something that needs addressing (oops! more race relations!) because it feels like many Asians live in a giant multi-storey mansion, and yet spend all our time locked up in one room.

isn’t this human nature? we tend to talk more with people that do the same job as us (rather than other departments) tend to have friends that share our sense of humour (so…does your dad beat you up too?) and most confidently discuss topics we are actively connected to and can express an opinion about?

I’m not making myself terribly clear… but are many Asians perhaps guilty of endlessly banging their own drum for the sake of themselves? and therefore isn’t that hypocricy too?

Incidently the reason why Asians aren’t as well behaved in Tower Hamlets are because they had to organise themselves gangs to protect themselves against racist attack, like punjabis did in southall in the 1970′s. Only problem was some young Bengali learnt the lessons of violence too well.

There is no crime i haven’t thought of committing, no community that i haven’t thought of destroying and no sexual act that i haven’t dreamt of doing.

If thought crimes existed, id be in for life.

And yet im sane and happily walk alongside the fluffy bunnies because even i know comparing instinctual and stress induced emotions to rational consideration is nuts.

If a bunch of white/black/brown boys get on the train im travelling on and theres been recent trouble there am i going to feel nervous? yes! the rationality of my opinion is skewed because im probably shitting myself. My feelings may be irrational but they can still be understandable that doesn’t mean however that ill order them off the train or pre-emptively karate kick them in the nuts.

Without taking a nice considered view of everything over a glass of something nice im likely to be thinking of buggering you senseless before stealing your wallet and killing your people. And damnit i don’t care.

So all of you walk about with positive vibes eh?

loons.

Read an hilarious article in Easter Eye about Indians around West London, mostly Punjabi men in the building trade, complaining about the Polish people taking all the employment and jobs, and behaving badly and not fitting in – hilarious! Ironic for sure, but I take it as a sign of integration — if you feel British enough to be offended when ‘outsiders’ are offending your civic sense you’re an Englishman, my son.

El Cid – I think that is the nub of the issue. But there’s a problem here. Is the bad public services and congestion a result of bad management by the govt and under-investment or over-crowding?

For example in Barking/Dagenham this year during the Local Elections the racists started spreading lies that Africans were being paid 50,000 pounds to move into the area into housing – thus depriving white working classes of housing.

This was patently false. Similarly – I find that most ‘grievances’ conjured up by these serial complainers are more to do with Labour incompetence rather than immigration. That is where the real issue lies.

in any case all statistics are open to very dubious interpretation. sorry to say this, but its usually pseudo-scientists that rabbit on about statistics.

Hi Leon and Sahil. I take your point. Perhaps using the word ‘rational’ gives the wrong impression. I’m not suggesting that a person sits there and works out probablilities but I’m saying they make a decision based on their fears or perceptions – that is the rational part.

It is ‘rational’ as such to worry about a gang of drunk skinheads coming towards you as it is to worry about a gang of hooded black youths. More than say a bunch of old ladies coming towards you. My point is that such quick calculations of the mind are not wrong nor do they expose hypocrisy. They do however expose people getting easily bogged down by perceptions.

if we don’t have enough choices, obviously there will be more hypocrisy rather than less. if ken wants us to be environmentally friendly and not drive cars, then he needs to think about the flip side – providing good public transport. if the govt. is serious about the environment ( and id like to see dear David wriggling out of this in the future) then sorry they must needs do something about the shocking state of the rail industry – particularly shocking since the so-called efficiency gains of the privatization never materialized. Things got worse if that were possible. HA HA. Only the muggins of this country insist on riding up and down in trains ( like me) when others are driving past. CAN YOU BLAME THEM? no – why? because there aren’t very many choices realistic choices for most people. i can manage to go on trains now and buses – what about the day when i can’t manage it so easily?

as an environmentalist it’s a hard thing to have to face but if im honest obviously there will come a time when its not going to be so easy for me.

and back to the business about degrees of hypocrisy – let’s think about the environment – anyone can say lots of different things. again it’s going to come back to the various points along a spectrum of different people’s perceptions of luxury and necessity. it’s not so straightforward all the time is it? in the old old days central heating was a luxury. It takes a lot of energy but who’s suggesting everyone in Britain switch their heating off completely? no one yet as far as i can see – but they might.= we humans breathe out CO2 – has anyone yet suggested mass suicide? probably not.

someone could come along and say well unless we’re willing to a) not have any children b) never switch the heating on c) always take cold showers and d) top ourselves so we don’t breathe out CO2 –> that we’re all hypocrites

And in some sense – they’d be right – obviously. So then what? it comes back down to choices. And thinking responsibly where one can, and ‘minimizing’ one’s impact on the Earth and living sustainably where possible. Unfortunately, actually making the ‘where possible’ easy doesn’t seem to be that high on our governments’ minds – so then what is everyone to do. ken keeps rabbiting on about making recycling compulsory across London – but has he seen some of the apalling services provided by some of the London Boroughs? CLearly not. NO plastics recyling in 90% of the Borough – no easy ways to re-use anything. All this excess packaging when many consumers have indicated it’s not important to them. Ah well. SO back to the point at hand – not focusing on the things it is easier to sort out rather than leaving a bunch of individuals to make difficult choices when they haven’t got too many options. oh its very easy to do that – and then only the muggins will be doing without this or that etc. and what changes? nothing much. people just poke each other about how hypocritical they are and fat lot of good that does.

So what have Outkast, Kanye West, Tribe called Quest, even Grandmaster Flash and Furious Five, actually done?

most people who constantly have the race card on their mind would suggest any social discrimination that involves people with different skin colours as racist.

of course everyone has different ways of rationalizing things

“Racism would be when you think black people are genetically or socially inferior, or more likely to be criminals regardless of socio-economic factors.”

yep – and that kind of thinking has been rationalized as well! all sorts of scientists in the old days suggested that it was rational to think that black people aren’t very clever as a race based on extrapolating results from the Stanford -Binet intelligence test. Nazis ‘rationalized’ their actions.

Minefield to go down but very brave of you.

oh yeah – and your usage of psychological vs. social – sorry what happens to ‘social pscyhology’ in this ‘distinction’? does any conceptualization of the social not involve a psychological process? were you perhaps referring to a particular form of social understanding ( which would also be pscyhological in any case) sorry for being so pedantic.

talking about ‘Good Liberals’ – is starting to sound rather religious to me and along the lines of this is what Good Christians do. frankly, i know this will be coming across as some sort of postmodern ‘hogwash’ and possibly nihilistic sort of thinking and deconstruction- but i can’t see that we humans are at all consistent. unless that’s in our inconsistency.