Well, he pretty much says what everyone else is thinking. Kudos to him for his frankness and willingness to identify the elephant in the room... http://www.guardian.co.uk/frontpage/story/0,,2055148,00.html Blair blames spate of murders on black culture · Political correctness not helping, says PM · Community leaders react angrily to comments Patrick Wintour and Vikram Dodd Thursday April 12, 2007 The Guardian Tony Blair yesterday claimed the spate of knife and gun murders in London was not being caused by poverty, but a distinctive black culture. His remarks angered community leaders, who accused him of ignorance and failing to provide support for black-led efforts to tackle the problem. One accused him of misunderstanding the advice he had been given on the issue at a Downing Street summit. Black community leaders reacted after Mr Blair said the recent violence should not be treated as part of a general crime wave, but as specific to black youth. He said people had to drop their political correctness and recognise that the violence would not be stopped "by pretending it is not young black kids doing it". Blair blames spate of murders on black culture · Political correctness not helping, says PM · Community leaders react angrily to comments Patrick Wintour and Vikram Dodd Thursday April 12, 2007 The Guardian Tony Blair yesterday claimed the spate of knife and gun murders in London was not being caused by poverty, but a distinctive black culture. His remarks angered community leaders, who accused him of ignorance and failing to provide support for black-led efforts to tackle the problem. One accused him of misunderstanding the advice he had been given on the issue at a Downing Street summit. Black community leaders reacted after Mr Blair said the recent violence should not be treated as part of a general crime wave, but as specific to black youth. He said people had to drop their political correctness and recognise that the violence would not be stopped "by pretending it is not young black kids doing it". Article continues It needed to be addressed by a tailored counter-attack in the same way as football hooliganism was reined in by producing measures aimed at the specific problem, rather than general lawlessness. Mr Blair's remarks are at odds with those of the Home Office minister Lady Scotland, who told the home affairs select committee last month that the disproportionate number of black youths in the criminal justice system was a function of their disproportionate poverty, and not to do with a distinctive black culture. Giving the Callaghan lecture in Cardiff, the prime minister admitted he had been "lurching into total frankness" in the final weeks of his premiership. He called on black people to lead the fight against knife crime. He said that "the black community - the vast majority of whom in these communities are decent, law abiding people horrified at what is happening - need to be mobilised in denunciation of this gang culture that is killing innocent young black kids". Mr Blair said he had been moved to make his controversial remarks after speaking to a black pastor of a London church at a Downing Street knife crime summit, who said: "When are we going to start saying this is a problem amongst a section of the black community and not, for reasons of political correctness, pretend that this is nothing to do with it?" Mr Blair said there needed to be an "intense police focus" on the minority of young black Britons behind the gun and knife attacks. The laws on knife and gun gangs needed to be toughened and the ringleaders "taken out of circulation". Last night, British African-Caribbean figures leading the fight against gang culture condemned Mr Blair's speech. The Rev Nims Obunge, chief executive of the Peace Alliance, one of the main organisations working against gang crime, denounced the prime minister. Mr Obunge, who attended the Downing Street summit chaired by Mr Blair in February, said he had been cited by the prime minister: "He makes it look like I said it's the black community doing it. What I said is it's making the black community more vulnerable and they need more support and funding for the work they're doing. ... He has taken what I said out of context. We came for support and he has failed and has come back with more police powers to use against our black children." Keith Jarrett, chair of the National Black Police Association, whose members work with vulnerable youngsters, said: "Social deprivation and delinquency go hand in hand and we need to tackle both. It is curious that the prime minister does not mention deprivation in his speech." Lee Jasper, adviser on policing to London's mayor, said: "For years we have said this is an issue the black community has to deal with. The PM is spectacularly ill-informed if he thinks otherwise. "Every home secretary from [David] Blunkett onwards has been pressed on tackling the growing phenomenon of gun and gang crime in deprived black communities, and government has failed to respond to what has been a clear demand for additional resources to tackle youth alienation and disaffection". The Home Office has already announced it is looking at the possibility of banning membership of gangs, tougher enforcement of the supposed mandatory five-year sentences for possession of illegal firearms, and lowering the age from 21 to 18 for this mandatory sentence. Answering questions later Mr Blair said: "Economic inequality is a factor and we should deal with that, but I don't think it's the thing that is producing the most violent expression of this social alienation. "I think that is to do with the fact that particular youngsters are being brought up in a setting that has no rules, no discipline, no proper framework around them." Some people working with children knew at the age of five whether they were going to be in "real trouble" later, he said. Mr Blair is known to believe the tendency for many black boys to be raised in families without a father leads to a lack of appropriate role models. He said: "We need to stop thinking of this as a society that has gone wrong - it has not - but of specific groups that for specific reasons have gone outside of the proper lines of respect and good conduct towards others and need by specific measures to be brought back into the fold." The Commission for Racial Equality broadly backed Mr Blair, saying people "shouldn't be afraid to talk about this issue for fear of sounding prejudiced". Mr Blair spoke out as a second teenager was due to appear in court charged with the murder of 14-year-old Paul Erhahon, stabbed to death in east London on Friday. He was the seventh Londoner under 16 to be murdered since the end of January, and his 15-year-old friend, who was also stabbed, remains in hospital.
Yeah, Tony Blair is such a simpleton... A guy named Vikram wrote the article. Aren't you Indian/Bangladeshi?
Just purely on personal and anecdotal evidence, I've never known a city quite like London with regards to perceptions of crime among city-dwellers. In London, its generally accepted that anyone could knife/shoot/mug you in a dark alley, but most people normally will be more fearful if its a youth coming at them, particularly wearing a hooded sweatshirt. A fear of young men certainly exists, but its a broad-based fear across races. There really isn't a sense of fear of black people in particular, mainly because there's plenty of other poor people who could do it. What I think Blair was trying to say in his own awkward way is that the violence in London can somehow be attributed to an invasion of African-American culture. This is something London people genuinely believe. They go so far as to ban hoodies in public areas for that reason. What the article doesn't get at, however, is that just about all the youth in London adopt that culture, and it's just as inauthentic when a Kenyan-Londoner adopts it as it is when a white or South Asian kid adopts it. It's an irrational fear based more upon old traditional xenophobia and fear of the "other" than anything based on race. I know when I lived in London, I was always more concerned of being stabbed and mugged by some skinheads from North England and Midlands or something than anything else...but that might just be me.
thanks for some insight from a person who actually lived there, as opposed to the threadstarter who claims he knows this subject is the elephant in the room in London.
Poverty is not an excuse for crime. There are plenty of third world nations with their people living in worst conditions than anything poor people in the West could ever experience. Despite all that, crime rates are often much lower.
is anyone actually reading this article? the article seems to be about a specific crime wave going on in some london neighborhood between some gangs since January. he isn't making some sweeping statement on black crime across the globe.
Wow. A political leader that isn't afraid of offending the thought police? They still exist? You have my props, Mr. Blair. (and yes, I'm a black man.)
I don't know enough about London to comment on how much substance Tony Blair's statement has but I am skeptical when the person he cites for influencing his thinking on it comes out and says Blair misquoted him.
Whether its offending the thought police or not the issue is whether he can back it up. As I said in other threads there are a lot of problems with PC but at the same time the critics of PC though are falling into the same pitfalls that they accuse PC of. The idea that just because someone says something that is un-PC and offends the politically correct doesn't give it anymore validity than if someone says something that is considered PC.
A lot of misinterpretation is Blair's fault. As eloquent as the guy sounds with his BBC English accent, he really mishandled this issue. For one thing, calling it black culture is somewhat absurd considering the diversity of black people in that city. He could have easily said it was a culture endemic to the area where all the violence has occurred.
The culture and poverty can't be seperated. But not all poor cultures resort to gang violence - so there is a tie-in that goes beyond poverty. In any case, it seems that a two prong appraoch - one cultural, one economic is needed there. It does require the black community to stop playing the victim card though. Take responsibility - I think that's a message that would do more good than crying foul.
