Black [british] culture responsible f...

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Author Message   Yukio AALBC .com Platinum Poster Username: Yukio Post Number: 2256 Registered: 01-2004 Rating: N/A Votes: 0 (Vote!) Posted on Friday, April 13, 2007 - 10:39 am:        What is typical of whites in the US and too typical of them in England: yukio 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 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". 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.   Yukio AALBC .com Platinum Poster Username: Yukio Post Number: 2257 Registered: 01-2004 Rating: N/A Votes: 0 (Vote!) Posted on Friday, April 13, 2007 - 10:49 am:        A kick in the teeth from Tony Blair By Claudia Webbe Claudia is the chair of Positive Action Training. April 12, 2007 5:30 PM | Printable version Tony Blair's comment that the black community "need to be mobilised in denunciation of this gang culture that is killing innocent young black kids" is a kick in the teeth to five generations of the UK's black community and the countless foremothers and forefathers who fought for our freedom. In the absence of statutory provision, black voluntary, community and faith organisations had historically stepped up to the challenge to provide vital grassroots self-help organisations so as to meet the needs of our vulnerable children and young people and challenge inequality and racism. During the Thatcher years, these community-based resources, including supplementary and Saturday schools, were attacked and we slowly saw their depletion over time. The black community has long campaigned for sustainable resources and support and an involvement in the decision-making processes of grant-giving bodies. The response has been slow and patchy. Despite years of government inner-city regeneration, those that have benefited have invariably been white, including large multinational contractors, private equity groups and building companies. Black communities, historically, have not been part of mainstream provision, and the prime minister's comments are in danger of continuing this marginalisation. It has been the black community that has continuously campaigned for change and led the focus on tackling crime. The UK's own British Crime Survey over successive years for a number of decades has highlighted what we have long suspected: that it is black communities that are more likely to be victims of crime - from race hate crime, burglary and theft through to homicides and murder. The black community has certainly not been silent in its condemnation and fight against the UK's history of violence. Indeed, in London in 1996 it was the black community, so fed up with the police use of government sanctioned criminal informants who terrorised our communities, that established the Operation Trident Independent Advisory Group. We operated with very little support and resources in our attempt to tackle the gun crime that was disproportionately affecting our communities. Even then it wasn't until 2000 that the police and the Home Office agreed to the establishment of a dedicated police resource unit - too late for some of our young people. We radically transformed the way in which the police conduct their work, towards real community collaboration, engagement and partnership. Operation Trident is a clear example of community mobilisation and our preparedness to stand up to the "men of violence". The prime minister is wrong to assert or imply that this is a "black problem": the bullet does not discriminate in its effect, and neither is the black community responsible for the manufacture, supply and importation of dangerous weapons. The prime mnister's message, while delivering the Callaghan Memorial Lecture in Cardiff, contradicts the government's own findings in a recent Ofsted inspection report published this week entitled Narrowing the Gap. This identified continued failings in particular localities where vulnerable children and young people were falling through the net. The report, in criticising statutory services, highlighted that a significant minority of vulnerable children and young people, disproportionate numbers of whom are black, were suffering from negative outcomes and outputs and endure high levels of exclusions, and that service provision was not good enough. It called on local authorities and local councils to do more to address this "inequity". It revealed that in respect of children services "the most vulnerable and underachieving children and young people continue to be let down". The report concludes by stressing that local authorities need to do more to engage in targeted, integrated, well coordinated, multi-agency services based on real partnerships. The problem, it would seem, is that the government and local authorities have focused on providing, albeit to a high standard, broad universal services that have not been able to address particular needs. Vulnerable children and young people from, mainly, black communities have simply continued to miss out. The prime minister's "not in my backyard speech" to a willing audience of, mainly, white faces will only fuel separatism. And yet, as the government's own report states "the biggest challenge continues to be narrowing the gap in opportunities and outcomes".   Cynique "Cyniquian" Level Poster Username: Cynique Post Number: 8261 Registered: 01-2004 Rating: N/A Votes: 0 (Vote!) Posted on Friday, April 13, 2007 - 01:11 pm:        Same plot, different setting. And the Black saga continues.   Yukio AALBC .com Platinum Poster Username: Yukio Post Number: 2259 Registered: 01-2004 Rating: N/A Votes: 0 (Vote!) Posted on Friday, April 13, 2007 - 01:18 pm:        right. it is the same plot...   Chrishayden AALBC .com Platinum Poster Username: Chrishayden Post Number: 4113 Registered: 03-2004 Rating: N/A Votes: 0 (Vote!) Posted on Friday, April 13, 2007 - 01:49 pm:        A man helps invade another country and kills thousands and he has the nerve to open his mouth. This is what drives people crazy.