[align=center]Blair blames spate of murders on black culture [/align]
[align=left]· 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".

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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". [/align]
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.

Mr Blair said there needed to be an "intense police focus" on the minority of young black Britons behind the gun and knife attacks.

Kinda scary when he said that, he literally said, ''There needs to an intence police focus on the minority of black britons' was more like a call to arms than anything else.

His remarks angered community leaders, who accused him of ignorance and failing to provide support for black-led efforts to tackle the problem.

Peeps seem to forget they're talking to the devil incarnate, Blair and his cronies aren't failing to do anything thats not in their intrest.Dem nah like we an a' we nah like dem. Is there any more to it than that? Enough of this beg friend business already.

i would like to congrulate u on yr piece on Tony Blairs speech in cardiff, i did read that newspaper headline yesterday, and that's why i felt i had to tell the users of this network about some of words he used to explain, about black on black culture.

The guardian is more politcally correct than some of the other newspapers, i am glad u have printed the full article.clp)

Don't thank me... thank the mysterious Stephan Henry.

Going through the speech text he also said "This is not a time for soundbites, for the hand of history is truly on our shoulder", and he was right. It really wasn't appropriate to deliver that soundbite,

But on a serious note;There is a certain ring of truth to this - there does seem to be an element within black youth culture that turns young people away from education and work as a means to escape poverty. This, combined with a youth culture that glorifies criminality and anti- social behaviour does the community no favours and exacerbates the problems.

I know alot of pple who went to a sh*t comp in a poor bit of London too - you still have the means to escape poverty, through getting an education or a job. Instead people seem to walk arond with a gargantuan chip on their shoulder. I heard a couple of kids n the bus the other day complaining that society "don't do nuffink" for people from "da ghetto". Where was this ghetto? Queensway, apparently again, I think this feeds a lot on rap and r'n'b culture, as lets be fair there arent muchghettoes in the UK in the sense that they exist in the US (that is, thatin UK there is the safety net of benefits so being poor doesn't equal destitute)

The fasciantion with 'respect' just baffles me. Get on any bus around here and there are groups of kids stinking the place out with fried chicken, playing music on their phones to annoy everyone else and gobbing on the floor. Yet in the event anyone challenges them over it, they harp on about not being shown 'respect'. What happened to the idea that in order to be respected by others, you need to show some respect for them too?

Shit, I feel like such an old codger. I have turned into my father.

Miles come on now....is the type of behaviour you're talking about restricted to JUST Black children..Did they really invent ASBO'sfor BLACK children or for 'problem' people within society?

Look I'm not trying be rose tinted about my own culture..I travel all over the UK as part of my work..so I can make the comparisons....and this AINT confined to BLACK children... What is puzzling is the spate of killings of young BLACK boys within LONDON... that does not appear to me to be a CULTURAL issue..but something far more pervasive....within that AGE group...

K

Marcus Garvey Lives posted something on how the so called black community leaders such as Rev Obunge and Lee Jasper angrily reacted to this speech. Nowlets not fool ourselves,anyone who styles themselves as a "community leader" is automatically suspect.

Its also worth knowing that it does seem to be a problem with African-Caribbean boys as opposed to girls as recent statistics show that Afro-Caribbean women are as a sector among the highest achievers in UK society.And its not about poverty either becauseif poverty is to blame, then no doubt they won't be wearing clothes worth more than I can afford. Or listening to those latest MP3 players or having mobile phones that costa fortuneetc. Hardly anyone in this country experiences true poverty. To be fair the PM should have notgone all the way with BLACK CULTURE thing...even though i often prefer AFRICAN CULTURE instead of BLACK CULTURE, since its sort of acceptable semantix in this contexti will go for it.

I agree that it is not 'Black Culture' that is the problem. especially in places in London which has a dynamic black community, church groups, West indian and african cuisine, strong black involvement in sports, active families, music etc. A lot of these things relate to various black cultures, their origins. But what the PM was talking about is the other so called 'black culture' thatcurrently revolves around the narcissism of the black male. Listen to explict rap lyrics - they are all "N..this N... that, i have this n that,ditch your woman and family when you want and believe you are justified in violence against someone who doesn't like your trainers.
The quote from 'White Men Can't Jump' is so true..."You don't mind losing as long as you look good doing it."

My opinion, it's starting to appear that Africans, Asians, Caribbean's, and any other people of colour or difference have a tendency to become the usual suspects of the enemy within. I dont ignore the yardie/50 Cent wannabees walking around strapped, or those that wont get a job and would rather sell crack, shoot people and sign-on. Neverthelss, its not just black youths that do it, and these recent incidents by no way prove that black people commit the majority of violent crime in London or the UK.

In 1976 the racist politician Enoch Powell publically described mugging as a black crime by black youths. In his earlier 'Rivers of Blood' speech he had done what credible politicians would not and linked black citizens to criminality and social problems, warning that the situation in the United States would happen in Britain. Like Blair, what Powell ignored was that not only black people commit crime and suffer social problems in USA.

Blair's 'gun crime' speech that would have made Enoch Powell proud. Like Powell, Blair is also considered to have broken taboo by calling for people to drop their political correctness and recognise that the violence would not be stopped "by pretending it is not young black kids doing it". Evidently he forgets that the black community is not responsible for the manufacture, supply and importation of dangerous weapons to the UK. Nor is it the responsibly of the black community to tackle the crime problem alone, particularly when Blair's govenment holds the guidelines and funds.

Nevertheless, in the same way that the government failed to prevent terrorism and therefore blamed it on us Muslims, it now blames violent crime on British Caribbean’s. Unfortunately, I suspect that as a result, the British National Party will become politically stronger as their racist agenda increasingly becomes main stream discourse.

Anyway, for what its worth, thats my 10 pence on the issue.

I suspect that as a result, the British National Party will become politically stronger as their racist agenda increasingly becomes main stream discourse.


Hmmmm.... they're entering a record number of politicians into elections and are ''cleaning'' up their act to come across as as a peoples national party. Thought Mr FredBlack had a good stratergy but it looks as though they're reforming and planning on befriending ethnic people in this country leading us into being ''British'' as the African Americans are ''American''.

Nazis pretending to be nice. Not good.

But on a serious note;There is a certain ring of truth to this - there does seem to be an element within black youth culture that turns young people away from education and work as a means to escape poverty.

Whos 'education'?... Whos 'work'? confused3

I think this feeds a lot on rap and r'n'b culture, as lets be fair there arent muchghettoes in the UK in the sense that they exist in the US (that is, thatin UK there is the safety net of benefits so being poor doesn't equal destitute)

Agree with your comments in general but what are the FACTORS involving that negative culture? People keep going on as though we should fly out to Harlem and stop them from rapping about whats around them on a daily basis... then fly out to Jamaica and tell them to stop making music about surviving in Spanish Town... you can't silence people like that the fact is that there are major league problems in those places and although I HATEmost of those rappers with a passion theres not one of them that dosen't have at leasta few tracks where they rap about the wrongs of whats going on around them and how messed up it is... not as though they're happy rhyming about their bwoy getting popped.

Andtheres no comparing the UK with the US, wehave theproblems some of their states suffer from but not as a country...Oh the houses look nice but with 6 people living inside and the council paying £50 a week rent they're not nice places to live in at all especially with people coming in from war torn countries and the Eastern block. Not to mention the ghettos up North, things are worse than you'd expect. The media has decided to focus on those stabbings because of their age and they're all in London most violent crime in general dosen't make the news.The English have a way of makingeverything look and sound nice. There are some estates out therethe police don't go into, trust me. That dyamn dole has broken more peoples spirits than any drug I swear.

We have to look atthe CAUSE the stabbings are the EFFECT.

Firstly, I don't think that we should be under any illusions- our comunities are in trouble. Yes other communities have troubles, so, it doesn't mean it is acceptable and herein lies the problem. What Mr Blair fails to understand is that the problem withsome black youth is attributed to the loss of their true culture. Gangsterism, violence, materialism, misogyny, immorality is definately not a cornerstone of Afrikan/black culture. We see the problems today because we have adapted the liberalism of the West, in affect, we have lost our culture. Co-operate Amerika has sought to glamorise and highlight some of the worst depictions of our community. So then the masses, inclusing ourselves thinks this si what Black people are about. the youth idolise those images because the ppl look like them.

There are over 800million Africoid people in the world for Mr Blair to ascertain that 'black culture' is what is in a 50 cent video is ridiculous to say the least. The problem is alot of us think this is who we are. Our values, ideas, respect in essence culture is changing and influenced all the time. Being exposed to other culture contaminates us. I won't be surprised if we see our ppl getting pissed every weekend and asfootball hooligans etc.

We need to think about how are we going to change our communities for the better. Manage and deal with the negative legacies and interations with a ppl who are our enemies.

Enough finger pointing, we need to overstand the problem and do something about it.

It is correct that gangsterism, violence, materialism, misogyny, immorality is definately not a cornerstone of Afrikan/black culture. But I dont think it is entirely correct that we see the problems today because we have adapted the liberalism of the West, or because we have lost our culture.

For many youths it is gangsterism, violence, materialism, misogyny, immorality is considered cool and this is the fault of many, including, parents, the media, politicians, the education system and the youths themselves. The important point that is not being recognised by Blair is that this is not exculsively a 'black' problem.

Yes we can encourage our sons, brothers, nephews, etc to begin to break away from the influences of the negative aspcets of Jamaican, American and British inner city culture in order to enhance their morality and character. But we can also encourage them to increasingly incorporate the good aspects of these cultures which should be enhanced with education, welfare, criminal justice and political reforms, etc. This is why this issue is far beyond the responsibility of the 'black community' alone.