Tottenham riots

I'm not sure about generalising everyone that way, it sounds a bit Daily Mail, but yeah of course you can blame them, they should know better or they deserve to be arrested. The problem with demonstrations and riots is that they aren't as cohesive as they are portrayed to be. I was wandering through the no more cuts protests a few months ago and it was obvious that everyone was protesting for very different things, what sort of message actually gets sent? Even more so in a spontaneous riot, there is always a core thing triggering it but more and more of the riot becomes about the police response and then people just like smashing stuff too but it all gets adhered to some central point which gives a very odd interpretation if you try and say what that riot was about.

lol

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/8687978/London-riots-Looting-and-violence-spreads.html

Those crazy looting kids trying on clothes before they steal them, just to make sure they fit

I mean ffuuuu, those kids look like they are about 10 years old. They dont know what the fuck they are doing. Mindless thieving and disorder perhaps because someone older told them they could get away with it this weekend? Thats it kids, your faces are now all over the media and you now have a criminal record (if you didnt already....).

Events like this weekend really are great for race relations

yeah i know i'm using sweeping generalisations here but i think they're very fitting in this instance. your point about the anti-cuts protests brings up some intersting questions - in those protests there were exponetially more people, with a very legitimate gripe, yet there was no riot. sure there were building occupations and general misbehaviour, but nothing so violent and malicious as what happened in tottenham. what's the obvious difference between the two? sorry, but for fuck's sake these things need to be addressed and ideally rectified once and for all.

It's clear that these riots are no longer about any other cause than 'steal that shit'. The original protest outside the police-station may well have been crashed by more militant members of the black community, but the subsequent looting is organised and carried out by young, politically ignorant, males*.

Now, here we go, it's summer. These kids have either left school and have, after a few months of freedom, realised they have no jobs and little prospects... Or they're about to go back to school or college.

As much as hoodies are singularly sought out by the police and clearly feel victimised, I believe these riots are as much an expression of boredom and financial-hopelessness as anything anti-authoritarian. These guys are going after the products they want to buy, but which their society hasn't granted them the opportunity to earn.

I like the idea of these riots. A forgotten generation acting out violently, but it's sad that their anger is directed at the businesses in which their parents most likely work.

*Note, I'm not saying black males. The photos of Saturday night’s riots included a lot of black faces, but from Sunday night I can see just as many, if not more, young white faces.

  On 8/8/2011 at 12:31 PM, BCM said:

yes I can blame them and I do - nobody "fucked them over", most of the problems they're supposedly angry about are of their own making and in their own power to rectify - this is exactly the problem in fact, these people are apparently just generally angry about unemployment and all the usual stuff, except they refuse to get a job if it's not what they think they want (usually something wholly unrealistic they are not remotely qualified for) - "I ain't fucking doing that" is their attitude a lot of the time...but they're happy to fucking collect benefits every week and go round robbing other people of the money and goods they have legitimately earnt.

I completely agree with you - and by "these people" I am not at all pigeon-holing this down to a specific racial group (even though the rioters involved this weekend seem to all be black). In fact, I just found an interesting article which helps to deal with the racial issues and non-definitions used by the media this weekend....

  On 8/8/2011 at 2:00 PM, Gary C said:

 

*Note, I'm not saying black males. The photos of Saturday night’s riots included a lot of black faces, but from Sunday night I can see just as many, if not more, young white faces.

Young white faces from eastern europe.....?

wiggers

  On 8/8/2011 at 1:58 PM, BCM said:

yeah i know i'm using sweeping generalisations here but i think they're very fitting in this instance. your point about the anti-cuts protests brings up some intersting questions - in those protests there were exponetially more people, with a very legitimate gripe, yet there was no riot. sure there were building occupations and general misbehaviour, but nothing so violent and malicious as what happened in tottenham. what's the obvious difference between the two?

Well yeah but a bunch of shop windows got smashed for no reason at all. I see what you're getting at but that protest also had some organisation to it, had been announced weeks before, and there was a sort of route and agreed police presence etc, and it was about government policy. This one was about a killing which gets to peoples emotions in a very different way, and it was about the police. In other protests they end up being a surrogate enemy to take the flack for the MPs who obviously aren't there to be shouted at, this time the police are actually what the people are upset about in the first place. It has certain ingredients that make things escalate including what you said.

  On 8/8/2011 at 2:04 PM, feltcher said:

  On 8/8/2011 at 2:00 PM, Gary C said:

 

*Note, I'm not saying black males. The photos of Saturday night’s riots included a lot of black faces, but from Sunday night I can see just as many, if not more, young white faces.

 

Young white faces from eastern europe.....?

 

  On 8/8/2011 at 2:12 PM, BCM said:

wiggers

I'm thoroughly disappointed in you both.

what, for saying wigger? lol, lighten up man...

  On 8/8/2011 at 10:16 AM, BCM said:

lol africans

'twas a bit of a watmm meme once i believe...but if you're determined to find offence in what i say then so be it.

*orders taxi to Camden*

*sets fire to taxi whilst on way to camden*

Hi guys,

Ive still not been destroyed by rioting yet.

Thank God I live in Stratford, where nothing like this could ever happen.

Only pussy boroughs don't riot.

apparently catford and bromley are rioting tonight...

  On 8/8/2011 at 2:00 PM, Gary C said:

It's clear that these riots are no longer about any other cause than 'steal that shit'. The original protest outside the police-station may well have been crashed by more militant members of the black community, but the subsequent looting is organised and carried out by young, politically ignorant, males*.

 

Now, here we go, it's summer. These kids have either left school and have, after a few months of freedom, realised they have no jobs and little prospects... Or they're about to go back to school or college.

As much as hoodies are singularly sought out by the police and clearly feel victimised, I believe these riots are as much an expression of boredom and financial-hopelessness as anything anti-authoritarian. These guys are going after the products they want to buy, but which their society hasn't granted them the opportunity to earn.

 

I like the idea of these riots. A forgotten generation acting out violently, but it's sad that their anger is directed at the businesses in which their parents most likely work.

 

*Note, I'm not saying black males. The photos of Saturday night’s riots included a lot of black faces, but from Sunday night I can see just as many, if not more, young white faces.

Well put.

I'm staging a one man riot in my underpants.

Hackney's turn

i'm gonna try and kick it off in wimbledon village tonight... go stage a protest about the quality of kumquats in waitrose lately or something.

I might maliciously litter on the platform at Stratford International next week just to piss off Iain, and then speed away at a billion miles an hour

I am going to comment on the slightly sub-par quality of someones Wisteria in Chelsea.

Watch the shit really hit the fan.

There's a lot of noise on Twitter about riots in Stratford tonight. I'm sceptical because the whole thing seems like a load of Chinese whispers, but according to my housemate all the local shops have shut anyway. I just hope I can make it home after going to the cinema after work without having my route impeded by road/station closures etc.

The great irony is, there's absolutely nothing in Stratford worth looting.