THREAD: “But Bish, what about BlAcK oN bLaCk CrImE? Surely this movement should look at problems within the black community, too?”. Here’s a quick thread on how stupid you sound when you say these things, with the hope that you never ever say them again. Please like/share/RT.

There are common themes across the world for cities that experience high levels of crime. Race isn’t one of them but income inequality and relative deprivation is. The correlation between inequality in a city & violent crime is clear.

... And, importantly, the UK is among the “worst developed nations to be a child”, according to UNICEF, & significantly more unequal than the rest of Europe & other OECD countries. We're not doing great.

London holds 40% of the most affluent British households & of Britain’s poorest 10%, London makes up 30%. So clearly, there is a correlation between the inequality in London & levels of violent crime (as well as many health outcomes. For further reading check The Spirit Level).

Here's the issue. In diverse cities like London, inequality continues to be treated as of secondary importance to the fact that a small number of young, black boys will sometimes be involved in violent crime. Here, it is not inequality that is expressed in media interviews or...

...Met policing strategies, but that there is some criminality inherent within black people that makes them just love some violence. “It’s cultural”, or "their music is glorifying gangs so it makes sense" - ignorant justifications many will still use.

Here is a known racist, but some call historian, David Starkey, on the BBC claiming the London Riots was because white ppl have been taken over by a Black criminal culture rooted in Jamaican patois. (You can see why I take such issue with 'historians').

And here, in 1956, a white manager uses the black criminality myth to justify upholding the Colour Bar - a series of practices across major trades, buses, railways etc, to not hire black workers. Can you see the impact across UK history of upholding these myths?

Like the video shows, this myth predates Windrush (when MPs were investigating just how criminal Caribbean men were) but gained prominence during the rise of Thatcherism in the 70s & 80s & the need to respond to a civil unrest that arose from sharp rises in economic inequality.

Stuart Hall explains how the term ‘mugging’ was used in US to explain a 'new' type of crime involving violent street robberies. Mugging was presented as a key element in the break down of law &order in Britain and like in US, it was the black mugger who was used to symbolise it.

To protect YOU, blk kids were locked up w./out reason & with no victim, the only witness being the police who arrested them. Labelling helped racist structures like the Met & media produce 'evidence' of increasing black crime which in turn justified stronger policing measures.

In today’s LDN, where crime can be attributed to inequality, mental health & abuse, the black criminality myth is enabling policymakers to continue introducing authoritarian policing techniques aimed @ black boys - Sus Laws, Stop & Search, Joint Enterprise, & now the Gang Matrix.

Like mugging, the term ‘black-on-black’ normalised racism and helped white people buy into racism. There was even an entire Met Police force - Operation Trident which, for some time while it was operational, focused exclusively on black on black crime.

‘Gang crime’ is contemporary language for black on black. A study found that although black people total around 3% of the UK population, 7/10 stories involving violent crime featured young, black men, with little context or explanation for the reasons why the crime was committed.

The study also found that in many instances, the magnitude of knife crime as a contemporary social problem involving young, black boys was emphasised despite, very often, the circumstances of each story being completely different. Sympathy was only expressed if not in a ‘gang'.

For another example look no further than the policing of black culture. A 2019 report by DCMS found prejudicial treatment against black British music, expressing concern with racism & unfounded concerns from police & councils who would put pressure on venues cancel black shows.

The focus was once on Grime first, where the police used now banned ‘Form 696’ to prevent black artists from performing in venues. Today, with no answer for knife crime, The Mayor was able to get YouTube to remove 100 Drill songs from their channel. https://www.businessinsider.com/uk-drill-rap-videos-banned-by-police-2019-6?r=US&IR=T

But beyond logic, sometimes we need people to use some common sense instead of racist assumptions. In Glasgow, which has seen high levels of knife crime the media didn't emphasise the criminality of Glaswegian boys across the UK? That would be stupid, &that is how you sound.

Do you think that if a boy in the ends, that happens to be black, has beef with another boy from ends who is not black, he will choose not to beef because they're of a different race? “I’ve got beef with my man but I won’t because he's not black, only black on black for me”.

Aight, so in conclusion to this lengthy thread - the point is this. The small number of young, black boys involved in crime will far more often than not be victims of crime not pathologically evil. They need mental health support, care, safety from abuse & a lot of empathy & love

If you won’t challenge assumptions, many young, vulnerable black boys will continue to be criminalised before they've a chance to grow into men. Your screaming #blacklivesmatter while simultaneously pointing fingers and placing crosshairs is nothing but a slap in the face.

Black boys lay witness a media fetishisation of black gang violence and a liberal British society who consumes black culture, who wear black struggles as fashion statements but do not care enough to just sit, to listen and to understand them. This is why the protests must go on.

PS - none of this is intended to romanticise the black British experience. There are challenges we must face. This is about the importence of telling the whole story. It’s evidence of how myths and gaslighting only make our challenges harder to resolve.