Anyone like to reconsider what they posted about the train attack on Saturday night?

Black men are disproportionately arrested and charged with drugs offences. Drug use is just as prevalent in white male populations.

I was also pondering if weed/skunk (whatever it’s called now) is more prevalent in this demographic? I used to listen to a lot of psychologist and psychiatrist led talks that discussed the rising problem with mental health disorders and the much stronger weed resins available. I’m not saying they are the cause but are they contributing?

Also I’ve seen ASD being mentioned as a condition in a few of these extreme violence cases now and I wondered if certain individuals with low empathy and niche interests (such as knives, weapons, gore and horror) could flag early if people could get more involved with the profiling side.

Thank you very much for the work that you do and for posting Lostthebubblewand

This absolutely is happening. Look at the recent spate of faux-innocent ‘I’d like to move back to the UK/London but I’ve heard it’s terribly dangerous, is that true?’ threads. There is a concerted attempt underway to undermine our democracy and foment ethnic tensions.

I work in mental health services and the one demographic I feel we fail are black men. If you look at the stats, black men are more likely to be detained, more likely to be put on community treatment orders, more likely to be flagged as high risk. An example; two people with delusions, one was a 19 year old black man with no prior violent behaviour who shouted ‘I’m gunna shank (kill) you’ at his mum on the phone in a moment of rage. One white woman who was working in a nursery at the time who disclosed lots of violent fantasy’s and command hallucinations, can you guess who was flagged as high risk? The black man. Obviously it was raised that the woman was far more high risk!

Unconscious bias is everywhere.
Not to mention that we have no black male staff working in our community mental health team. There’s only been one male black member of staff recruited as long as I’ve worked here.

Being black in Britain is stressful. I fully believe in the stress model for mental illness/ psychosis as well as genetics and trauma. Yet our services are elitist and you have to want to engage. It’s only after Southport that mental health teams have been told we need to be more curious before discharging people for non engagement.
We expect people to open up and tell us everything in rushed 20 minute appointments in a central base, near impossible to get to without a car. Then if you’re late we don’t see you.
The whole system is designed for middle class people who talk freely and want to engage.
What we need is more community led hubs with peers and culturally appropriate professionals, at least 50% who are male. All the research shows that mental health service users want to receive care from people they can relate to.
Why would a young black male open up to me, a middle class white woman with two kids? Especially in a 20 minute appointment, oh and then he’ll be passed to someone different next time and then again in two months…
Its just not working

There are very likely to also be paid shills spreading extremist right wing lies and shit stirring on the site at the moment. Same as with the run up to Brexit on here. I don’t know how MN deals with this, but with elections known to be interfered with, the ways it’s frequently denied by other posters that this is happened and/or assumed that the Left of politics must be doing it too, is ludicrous.

I’d like to take this opportunity to reiterate my gratitude to those who behaved so bravely on the night and for the police for catching the bloke with the knife so quickly

The racist and the scared ignorant posting shows how deeply entrenched the scaremongering and division has got. We’re being conned as a society to mistrust and hate each other.

Obviously we don’t know the full picture yet in this one case. But it looks like it could be a case of mental health and neglect. I’m going to assume for now the perpetrator had extreme mental illness and was not being cared for . When that happens we never see a big outcry and more NHS money to securely help people who are at risk of violent psychosis and can’t manage their own medication or whatever the risky scenario might be.

What has happened before is that an individual social worker or hospital might be named as at fault. A report might be written. But there isn’t ever a major change to what goes on really. That leaves people who might become future perpetrators and future victims very vulnerable.

The fact that this guy might have been responsible for multiple stabbing over a few days without being stopped.. was he really not on anyone’s list to check up on? That seems unlikely and we known how stretched services have become since 2010 ausyeruty which we’ve never recovered from. I might be wrong of course in this one case, we don’t know the full picture. But it’s extremely worrying in general.

Agree with this. There have been so many fake posts about autism (particularly children) that have just been plain nasty. And yes, why should they be relying on posters to complain? We had one fake on last night about a colleague getting a mobility car for her autistic child who could do all of these things other NT children could. Of course it was bullshit and a blatant attempt to spread misinformation because to qualify for one you need to be virtually unable to walk or have a severe mental impairment which means you you someone with you at all times. I think if several of us didn't call it our for bullshit it would have stayed up.

Just checked and Jonathon Gjoshe is paid exactly £0 a week to play for Scunthorpe.

perhaps @AnAlpacaForChristmasPleaseSanta and @Sylvie56 would like to apologise for disparaging him?

https://salarysport.com/football/national-league/scunthorpe-united/

Scunthorpe United are a national league team. He’d be lucky to even make minimum wage.

I’d imagine that it’s Scunthorpe United fans mainly donating to that one, as well as fans of the other team he plays for.

Samir will no doubt be paid in full by the train company while he is off sick the Scunthorpe player won’t be paid by the team while he’s not playing. They’re semi-pro at that level.

I assume that instead of writing disgusting comments on social media you’re also donating to the fundraiser for Samir?

To be fair, I really don't think a Scunthorpe footballer earns very much at all - especially as he isn't a regular first team player. He may well earn the same as a train guard, maybe less.

I am also not keen on victim Olympics.
But, on a side note, he's of Albanian heritage.

Pitting races against each other, as some have done, to try to suggest all aggressors are from ethnic minorities (when disappointingly not brown and Muslim then black and Jamaican will do as probably a Yardie) and all victims as white British is never wise .

Mine will

I’m sure your donation will top up Samir’s fund.

It’s strange that acknowledging a person’s courage, in a way that challenges stereotypes, is somehow being twisted into a bad thing.

What ‘stereotypes’ would those be then?

The stereotyping I see is from the ‘liberal left’ (for want of a better label) accusing others of slating ALL Muslims/black people/immigrants etc when that is absolutely not the case. I don’t actually see any one saying ALL members of a particular group do bad things, I certainly don’t.

I have taken particular pains to repeatedly spell out the fact that Not All Muslims/black peoples/brown people etc do <insert topic> Because there are many people on these threads who seem deafened by their own self righteousness and always manage to miss that bit.

like they could be a Muslim makes some people uncomfortable, but that discomfort says more about them than about my comment.

You are writing in response to my post so it sounds like you are implying that I might feel uncomfortable about that. Except you have literally no idea who I am, my family background or feelings on the heroism of the people fighting back against the knife man. Talk about lazy and negative stereotypes. 🙄

Thanks @Cleikumstovies , I took a look at the criteria on that form, and it seems only someone directly involved in the incident can make the nomination.

So I hope his colleagues or the police or someone thinks of this.

And who probably earns about 7 times as much from his day job too 🙄.

I may have missed something, but it seems like the Go Fund Me for the footballer who got his leg slashed, is doing about 7 times better than the one for the Train Crew guy Samir.

What a pathetic country we live in.

Of course
it must be the most intense terror when you are trapped. Run to the front of the train then there is nowhere else to go

I didn't post anything but I hope all the injured people make swift recoveries & are not mentally scarred. Horrible incident.

I know the definition of terrorism, but the experience for the victims would have been exactly the same regardless of his motivation.

AhWeNoss ·
"My comment was clearly the latter. I pointed out that the train worker had a Muslim-sounding name because it completely undercuts the usual bigoted narratives that surface after incidents like this (and yes, I did initially assume he’s Muslim but I changed that thinking soon after as realised his name alone does not make him a Muslim. I actually challenged my own assumption). That’s not sowing division. That’s exposing it."

Absolutely agree. No Samir's name did not automatically make him a Muslim as that particular first name is used by Arab Christians as well. In fact my Egyptian Muslim husband's closest friend is a Palestinian Christian named Samir.

Not sure what you're up to @Swiftasthewind , but you seem to be inventing stuff now. It is not a "false narrative" to state that grooming gangs exist.

The answer to people attempting to spread misinformation is not to spread more misinformation but in an opposite direction.

Yep. Quite obvious really