I'm so fucking angry. My poor neighbour daren't go to work because of the thugs.

[alrightluv]

Just been talking to my neighbour. He and his family are Nigerian. They haven't been here that long. Both work. They have small dcs.
He's had to take today off work as he works in a town that's been targeted and he's scared to travel.

I'm in tears I'm so angry. Those bastards wouldn't know how to fucking spell work. Luckily I got inside before I broke down. Dh is also teary. They're the loveliest family. I'm genuinely scared for my African neighbours. There's a lot of families moved here from the south because of a housing shortage. All of them that I've met are decent lovely people. Wish I could say the same for a lot of people who are from here.

We're broken aren't we? What the fuck is to be done?

And the New York Times headline is

ANTIRACISM PROTESTS IN BRITAIN

Though to be fair, about two-thirds of the way down the article does mention that the reason people were on the streets was opposing riots against the deaths of three children, which had beenattributed to an immigrant.

Sigh. Isn't it meant to be the Paper of Record, or something?

Not sure if anyone has posted this but I find it astonishing. It’s starting to look like a lot of the people involved were just opportunists. Two of those charged were a gay couple who allegedly hate the far right. They are claiming they saw some disorder occurring in the streets and just joined in!

Steven Mailen, 54, and Ryan Sheers, 29, became involved with a mob on Murray Street which had gathered to target homes used by asylum seekers, Teesside Crown Court heard.
The pair's lawyer said both men "despised" right-wing ideology and as gay men had spent their lives confronting prejudice, adding they were just trying to get home through the police line.
They admitted violent disorder and were each jailed for two years two months.

It’s even more scary in a way if it’s true they didn’t have strong beliefs, and hadn’t planned to be there but were swayed so easily just because they saw chaos unfolding. Grown men with zero moral backbone!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy0rl7zqr80o

And just to add, at least one of them - Mailen - had never been in trouble with police before. He’s just ruined his criminal record and landed himself a jail sentence at the age of 54, and for what? He doesn’t even seem to share the ideology behind these riots.

But then they both could be lying and maybe they are racist /anti-Muslims who knew exactly what the riot was about but were advised to play it down. Who knows 🤷‍♀️

A surprising number of people seem to have "just happened" to come across a riot while going about their lawful occasions and then, rather than deciding to go to wherever they were going by a different route, to have joined in with it and started to destroy property or attack the police.

It must be terrible to be so easily led astray, so that just seeing someone being nasty forces you to be nasty too.