AIBU to feel angry about Notting Hill Carnival behaviour?

[ProudBlackMomma]

Any other London folk mortified by the Notting Hill carnival? Hundreds of arrests, lewd behaviour, vulgarity and litter. It does not represent my culture. It’s an embarrassment.

😅😅😅

The post says it was from the speech writer, she’s quoting him.

Where does the figure of 2 million attendees come from? (And is it "up to" 2 million?)

The population of Greater London is only about 9 million

the "paint fight" is dutty mas and Jab/Jouvert which happens on sunday, usually earlier in the day. it is part of the schedule.

this is a distinct part of carnival in Caribbean cultures, it is a mockery of the carnivals they were banned from when they were enslaved as well and crude/cruel imitation. post emancipation an incorporation of celebrating freedom when carnival was banned post emancipation, adding oil and paint was a way to celebrate anonymously.

there's more but thats it in nutshell.

It doesn't sound like I'm the only person on this thread who has seen someone do this at carnival. Not diarrhoea, just a very wasted person who was past caring.

What does the population of London have to do with the number of Carnival attendees? You think only people who live in Greater London are allowed to attend?

And the large scale migration that happened under Labour was of Eastern Europeans following the EU's Eastern enlargement, so nothing to do with Notting Hill Carnival's Carribean culture.

Multiple sources all over the internet put the numbers at approximately. 2m per year such as this from 3 years ago:

https://www.timeout.com/london/music/50-things-you-didnt-know-about-notting-hill-carnival

About 1/5 are tourists (unsure if that is just overseas or anybody not from London.)

I wondered if the coloured powder was linked to the Hindu Holi festival given the origin of many Trinidadians. I may Google.

I think you get that round and about Glastonbury as well. Any mass event anywhere near where people are living, you’ll have disruption and poor behaviour.

Why are you embarassed about other people's behvior?
Vast majority of people have great time, some of my friends went and had a blast and didnt pee i nanyone's garden nor destroyed anything.

Unless you are in for banning all public events including football and all gigs? Then sure.

Also for all the pearl clutchers - hope you are ashamed yourself after your culture left this behind!

We live on the route too (hi neighbour!) and I agree with all of this. We're away this year and didn't board our house or anything. Checked the security cameras a few times and all I saw was a pretty steady stream of people walking by. A neighbour checked it this morning and said everything was perfect. The road is clean, we generally get a few late stragglers but have never seen anything worrying. The vast majority of carnival goers and peaceful and happy and having a great time. As someone new to the neighbourhood, in relative terms to how long the carnival has been going, I don't begrudge the few days of merriment in the least.

She posts as Proudblackmomma, so I’m not sure where the racism comes in.

'Your' culture.
Not mine. Though I do own a string of pearls, I try not to clutch them too often as they're a bit of a faff to get restrung and my 'culture' is a product of make do and mend. The (presumably young) bods who throw away a non-biodegradable tent after one use will probably blame someone else for the state of the planet.

Not in Somerset...the home of carnival

Plus,
It's weird to complain about the lawlessness and lewdness of NH and then describe "real" English culture as Chaucer/Shakespeare. Both writers included extreme violence in their works and heavily sexualised jokes and swearing. Plus, at the time Shakespeare was writing London saw annual events that often lasted for days, involved the normal rules being turned on their heads and made the NH carnival look like afternoon tea with the vicar.

Yes I’m sure no one has ever been arrested at a festival in Somerset…. Apparently the home of carnival

Around 0.02% of attendees across three days, so in the scheme of things, yes, quite a good year.

It should be held, if at all, in a park where it would be easier to police and those poor home owners that line the procession could breathe a sigh of relief.

Yes, I mean if pp's sense of British culture is rooted in those things I don't see an issue. The issue imo is when people say that everyone must have the same definition exactly of British culture. Shakespeare for instance is part of a common historical cultural heritage and it's good to have those things.

But people will also have things more specific perhaps to their local area. Asian and Polish culture is part of the SW area I live in, and therefore part of the Britain I live in. Someone living near Chinatown or (to go some way back) the Jewish area of the East End might say similar about the cultures represented there. And this doesn't just apply to immigrant-originated cultures : I don't known much about Manchester, though I'd like to know more, but to someone Mancunian that will probably make up at least some part of their personal idea of British culture.

I'd also argue that Carribbean and Asian cultures have the extra connection of the British Empire history and then the Commonwealth which impacts things. India has had quite a lot of 2-way cultural exchange with us : cuisine, polo, many words, literature also, while cricket and British law are 2 continuing British-origin influences there.

I think this is unfair. Pp from other posts I've seen has a passion for 19th-early 20th century English literature, nothing wrong with that. She can't be totally anti 1960s if she likes Monty Python, after all! You can like both .

I also think it's unfair to paint English food as boring. You can praise Indian & other food without doing that. Samantha Ellis' book Chopping Onions On My Heart (about her Iraqi Jewish heritage) has some interesting info on how spicy English food used to be : medieval English food was apparently quite close to how Moroccan is now, spice-wise. Things changed in the Victorian age when urbanisation meant people forgot their old family recipes (among other things ) but that's a fairly recent development.

Can I ask what this carnival is? Is it Carribbean or something else? Understand if you don't want to give more info.

It sounds like the noise is extreme : surely if it's in a residential area they have to keep noise within certain levels?

I think it should be able to happen but it sounds like major changes are needed. The narrow streets there were not designed for these huge processions, for one.

What park can hold 2m visitors?! The point is it proceeds through the streets, it covers a big area. A park would be smaller