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.

Because NHC is the second largest street festival in the world. Only Rio de Janeiro’s carnival is bigger. So obviously Bristol must be smaller.

Do you mean the council? Do you know if the organisers pay towards these costs, plus the policing costs? My husband works for a team which would organise this in another London borough, and no contribution is made to clean ups after big events, but maybe Carnival is different?

I live right at the epicentre of the carnival and was here all weekend. It was actually all rather lovely - a very relaxed vibe, very good humoured and less crowded than a lot of years. You can't have hundreds of thousands of people - in fact 2 million people go the carnival! - on the streets without having some troublemakers and some arrests. It's a tiny minority. How many arrests do you think there are in London every day.

I've lived here for 40 years. It's part of the culture. I think it reflect sa lot of what is great about multi-cultural London - people mingleing, celebratin Afro-Caribbean culture with food, music and fun.

As a resident I did used to get a bit tired of it and think it happening every year was maybe too much but I've re-embraced it and stay her all weekend and can dip in and out. It's fantastic to have a street carnival like this in one of the best cities in the world.

And yes, of course there is little litter: RBKC do a great job of tidying up afterwards. The roads were completely clear this morning, although the pavements still need a bit of work but within a couple of days all will be gone and people had a great time.

It was the same after the wonderful Arsenal Parade earlier this year. I was in that all day and it was jous and yet the right wing press could only nbang on about arrest. There were 1.5 million people on the streets. Of course, there were arrests.

I find it deeply depressing that people immediately assume it was terrible. It really wasn't. It was pretty grat.

This is exactly my experience after working closely with carnival for decades. Many residents simply go away for the weekend- the younger residents often host parties and rent out their loo- and for the poorer residents (of which there are many) the council and housing associations and local charities put on trips, usually a coach to the seaside.

169 arrests according to the police which is less per capita attending than the Unite the Kingdom rally. But lets not allow the facts to get in the way of bigotry.

Because I have never stayed after the carnival, and never bother looking it up which is my bad for assuming people complaining about the mess afterwards were speaking from an informed position.

The last reading festival I went to my friends tent was dragged into a bonfire while he was still sleeping in it.

The 2 councils that cover the route- Westminster and Kensington and Chelsea. They also board up the properties on route.

funding is made available for policing and running costs from the councils, mayor of London, sponsors and income from trading at the festival.

the organisers can’t fund it- it’s a free festival, where would they get their money from?

“ProudBlackMomma” posts have a theme I have observed.

i have to say, even if you don’t know, surely it’s pretty obvious the residents of nottinghil don’t come out with their bin liners and jet washes and clear it all up?!

About 2 million people go to that carnival. That's a lot of people. Where there is that many people you will get a percentage who are tossers, way of life.

Football matches, protests, all places with lots of people and you get tossers.

I attended Notting Hill in the daytime on one of the quieter days and was seriously afraid of being crushed - we ended up in a bottleneck with floats going past and it was incredibly unpleasant due to the sheer volume of people. Sooner or later there will be a crush event with mass fatalities- it's entirely predictable. They should either move to an open site or restrict number for safety. That's what every successful event ends up having to do.

'People are in pockets according to their race, that was really noticeable.'

• if that's the case, that is really a shame.

I'm no expert but it sounds like the original idea was good and I can't see anything wrong with dancing and carnival wear.

But it sounds like it is much too large especially given criminals are taking advantage to kill & injure people.

Is there a way to reduce Anti social behavior and crime without stopping it altogether? Couldn't numbers be limited, at least to some extent?

Just one niggle - people refer to it as “celebrating Afro-Caribbean culture” but really it’s simply celebrating Caribbean culture. It’s pedantic but it irks me as not all Caribbean heritage people are of African descent.

One of the major Caribbean carnival islands (and a huge influence for NHC as far as Mas and Soca is concerned) is Trinidad and Tobago which has an Indian majority and that ancestry is a huge influence on the music and the foods available at Carnival (such as Trini Doubles, the various curries etc).

Ok let me head on out of the Pedant corner!

The majority of the picture I’ve seen show people who have obviously been at a paint fight (also found at lots of major festivals), or show drunk behavior. They have deliberately chosen the messiest looking people that can find.

Having been to lots of festivals, it seemed pretty tame to be honest. Leeds in the early 2000s was characterised by arson, rioting and widespread destruction of tents, all by pissed up white men. No major cultural reckoning followed.

Big crowds mean noise, litter, and the law of averages says a bit of bad behaviour. To be entirely expected.

You missed my post about shit on doorsteps after big cricket matches?

I think eventually they will need to look at location as unfortunately it is a victim of its popularity. The first NHC 60 years ago would probably have had a tiny number of attendees fitting comfortably in the area. But then could it still be called “Notting Hill Carnival” elsewhere?!

I didn't know that re Indian culture, very interesting.

It has been reported that there were 560 arrests this year. This is more than last year.

In contrast, last year at the Glastonbury Festival, with an attendance of around 210,000 people had 36 arrests.

Or the Download Festival which had around 95,000 people attend and there were 14 arrests.

There are obviously a lot more people in the Notting Hill area but even on a per capita basis there are many fewer arrests at Glastonbury or Download compared to Notting Hill.

Finding everything even slightly related to being a 'proudblackmomma' offensive and embarrassing it seems.

Well, I will try to explain to you in the simplest terms. Bristol has a population of 493,500 compared to London which has an estimated population of a staggering 9.19 million. I would've thought it was reasonably obvious that a provincial city with a population of less than one twentieth the size of London held a smaller scale event. This would be due to a wide variety of factors that I really shouldn't need to clarify, but primarily because of the lower number of actual residents. It is of course entirely possible that you didn't realise the disparity between the two cities' populations, but now you know. Every day is a school day as they say.

Across all three that’s still incredibly low arrest rates compared to the attendees who went and simply had a good time. All less than half a percent. Not to be dismissive but to keep it in perspective.

This. 💯

I was also thinking : Brazil has a huge carnival and they have had worse issues with crime than London. How do they keep their carnival safe (or is it in fact not particularly safe?)

Ditto Glastonbury, Leeds and Reading. Pretty much any big event then