Enfield riots?

[Empusa]

Just seen on Twitter and in a few articles like this, that there are meant to be plans for a riot in Enfield tonight and riot police are in the town centre?

Used to live there, and got family there (luckily a fair distance from the centre), but fucking hell! What the hell is going on?

Fascinating that even though it is so blatantly what people are saying and thinking in private, in public and on the news (and certainly on MN!) nobody mentions "black youths". And that is the whole problem. Untouchable, unmentionable, unaccountable.

Sshhhh! You know you're not allowed to say that on MN! I actually said this upthread, was very surprised that no-one jumped on me and called me a racist!

Davida, my mother was on her own and she often says that she feels that what made it work was that we were girls. She worries how she would have controlled boys... it's very hard to exercise control, I think, without good male role models in your immediate community. I don't think they have to be fathers, but they have to be there, good men.. where they aren't, it seems to turn to chaos.

sams, I think theres a very clear message being sent-that they don't give a shit about their communities or the people in them. Of course all the trouble might be due to individual pathology or criminality but I think its more complex than that.

I'm no apologist for rioters or looters but I think we need to understand the context in which this is happening

I don't know if anyone has just seen the bbc news? They interviewed two girls from Croydon who had joined in the looting and have been drinking all night. They thought it was great fun!

If I was their parents I would be so ashamed.

Thankfully they didn't show their faces.

As a mother of teenage girls, from my point of veiw i told them the riot was a shame. thank God they wer both home yesterday night. They could have taken it to the house of parliament and not rob each othe rof life savings by burning down houses and offices. LOOTING its like we are are stealing from each other.
on the plus side they could have had a point if done properly because the government has made all the children and youths redundant by taking away all their play centers , parks,librarys etc and parents killing ourselves to make ends meet. "The idle mind is the devil mans workshop", but sadly we are going to have to pay for the damage directly or indirectly.

What idiots!

Holy shit, this press photographer is a friend of a friend, and that, in the middle in the grey hoody, is my friend trying to help him up and away. She got two black eyes and broken nose for her efforts :(

I agree with you mrsmilton. There is a real sense that no one can be called on what they do if others think its wrong. The rights of the individuals liberty have taken precedent over the stability of society as a whole. I look at my son and wonder what his life will be like in 10 20 years time. He is 17 and still thinks the world is great.

When people were rioting in Central London a few months ago, they were not defined by their colour(despite the fact that they were predominantly white). However, when black youths are involved, their colour becomes an issue.
Some posters on this thread are reinforcing something that another poster stated, that being, that whatever the racial mix of the rioters, the black youths wil always get the blame and therefore be criminalised by society. By defining these young people by their colour, you are in fact making it easier for any arrested black youth to play the 'race card'(which is a term that i abhor btw)which increases their chance of being 'let off' I would advise caution.

Marriedinwhite, your post needs sending to David Cameron and Michael Gove.

A while back I watched in horror 'Jamie's Dream School' as teenagers showed the most unbelievable lack of respect to both each other and to respected 'teachers' /experts in their field - and were utterly condoned/placated by the headmaster.

I'm outside London, and in a fairly prosperous area so this is all pretty alien to me. It has always been my opinion that children need firm but fair discipline though, and I think the 'non-judgemental' liberal attitude towards law breaking by social services/schools/governments is coming back to bite us all on the bum.

My thoughts are with everyone affected by these riots.

MrsMilton, have you seen the news? These aren't "black youths" they're just youths. They're black, white, mixed race, they're British. The racial mix of these little shits reflect that of the community that bred them. And here's my point: WE are the community that bred them.

These kids don't give a rats ass for responsibility. They don't care about the police, their teachers, their parents, they have never been made to take responsibility for their actions. Not at school, not at home and not in the courts.

The madness on our city streets is a reflection on British parenting. Parents are scared to take on their kids. You can see it too in the playgrounds of middle class areas when little Archie kicks the crap out of little Stanley and in the worst case scenario (for him) gets removed with a wry shrug and a giggle to the other watching parents. Little Archie needs to be disciplined or he's going to grow up to be a bully. A public school bully maybe, but a bully nevertheless. It's the responsibility of his parents, and by extension, of society, to deal with his behavior. This isn't happening. It's not happening in the playgrounds of Hove, and it's not happening on the streets of Hackney either.

We are reaping what we've sown. And as a disclaimer: I'm a muesli-munching, Guardian-reading bleeding-heart liberal. I don't have any answers, but I do think that the responsibility lies with us parents, and society at large.

Here, here Specialknickers

the people looting are both black and white - you may be able to help identify them here catchalooter.tumblr.com/

We blame the parents, but it was the police that shot Mark Duggan, that did the stop and search in Hackney. Not the parents. There will be riots if there are enough people with not much to lose, and a massive over investment in consumer goods and a misplaced notion of 'respect'.

From what I have seen there are all sorts of races out there but I see people want to lay the blame solely on 'black' youths no one wants to discuss the wider issue they just want to try distance themselves as much as possible, so suddenly colour is the issue no one mentioned colour during the student protests a couple of months ago where even the Queens car got attacked...

Mark Duggan's family have faced the media again today, and are again condemning the rioting pleading for it to stop.

If you know anyone who thinks that, by joining a criminal mob of rioters/looters, they are supporting the family - please point them (urgently) to that poor family's repeated statements.

Wasn't the student riot mainly composed of white, middle class youths? I heard plenty of people saying that.

Mark Duggan is no longer relevant, he was an inoccent man shot. law abiding family man do not carry guns.

Mark Duggan is not the reason - simply an excuse in the beginning, and those currently involved probably don't even know his name.

Aprt from a hatred of the police, a huge part of this is a having a massive sense of entitlement and a hatred for anyone richer.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14458424

ivy hope your friend is recovering & safe

edith i fear few of these people - if any at this stage - care about the Duggans, unfortunately. a friend of DPs was listening to kids on the train home last night as they were laughing and discussing where they had already hit and where they were going to hit next. the conversation was nothing to do with persecution, seeking vengance for a dead man etc.

some questions for some of you:

• why would children who don't go to school care about ema?
• how can immigrant workers with a rudimentary grasp of english (if that) get jobs in the uk and yet people born and bred here can't "because they need to be able to speak english"

• have you tried looking at twitter for tweets regarding any of the areas that have been trashed?

to see this tweet:
had to leave as peckham library now under attack! Eek off home, fast!

I am willing to accept that the powerful headmaster with the slipper (that was what was used to whack people in my primary school anyway) created a dynamic that made it easier to maintain order in the classroom.

But...

The assumption was that the whackee would proceed on to a manual job with a strong chain of command, and little need for creative thinking. It didn't really matter if he (for girls didn't tend to be whacked) learnt to read anyway, because it might not be needed in the work place. In the work place, women knew there place (i.e. not in the work place), and anybody foreign or different could be bullied as a matter of course.

I agree that the army boot camp style can be very effective in a certain environment. Maybe there is a kind of person who can only control their impulses if a strong alpha figure head is controlling them. However, once you leave boot camp, what do you do then? Education has changed because society has changed, in many ways for the better.

seems that the Mark Duggan incident was a 'trigger' and not necessarily an 'excuse'. I say this because of the widespread nature and extent of the rioting. It concerns me that if we solely seek to condemn and not understand then this shit will just spread further and deepen. What I do know is that much of the youth service has been dismantled following the recent cuts. Many experienced youth workers have lost their jobs and/or been redeployed. The youth service was born out of a response to the riots that took place in the eighties. Hmmmm. If you cut such invaluable engagement services then this is what happens. boredom and frustration is clearly worse for the economy.

immigrant workers get the jobs because they're prepared to work harder and for less money than those 'born and bred here', doing the kind of jobs few other people want to do. Coming from an area with a large agricultural economy, and a migrant population to match it, i think i am entitled to make this assertion.

For an employer it's a no brainer - more for less, not less for more. And the fact that they're prepared to work for less despite being completely out of their comfort zone (having such a rudimentary grasp of English) speaks volumes about their work ethic.