This would not have happened if these men were white

[spokette]

Reading this story reminds me just how institutionally racist are the police.

It is bad enough when a black person is pulled over for having the temerity to drive a nice car. Now we cannot even window shop without being suspected of being thieves.

And tbh if we're still living round here when they're older then I'm certain there'll be as much chance of them being stopped by police as the lad that lives next to us.

DH has been stopped and questioned once (in 9yrs in the UK) - but the was driving round a posh area at about 8pm at night in winter, stopping regularly and peering at houses, even going up to some and knocking on the door.........doing his job

I agree with Hulababy.

my BIL drove a lovely car (for his age and for the area we lived in at the time) and he got stopped repeatedly... I don't think there was a time that he wasn't on a 'producer' (where you have to attend a police station to prove you own the vehicle and that you have a licence and insurance)

He was white (well, still is, actually) and this was in the late 80s. North East England.

Oh, I'd just like to add to all the people who are so happy to shout 'racism'...

my mum got stopped from meeting Price Charles in 1988 for the whole reason that she was Irish.

Apart from the fact that she had a pass (because my sister and I were playing in an orchestra for Charles and Di) and was totally entitled to be there.

But, at the time, there was a distinct threat of IRA action against the Royal family and an Irish person carrying a violin case (my sister played the violin) was someone they stopped. She got agitated they wouldn't let her in (we were in there and this was in the age before mobile phones) and they took her away.

Sorry, these things happen. In VERY few cases is it TOTALLY racist.

In VERY few cases is it TOTALLY racist.

Haribo, like I said, you are clueless because you clearly have no clue about the police's attitude to non-whites.

well the attitude of the police who stopped and questioned my DH when he was working was absolutely fine. He answered their questions, showed them his ID and they all (him and the police) went merrily on their way - DH just muttering slightly about a few potential missed "sales" but nothing more.

Haribo

Let me also remind you of the signs that greeted black immigrants in the 1960s

No blacks
No Irish
No dogs

So the appalling treatment of the Irish by is really not surprising, is it?

Actually the police are prejudiced against everyone. Blacks, young, working class, Irish, Polish, Travellers, lefties, dirty, clean... I think it's likely that they would have done this to a white youth in a hoodie, but as someone else said, they might have given it five minutes extra.

And yes they do handcuff you if you give them any backchat, or even if they just don't like the look of you. And then they pretend that you were out of control so that's why they had to. And judges still believe them, any amount of Stephen Lawrence enquiries don't seem to have any impact on people's credulity when listening to police lies.

Oh and if they get you in the back of a van and beat you up, they will claim you were resisting arrest and they used reasonable force. And yes I know there are all these rules and guidelines that says that's not supposed to happen, but guess what? They don't follow them.

Honestly why is anyone ever shocked by the bad behaviour of the police?

"08.07.08
Black people are seven times more likely than whites to be stopped and searched by police, official figures showed today." (The Standard)

"The Runnymede Trust publishes a new report today charting the progress of key agencies in meeting the recommendations of the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry. The report argues that while there have been developments in some areas of the criminal justice system, Black and minority ethnic communities continue to experience disadvantage both within and at the hands of the police service." Monday 16th February 2009

Sorry for lack of narrative there - was on the phone. But the point is (although hardly needs saying), it isn't the same for everyone and the police are racist. There is extensive objective evidence that it is the case. And saying 'well my son/brother/husband got stopped and he's white' doesn't make it not true. Anecdotal evidence is irrelevant.

Spokette...

Presumably those signs also greeted WHITE Irish people????

Why is it about the colour of your skin? It's not.

It's about judgements people make constantly about others: What they wear. what accent they have, how they act, what car they drive, how they walk... the list is endless.

Why the 'police' are supposed to be super-human is beyond me. They also make the same judgement calls each one of us makes EVERY SINGLE DAY.

Please ask yourself, honestly: If you were walking down a path, alone, at night and you were being approached (or followed) by a man... Would you be more alert if he were a business man in a suit, briefcase in hand, or a hooded man, head down, hands obscured...

Colour does not(always) come into it.

And I still stand by the fact that, at the time my mum was taken into custody, the main threat to the Royal family came from Irish people.

So, an irish woman, carrying a violin case getting shitty with the police is hardly a shoe in, is she?

I speak with a broad northern accent and people make decisions about who I am all the time. In fact, one guy (very posh) nearly fell off his chair when he found out where I lived (my old house!!)... His face just said 'they let northern people live there now????????'

It happens every day to every one.

I thought the police had argued that actually the stop rate isn't disproportionate - there are more black kids hanging around street corners to be stopped.

Bit dubious about that one, tbh, given that 90 per cent of the population is white.

I do think Littlebella has a point though - while racism is a real problem, the police are horribly prejudiced against all sorts of people, especially the working classes or demonstrators. Look at the stats the Guardian uncovered about claims of 'police injuries' at those demos against that new coal-fired power station - the Met spinning that loads of officers had been attacked but actually when you got hold of the reports, they were mostly bee stings and people tripping over their own shoe laces.

Haribo

"Why is it about the colour of your skin? It's not."

What planet do you live on? Ask any black person! Nigger, nig-nog, sambo, golliwog - shall I go on! Black people know that they are judged first on the colour of their skin. Look at the media. When a white person does something they are described as having fair hair and they alone are held to account for their act. When a black person does something, then they are described as black and the whole race is judged by the act of one person. That is why when two 8yo black boys are gathered together on the street, they are viewed as a threat and the wise white public cross the street to avoid being mugged!

When British protest about immigrants, they are not protesting againt the nice white immigrants from France, Australia, Finland etc. They don't want anyone who is non-white - fact!! I mean, even in Australia, the original inhabitants who are black, the Aborigines, are treated as second class citizens by incoming Brits who flee to escape the hords of non-whites invading their fair isle!

I challenge you to live the life of a black person in the UK for a month, and you will be begging to go back to your privilege position of being white and acceptable.

i do think their is racism within the police force. however i also think that an unfortunate necessary evil to practical policing is racial and social profiling, that will become almost like instinct for officers after years on the job.
put it this way, when the ipswich prostitute murders happened, how many people honestly expected it to have been done by a black man?i'd imagine the answer across the board would be very very few, because the racial profile of serial killers and by in large sexually motivated murders is white males.so i expected it to be done by a white male, and low and behold it was. Now most people accept this racial profile and would applaud police for targetting this demographic rather than trying to adhere to some equality legislation that would have meant investing as much time and effort into investigating elderly women etc.
the problem comes when the profile is a minority, so for example muslims with regards terrorist attacks in airports.
i'm irish and someone used the example earlier on, and as someone whos father has told him all about travelling to london in the 70's and 80's, i'd still agree with their policy of targetting people from ireland for strcter checks. it's not that your skin colour or background make you more likely to be criminal, but in certain cases the criminal being sought is more likely to share your race or background. so what is the correct way to handle this admittedly sensitive issue? we want crime tackled, but we also do not want a system that any level of racism can be accused.

In the most recent independent review into racial equality and approach in the police force, it was clear that the police remains institutionally racist, particularly in regard to stop and search. The report by The Runnymede Trust is available here and was led by, amongst others, the former Chief Constable of West Yorkshire. A couple of salient points below:

"However, in light of the continued failings by the police service in relation to Black and minority ethnic recruitment in general and the disproportionate number of Black people to be found in the annual statistics on stop and search in particular, it is difficult to conclude that the charge of institutional racism no longer applies."

"Black groups continue to be disproportionally stopped and searched at rates similar to those of 10 years ago. The low percentage of such procedures leading to arrests let alone convictions causes us to conclude that (a) there is little difference between these procedures and the restrictive and discriminatory use of the ?sus? laws of the 1970s; and (b) that stop and search procedures as a method of ?intelligence led?
policing are not an effective use of police time and resources."

Sorry, here

Well, it's impossible for me to 'live as a black person'... so that's pretty meaningless, but I have lived in Bradford for several years, so I do know what it's like to be the minority - There were two white people living in the road I lived in Bradford and we would get called names if we walked down the road in short sleeves or shorts in the summer.

my point is EVERYONE makes such decisions about others. I think making out that only WHITE people do it is wrong... Black / Asian / Hispanic / Chinese / Europeans - all societies make decisions on other people based on first impressions.

my point was: I don't think WHITE people are somehow more 'worse' than any other 'colour'.

ANd, I (for one) DO NOT judge a whole race of people based on one persons actions.

Sorry for the horrendous grammar in my last post!

mayorquimby/ haribo: I don't think anyone here is arguing that where race is relevant it shouldn't be taken into account, in for example the case of the Suffolk murders. The point though is that race needs to be relevant to the specific crime committed or which is anticipated to be committed, e.g. that someone reports that they were mugged by a black guy, or in the case of the Suffolk murders that forensic pyschologists believe it to be a white guy. The concern with policing policy and race is, to my mind, two-fold.

Firstly, that there is a general belief that black people are more likely to have committed certain types of crime, and thus it is more likely they will be stopped, searched and potentially arrested on balance for these type of crimes, even if there is no direct evidence for favouring a black person being responsible - their approach to stop and search is pretty clear evidence of this.

Secondly, a more pernicious belief that even absent a specific crime, the behaviour of black people in certain regards may indicate "general" criminal behaviour, e.g. driving a blacked out BMW.

Whilst we all have our personal prejudices and views, the police very clearly have a duty to be impartial and independent in the execution of their duties - see, for example, that they're not allowed to be members of the BNP. Or rather, as Lord Denning said, justice must not only be done "it must be seen to be done".

Cestlavie - what a good post.. I'm not so eloquent!

I suppose my point is, though, we are all judged - I know people make decisions about me because of my accent...

(I know this isn't on the same scale, but as an example: A woman in a M&T group totally blanked me, until she realised where I lived / car I drove and then totally changed her opinion of me. her first reaction was 'Northern bint with strong accent; not someone I wish to know'... my first reaction to her was 'silly cow is more interested in my car and house than my personality' )

And, (and I'm not trying to be provocative here, this is an honest question / statement and I'm more than happy to be put in place if I'm wrong but) don't more young black guys get hurt from stabbings? I do apologise if I'm wrong, but when I see lists of young guys being killed from knife wounds, the vast majority seem to be black. And, I know that one section of the Met police dealing with knife crime target specifically black-on-black crime, so it's sort of obvious (to me) that they would target young black men... IYSWIM....

ha ha oh god i can't believe i just lost an argument by having denning thrown at me, i'm normally the one throwing his name about as his rulings are always the interesting ones.

as i said i agree that there is racism and it is unacceptable. i think i was sympathising with some officers who have to investigate crimes where it the most likely outcome is that it was commited by a black man, because no matter how well they conduct themselves someone is going to level an accusation of racism against them.
the stop and search thing is something that really does annoy me though because it is the height of lazy racist policing. no evidence of a crime and in many instances not even a complaint of a crime, but hey they're black and there's more than 3 of them together, they must be up to something.

I remember after the Bishopsgate and Canary Wharf bombs in London th Met set up the 'ring of steel' around the main routes in and out of central London. Even to a casual observer it was obvious how the Met appeared to believe that the majority of the IRA were black.

now who's the racist? not letting black people join the IRA, you should be ashamed of yourself

"And, (and I'm not trying to be provocative here, this is an honest question / statement and I'm more than happy to be put in place if I'm wrong but) don't more young black guys get hurt from stabbings? I do apologise if I'm wrong, but when I see lists of young guys being killed from knife wounds, the vast majority seem to be black."

Haribo

I think you will find that the media prefers to focus on crime in predominantly black areas rather than balance it out with out is going on in predominantly white areas.

After all, everytime there is a story about paedophiles, they are always white men but I don't go round thinking that all white men are paedophiles.

mayorquimby