“…Tony, who runs the local community centre, described by Thapar as a “tiny island amid a sea storm”, says he believes that the nationalism and xenophobia around Brexit, and scandals such as Windrush and Grenfell, make young people in areas such as Brixton ‘feel like they don’t belong … it sends the message: you are not wanted’ …”.
So, this guy Tony is implying that Brexit is a contributing factor to London teens knifing each other. But my point is more directly aimed at the two writers, Thapar, and the author of this piece: as you are seemingly happy to push political agendas by proxy, don’t be too surprised if not many take what you have to say very seriously.
Absolutely. The piece makes several useful points. I have no idea why investigatives these days want to wear their political hearts on their sleeves, instead of just reporting and alalysing what they see.
Agree what a stupid connection to make. Just because these volunteers work around these kids it doesn’t stop them from saying stupid things. Also the cultural aspect is overlooked. Violent knife crime is endemic in most black countries.
And regarding culture what about the music and the criminality , violence and , yes misogyny celebrated in the ‘music’ . They don’t need to actually be selling drugs to fantasise about drilling people like a gangsta
Brexit did affect black people living in the UK. One friend of mine said that in Tesco’s, the day after the referendum, a man angrily asked her why she hadn’t left the country already. She said she’d never experienced anything like that before. Another black friend has a similar story – so Brexit will have made a lot of black people feel less welcome.
I’m of Indian descent (although born in Africa). I experienced absolutely nothing like that re the Brexit vote, then or since. In fact I had a bit of a rough time in the 70s in my teens but I have pretty much not experienced any racism in the UK since – and that stuff was like four decades ago. Although by no means a majority, I know many Asian Brits who voted for Brexit, and to date I have not heard anyone Indian complain to me they have experienced racism whichever way they voted.
So how do you account for this discrepancy of experience then?
Thanks Prashant. The father of the late Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks arriving in England after flee the Nazis, said that England was “a kingdom of kindness.” It was then and it is today. Some people will always resent the stranger but equally, some strangers are determined to find racism at every opportunity and in every encounter. Like the Jews in Britain, many ethnic groups have done extremely well and are proud and much valued citizens. Others, unfortunately, will be forever trapped in bitterness and victimhood. It’s all a matter of what abides in the heart. Best wishes to you.
Mirrors my experience. I was chased by skinheads in the 1970s but have no recent experience of racism. There are too many thin skins. Being a little deaf probably helps too.
I’m inclined to disbelieve Simon’s friend’s story. As you say, had we been back in the 1970’s then I would find it much easier to believe. The only thing that makes me think it might be true is that Asian-British are probably viewed differently to Caribbean-British by the white British, and for obvious reasons: different average levels of integration into mainstream British life, different levels of academic achievement, different crime rates and different contributions to the economy and culture. But still I don’t believe it.
If he’s the same Simon Coulthard from the DT, he’s not a bleeding heart liberal.
And tbh, why are you people down-voting him if even half of what he’s stated is true?
Phil, we’re voting him down because the story sounds implausible, not because we are racists. He actually didn’t state very much, so ‘if even half of what he’s stated is true’, that means only one of his two black friends was lying.
Pathetic ! These boys grow up with male role models from black gangsta music videos . Their mothers can afford to raise them with no male input other than sex visits leaving them with another pregnancy . Of course the small boys listen to their mothers slagging off ‘men’ with their female friends , which is likely to cause them a lot more psychological upset than bleeding Brexit
They have no positive male role models and spend their earliest years hearing ‘men’ dissed (unsurprisingly ) by their mothers and their mothers female friends .
This rather than white racism is at the root of their issues with self -image , whatever ‘clued up ‘David Lammy says
That is very sad, and odd too considering that non EU immigration was not an issue in the referendum. I suppose the general hysteria and polarisation of the time brought this kind of ignoramus out of the woodwork.
I don’t think a few anecdotes like this should be used to tar all leavers with the same brush.
Yet many immigrants voted for Brexit and are strongly patriotic. The common denominator among them being that they are successful and integrated, such as the Sikhs, Koreans and Chinese.
But Brexit was about leaving the EU and had absolutely nothing to do with people from non-EU countries. Had she been Polish I might have understood it a bit better. So what exactly made your friend assume that the comment was Brexit related? Had she never met any random idiot in her life before the Brexit vote?
He literally wrote that you can be killed by standing in the wrong street. How much more of a nationalist mindset can a person have, that they don’t want to kill foreigners, not people from outside England, not even the next county, borough, or district. Nope, the next street is good enough.
It doesn’t have to be an accurate observation to be relevant. It’s more a case of a negative narrative from our establishment reinforcing an already fragile mindset.
So all those guardian reading social workers and all those billions spent of welfare and these boys have such fragile mindsets that the ‘establishment’ makes them drill one another .
The guardian reading social workers ARE the establishment to these boys .The negative narrative they imbue them with is that they are born victims .
That was my initial reaction to that line, but on reflection I don’t blame Tony.
The real culpability rests with the media (particularly the BBC) and the Remainers who persistently spread the lie that the Brexit vote was somehow xenophobic or racist.
It’s no surprise that people like this Tony took it as gospel, given that so many authority figures were saying it was so.
It’s similar to the way the US media stoked racial grievance after the death of George Floyd. They could have carefully explained the actual facts about supposed police racist (you are slightly more likely to be killed by the cops in America if you are white than if you are black).
But – with a presidential election in the offing – it suited CNN, the New York Times, The Washington Post, MSNBC and the other tentacles of the Democract/Media Complex to propagate the untruth that American police were institutionally racist.
It is generally believed that heightened racial tensions benefit the Democrats in national elections and the media were pretty much united in wanting Trump out and Biden in.
The fact that – as a result of this intentional failure to report the full picture – people were killed, homes and businesses burned, shops looted and violent crime is now soaring matters not a jot to these companies.
Teenagers knifing one another is nothing new. Back in the 1960s (to give but one example), white youths in Glasgow were dying as a result of gang culture. We tend to blame too much on poverty and lack of education, and not enough on testosterone. Young male animals will always find a reason to fight. At a primal level, it’s about sex and resources. If society really wanted to reduce, if not eliminate the problem, it would embrace eugenics and castrate, if not cull superfluous and/or undesirable males (and females, come to that). Trouble is, we’re too lily-livered to do it.
Ian Barton
2 years ago
It’s hard not to consider the preponderance of single-parent family structures in many of these communities as the biggest problem …..
Schools and governments should support kids, rather than be responsible for them.
I struggle with the idea that they are “communities” at all. We need a word for groups of people where the fathers are all absent and the offspring are all feral. We also need a place for them, come to think of it, that’s a long way from Britain.
They have mothers obviously . Absurdly generous welfare makes it easy for single women to have multiple children with no male input . But you seriously believe the consequences are caused by white racism .
Any ‘orphan’ resourceful enough to make their way to Britain after losing their parents is resourceful enough to make a life for themselves in their country of origin post-deportation; but that is only to be expected of young men, which is what most of these ‘orphans’ turn out to be when their skeletal structures are examined via X-ray. As for those who are in fact children, their parents have often paid a considerable sum of money to traffickers. Genuine child orphans are in fact few and far between, but we do have a duty to the few that arrive on our shores.
That’s what I was thinking while reading the article. Chipping away at the symptoms but not getting to the roots is just a waste of everyone’s time. Fix the father crisis.
Christopher Barclay
2 years ago
“Most teachers told me I would end up dead or in jail. I got told I was worthless.” In 10 years’ teaching I have never heard a teacher say anything like either of these statements to a pupil. On the contrary, teachers generally heap praise on pupils for mediocre or poor work in the hope that unearned praise will prompt greater effort. I am not saying that no teacher has ever said either of the quoted statements. What I am saying is that the frequency with which such comments are made are being exaggerated to excuse violent and criminal behaviour. The reason why so many young people feel unwanted is because they have been deserted by their fathers. No one who is paid to look after you can be an adequate substitute for a parent and that parent’s unconditional love for you. This is so obvious that only the wilfully blind cannot see it.
Then there is the implication that everything would be alright if violent children remained in normal schools. Do other students not have a right to feel safe in their lessons? In my experience, in many schools the level of violence towards students and staff is hidden by the leadership teams. Sending a pupil to a PRU is not done lightly as it is very expensive for the school referring the pupil. Literally thousands of pounds a year have to be found to cover the cost for every pupil sent. Normally schools just swap violent pupils in managed moves in the hope that some of them will take advantage of the second chance being offered.
Andrew D
2 years ago
Exactly. At the risk of sounding like my dear late mother, respect is something you earn, not something you’re given.
Jon Redman
2 years ago
That’s the first time I have ever heard David Lammy called “clued up”.
“5hit thick” would have been my choice of adjective.
No mention of something that I read about recently – sorry, can’t remember where – namely the influence of Somali immigrant youths in escalating the level of violence on the streets, and therefore the level of violence assumed in calculating the level of defence required, in a vicious spiral.
In the 2000s there was a lot of violence in the Greenwich area between groups of Somali and Afro-Caribbean heritage. Ignored by the BBC because it didn’t chime with the required narrative.
In the school in Wembley where my daughter used to teach, ‘Somali boys’ were singled out as one of the most problematic groups. They were beyond parental control (single parent in many cases, I believe) and were a menace in the school.
Having lived in Ethiopia that seems plausible to me – as they say, if you want to make a Somali laugh show him a knife. Cultures of violence are rife in failed states.
John McGibbon
2 years ago
The author makes a point about the government’s abdication of responsibility for these children, but no mention of abdication of responsibility of absent fathers or carefree parents. No mention of the glorification of easy money or perverted status of gangs and violence. Why is it always the government’s fault? If I behave badly, that is my choice, ok I accept some aspects of environment make make it easier to do so if it is condoned by friends and community, but I’m responsible for my behaviour. My parents were responsible largely for my behaviour when I was a child by setting boundaries.
Finally those that cry out for this to be treated as a public health issue often refer our to work done in Glasgow where agencies offered increased support to turn kids array from knife crime, but they often overlook the “stick” that came with such an approach, the police warned these individuals they would constantly be harassed by the police, their friends would be harassed, if the anti social behaviour continued and local housing agencies told families they would be evicted. I can’t see the Met adopting this stick in London.
Last edited 2 years ago by John McGibbon
ralph bell
2 years ago
One feature I have read in the past is that the statistics show many of the perpetrators and victims are in communities made up of young male immigrants from war torn countries who bring their trauma and divisions.
Solving that experience is very difficult. In addition single parent families with little father influence and poor parental moral guidance from ‘forgotten’ and bleak communities is also a key feature.
But why should it be our problem to solve? I dont want Somalian warfare in the UK.
Saul D
2 years ago
In psychology, they say violence is ‘unlearned’ during early childhood (up to the age of 6), but some children don’t go through this unlearning process and retain aspects of aggression and violence that often leads to delinquency in later life.
The literature, surprisingly, associates the lack of unlearning with characteristics of the mother – the use of power-control (hitting and anger), instead of nurturing or ‘love-orientated’ discipline, mother’s low education and often teenage pregnancy. Teaching young women how to be positive mothers might help – some communities – such as British Indians – seem much better than this than others.
This then leads to a second factor. Both the US and UK appear to have a statistical relationship where states/local authorities with large primary schools also have an more violent crime. Since early development is so crucial for the ‘unlearning of violence’, this suggests keeping smaller primary schools, where children are more noticed as individuals, might be a positive policy in terms of reduction in violence.
Many single mothers use violence to control young children with no thought that by the time their sons are going through puberty the sons will be not just stronger but raised to consider violence as the means to decide who rules at home.
William Cameron
2 years ago
Until the media report properly the truth will remain hidden. This isnt Black kids. It is Black afro Caribbean kids.
African kids do far better at school (better often than white kids) they tend to study hard and have stable home lives.
I think that’s more or less correct except that while West African kids aren’t involved, except as targets of the others, I do get the impression East African ones are.
And the East Africans come from more violent countries than the western ones.
Jon Redman
2 years ago
As all the killings are largely the work of one race, it can only be a matter of time before the usual woke pi11ocks pipe up to say this is all caused by white racism.
Juffin Hully
2 years ago
A very interesting piece. Hits close to home for anyone who has young children.
One of the arguments that I disagree with, though, is the “failure of state to care for its citizens”. This implies that the state should do more for the kids from broken families. The problem is, IMHO, that no matter how hard the state tries, it will never be able to do the job of a family. The state resources would be better directed at preventing family breakup in the first place.
Last edited 2 years ago by Juffin Hully
GA Woolley
2 years ago
Look up the 1965 Moynihan Report on the breakdown of the family in some communities. The root problem was when, with the best of intentions, the government provided enough financial assistance to black mothers to get them out of poverty, it removed any responsibility from black fathers, and thus the source of their authority.
hayden eastwood
2 years ago
Referring to these kids as “black” is factually true but about as helpful as diagnosing the Cost Nostra as “Italian”.
In Zimbabwe where I live I have never seen black people behave like this. Likewise the black Africans (Zimbabwean and otherwise) I knew in the UK were more middle-class than their British counterparts and had *nothing* in common with black British yobs who they shared superficial racial classification with.
Knife crime in London is a problem of a particular kind of Jamaican lineage from a particular period in Jamaican history, who migrated at a particular time in British history, and who mixed with a particular brand of local yob culture to produce the hybrid horror show that we have now.
We need to identify the subculture at fault and come up with meaningful policies that counter it socially and economically.
We can’t do that while the public and policy makers assume that some Oxbridge “BAME” graduate living in Clapham is some how “at risk” of being knifed or of knifing others.
In short we must stop using this meaningless “BAME” term that the usual-suspect media insists on using, and which, sadly, the author of this article insists on using, because it obscures the nature of the problem and makes it harder to solve.
You’re so right. But look what happened when the Sewell report tried to make these distinctions and find practical answers. The usual suspects used it as yet another opportunity to ramp up the anger and reinforce the usual narrative about white supremacy.
Maureen Newman
2 years ago
Good article Max. Approx ten years ago I was fronting a church youth group. We are a traditional working /middle class area. It ran on Friday evenings and offered nothing apart from basketball type games in a large hall. At a certain time the teenagers (12+) would come downstairs for the ‘God slot’ at which I usually spoke We had a tuck shop and pool table downstairs but nothing else. The numbers attending hovered around 30, mainly boys. Overall we had no trouble and they came back week after week. The essence of our success was a deep and abiding interest in those young people coupled with firmness in regard to behaviour, I’m in my 70s now but would give anything to work with young lads again. I absolutely loved them and they knew it. I’m in rural Northumberland but my heart is with the black youth in London. I prayed for them this morning. The authorities don’t need costly initiatives: Just build youth centres staffed by people with love in their hearts and a firm commitment to being there week after week.
You are so right Maureen. The Eden project on the streets of Manchester had similarly positive results; the power of prayer is of course part of it! One of my daughters and both sons-in-law were involved.
Chris Wheatley
2 years ago
In this country we tend to develop habits of the USA about 20 years after they do. In the USA the largest proportions of violent crimes are black on black. The white on black crimes of course get all of the publicity. Basically, young black men have problems with violence and it is important to understand why this is so. Clearly, they have formed an underclass and there will be a plethora of political theories to explain this.
Meanwhile, those white people who can leave the city centres are doing just that. This has happened in the American cities, Detroit being the oft-quoted example. It is likely that the contributors to UnHerd do not live in these battle zones (I don’t) so comments will be removed from the actual reality of the problem.
It is difficult to say anything here without shouts of ‘Woke’ but it is clear that these young black people are in the poorest segments of society. If you give them money, they would probably use it to buy better weapons or to buy drugs. The old British idea of building youth clubs in bad areas might not be relevant now and people would be needed to staff them. In fact, this is one area where wokeism works hands down – woke people would volunteer to work in these areas and non-wokes would probably think that it was the government’s problem.
woke people will tweet about it, the last thing they are going to do is volunteer their time and resources to any practical solutions, particularly where this black on black violence undermines their belief that “whiteness” is the cause of all problems
It confirms that belief . The violence is the result of white nativists getting pumped up on Brexit and hurting BAME feelings . Black fragility ??
Jon Redman
2 years ago
The White Man’s Burden never went away.
Jon Redman
2 years ago
Can we not just build more prisons?
Simon Coulthard
2 years ago
That’s a good point.
Sue Ward
2 years ago
A 17 year old boy was stabbed to death in Swadlincote on Saturday night. The fact most people reading this will have to look up Swadlincote illustrates just how big this problem now is.
And there was me thinking that knife crime escalated when the Police were either afraid or prevented from dealing with those murderous hoodlums due to concerns over racism.
Obviously, not stopping and searching likely suspects is clearly going to help and not send any messages about open seasons and stuff like that.
Alan Osband
2 years ago
Worst thing I have ever read on UnHerd . So the stabbings are caused by brexit and white racism , not by growing up with values drawn from the hyper violent lyrics and ethos of gangster rap . Even when they aren’t directly dealing drugs and the killings aren’t part of a literal drugs turf war they are still aping the values of the gangsta -dealers with the need to save face and exhibit machismo .
A welfare state that encourages single mothers and allows men to have countless babymammas to whom they contribute nothing but sperm is the root cause .
Government way too generous
……because they’re having to root around in their desks, to find a dictionary, so they look up what the word “innocuous” means. (It might be naughty, or something to do with anti-vax’ers)
Matthew Povey
2 years ago
There is a fascinating book about Salford in the first quarter of the 20th Century called, “The Classic Slum” written by Robert Roberts (yes, really). One chapter of the book talks about the gangs of Manchester and Salford which, as described in the article were less organised crime (though they might well have occasionally been involved) than they were about group grievance, usually expressed at the level of suburb and street. My grandfather spoke about how as a child he would avoid certain streets and areas as since he was from Manchester (around Deansgate I believe) he could get into serious bother with kids from Salford. Knives as well as fists were the weapons that were available. These problems are not new in England.
“The groups of young men and youths who gathered at the end of most slum streets on fine evenings earned the condemnation of all respectable citizens. They were damned every summer by city magistrates and unceasingly harried by the police. In the late nineteenth century the Northern scuttler and his ‘moll’ had achieved a notoriety as widespread as that of any gangs in modern times. […]
That fraternity of some thirty to forty teenagers who lived in the street where our Church of England school stood achieved such a fearsome reputation for gang battle that they were remembered by name in The Times seventy years after. By my youth most of these were married and worthy householders in the district. In many industrial cities of the late Victorian era and after, such groups became a minor menace. Deprived of all decent ways of spending their little leisure, they sought escape from tedium in bloody battles with belt and clog–street against street. The spectacle of two mobs rushing with wild howls into combat added still another horror to the ways of slumdom. Scuttlers appeared in droves before the courts, often to receive savage sentences. In the new century this mass brutality diminished somewhat, but street battles on a smaller scale continued to recur spasmodically in our district and in others similar until the early days of the first world war. This form of violence, vicious and purposeless, seemed to have its root in a subconscious wish to establish ‘territory’. Not only children but adults too felt that the street where they dwelt was in some way their personal property. Householders would even order youngsters who lived in the street away from their doors with a–‘Get down to the other end where you live!’ Boys and youths walking alone in the evening would at times have to avoid those thoroughfares where territorial aggressiveness was strong, through fear of molestation or assault. All the warring gangs were known by a street name and fought, usually, by appointment–Next Friday, 8 p.m.: Hope Street v . Adelphi!”
— The Classic Slum: Salford Life in the First Quarter of the Century by Robert Roberts https://amzn.eu/3PLA9ld
Fascinating book and one of several that contributed to changing many of my opinions over the years. The social attitudes of people living there are everywhere in the book. It really helped me understand what had molded my grandparents’ generation.
Don’t worry after all I’m sure it will be super easy to control access to easily made, often concealable, simple sharpened bits of metal.
Niels Georg Bach
2 years ago
The main problem is that socio cultural resolutions, better smaller schools takes a long time. What in the time before it works ? ?. Look at Sweden. SElf declared humanistic, but accept that young immigrants shot themselves in droves. The aggressive stance of ex. Sascha Johnson BLM group it’s half military approach is an accept of a violent attitude.
Last edited 2 years ago by Niels Georg Bach
Chauncey Gardiner
2 years ago
This piece needs a lot more context. Specifically, it would be good to know something about murder among teenagers over time. It’s not really a new phenomenon, is it?
And what to do about it? Society doesn’t care? If there were easy solutions, might they not have been attempted?
In the United States there are calls for “restorative justice”. It’s a piece with the business of diminishing punishments in the public schools (the state-run schools) for black children. The idea here is that teachers discriminate against black kids. (Really?) What teachers had really been doing was tying to deal with violent kids — who happened to be disproportionately black.
One can debate the merits and methods of “restorative justice”, but there is one unambiguously obvious policy initiative the authorities could launch: Get rid of programs that pay mothers to have kids. We end up with a population of single mothers who have children, because the children bring in money from state and federal programs. These kids are wanted only insofar as they provide a meal ticket. But, then we hear this familiar story: The boyfriend moves in. The children get abused, possibly sexually abused. We end up with a lot of angry kids.
So, the policy prescription would be: Get rid of the programs that create the steady stream of angry kids. We could then sort what we do about the angry kids we already have.
Also, maybe someone should do a little background research on why we single mothers insist on being single mothers. Might a journalist be tempted to commit some journalism?
Last edited 2 years ago by Chauncey Gardiner
Charles Hedges
2 years ago
I suggest the author reads Thomas Sowell, in particular his experiences of growing up up in Harlem in the 1940s and 50s and today.
Keith Merrick
2 years ago
Mr Daly blames everyone for black youth crime but black youths themselves. He assumes that a lack of respect for them precedes their disruptive behaviour whereas I suspect it’s the other way around. He wants us to respect delinquent black boys who have done nothing to deserve it; in fact quite the opposite. He never asks himself why Asian children aren’t disruptive in school or crime prone, despite belonging to ethnic minorities. Instead it’s Brexit and nationalism that are cause black boys to go off the rails and then feel unwanted. What an unusually stupid piece for Unherd to run.
Geoffrey Wilson
2 years ago
Many interesting points, and comments below too. And of course I would agree that the very emotionally-disadvantaged and prone to violence children being discussed are a problem we need to address and if possible improve. There is indeed a reference in the article to Brexit – but my interpretation of the relevance here is about the loud screaming from the anti-Brexiteers that it meant 52% of us hated black people and immigrants, which probably did upset, indeed hurt, many of those people. It is not true – I never heard any personal anti-black or anti-immigrant statements from pro-Brexiteers – and it would be nice at some point to hear some anti-Brexiteers and some media commentators apologise for the upset and hurt they caused by their screaming (perhaps they could even acknowledge that their screaming was unfounded and unfair).
I would bring together the solutions advocated by the apparent opposite sides of the argument here – it would be good for government and society to do more to support emotionally and financially those building real families (you know what I mean here), and it would be good for government and society to listen more to individual children who are hurting and show them that many people in our society are caring and want to help.
bhqc
2 years ago
Look for real solutions here. Everyone can and should get involved. Launched this month. Please tell everyone too! http://Www.fightingknifecrime.london
Frances Mann
2 years ago
What a good article and how very sad to read so many unfeeling comments from Unherd readers.
Sam McLean
2 years ago
I suppose I only have myself to blame for reading the comments. What a lovely bunch of folk……
“…Tony, who runs the local community centre, described by Thapar as a “tiny island amid a sea storm”, says he believes that the nationalism and xenophobia around Brexit, and scandals such as Windrush and Grenfell, make young people in areas such as Brixton ‘feel like they don’t belong … it sends the message: you are not wanted’ …”.
So, this guy Tony is implying that Brexit is a contributing factor to London teens knifing each other. But my point is more directly aimed at the two writers, Thapar, and the author of this piece: as you are seemingly happy to push political agendas by proxy, don’t be too surprised if not many take what you have to say very seriously.
A shame – an otherwise thoughtful piece.
Absolutely. The piece makes several useful points. I have no idea why investigatives these days want to wear their political hearts on their sleeves, instead of just reporting and alalysing what they see.
Agree what a stupid connection to make. Just because these volunteers work around these kids it doesn’t stop them from saying stupid things. Also the cultural aspect is overlooked. Violent knife crime is endemic in most black countries.
And regarding culture what about the music and the criminality , violence and , yes misogyny celebrated in the ‘music’ . They don’t need to actually be selling drugs to fantasise about drilling people like a gangsta
Brexit did affect black people living in the UK. One friend of mine said that in Tesco’s, the day after the referendum, a man angrily asked her why she hadn’t left the country already. She said she’d never experienced anything like that before. Another black friend has a similar story – so Brexit will have made a lot of black people feel less welcome.
I’m of Indian descent (although born in Africa). I experienced absolutely nothing like that re the Brexit vote, then or since. In fact I had a bit of a rough time in the 70s in my teens but I have pretty much not experienced any racism in the UK since – and that stuff was like four decades ago. Although by no means a majority, I know many Asian Brits who voted for Brexit, and to date I have not heard anyone Indian complain to me they have experienced racism whichever way they voted.
So how do you account for this discrepancy of experience then?
Thanks Prashant. The father of the late Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks arriving in England after flee the Nazis, said that England was “a kingdom of kindness.” It was then and it is today. Some people will always resent the stranger but equally, some strangers are determined to find racism at every opportunity and in every encounter. Like the Jews in Britain, many ethnic groups have done extremely well and are proud and much valued citizens. Others, unfortunately, will be forever trapped in bitterness and victimhood. It’s all a matter of what abides in the heart. Best wishes to you.
Mirrors my experience. I was chased by skinheads in the 1970s but have no recent experience of racism. There are too many thin skins. Being a little deaf probably helps too.
I’m inclined to disbelieve Simon’s friend’s story. As you say, had we been back in the 1970’s then I would find it much easier to believe. The only thing that makes me think it might be true is that Asian-British are probably viewed differently to Caribbean-British by the white British, and for obvious reasons: different average levels of integration into mainstream British life, different levels of academic achievement, different crime rates and different contributions to the economy and culture. But still I don’t believe it.
I just don’t believe that story. It sounds like the kind of thing a Remainer would invent to justify hating Leave voters.
On this we agree
If he’s the same Simon Coulthard from the DT, he’s not a bleeding heart liberal.
And tbh, why are you people down-voting him if even half of what he’s stated is true?
Ps. I voted to leave.
Also, he lived in Spain
Phil, we’re voting him down because the story sounds implausible, not because we are racists. He actually didn’t state very much, so ‘if even half of what he’s stated is true’, that means only one of his two black friends was lying.
Pathetic ! These boys grow up with male role models from black gangsta music videos . Their mothers can afford to raise them with no male input other than sex visits leaving them with another pregnancy . Of course the small boys listen to their mothers slagging off ‘men’ with their female friends , which is likely to cause them a lot more psychological upset than bleeding Brexit
They have no positive male role models and spend their earliest years hearing ‘men’ dissed (unsurprisingly ) by their mothers and their mothers female friends .
This rather than white racism is at the root of their issues with self -image , whatever ‘clued up ‘David Lammy says
Hmm, you seem to have a very intimate and comprehensive knowledge of the lives of black, single parent families.
Or do you?
So Brexit made them feel less welcome so they immediately started knifing other black kids ,obviously , or drilling one another more than usual
That is very sad, and odd too considering that non EU immigration was not an issue in the referendum. I suppose the general hysteria and polarisation of the time brought this kind of ignoramus out of the woodwork.
I don’t think a few anecdotes like this should be used to tar all leavers with the same brush.
You’re right Hilary, it is odd. So odd in fact, that it might not actually have happened, something you appear not to have considered.
Yet many immigrants voted for Brexit and are strongly patriotic. The common denominator among them being that they are successful and integrated, such as the Sikhs, Koreans and Chinese.
But Brexit was about leaving the EU and had absolutely nothing to do with people from non-EU countries. Had she been Polish I might have understood it a bit better. So what exactly made your friend assume that the comment was Brexit related? Had she never met any random idiot in her life before the Brexit vote?
There’s no knife crime in the EU, so he may be on to something.
I dont believe that.
Surely there’s knife crime wherever there are disgruntled people?
He literally wrote that you can be killed by standing in the wrong street. How much more of a nationalist mindset can a person have, that they don’t want to kill foreigners, not people from outside England, not even the next county, borough, or district. Nope, the next street is good enough.
It doesn’t have to be an accurate observation to be relevant. It’s more a case of a negative narrative from our establishment reinforcing an already fragile mindset.
So all those guardian reading social workers and all those billions spent of welfare and these boys have such fragile mindsets that the ‘establishment’ makes them drill one another .
The guardian reading social workers ARE the establishment to these boys .The negative narrative they imbue them with is that they are born victims .
That was my initial reaction to that line, but on reflection I don’t blame Tony.
The real culpability rests with the media (particularly the BBC) and the Remainers who persistently spread the lie that the Brexit vote was somehow xenophobic or racist.
It’s no surprise that people like this Tony took it as gospel, given that so many authority figures were saying it was so.
It’s similar to the way the US media stoked racial grievance after the death of George Floyd. They could have carefully explained the actual facts about supposed police racist (you are slightly more likely to be killed by the cops in America if you are white than if you are black).
But – with a presidential election in the offing – it suited CNN, the New York Times, The Washington Post, MSNBC and the other tentacles of the Democract/Media Complex to propagate the untruth that American police were institutionally racist.
It is generally believed that heightened racial tensions benefit the Democrats in national elections and the media were pretty much united in wanting Trump out and Biden in.
The fact that – as a result of this intentional failure to report the full picture – people were killed, homes and businesses burned, shops looted and violent crime is now soaring matters not a jot to these companies.
Teenagers knifing one another is nothing new. Back in the 1960s (to give but one example), white youths in Glasgow were dying as a result of gang culture. We tend to blame too much on poverty and lack of education, and not enough on testosterone. Young male animals will always find a reason to fight. At a primal level, it’s about sex and resources. If society really wanted to reduce, if not eliminate the problem, it would embrace eugenics and castrate, if not cull superfluous and/or undesirable males (and females, come to that). Trouble is, we’re too lily-livered to do it.
It’s hard not to consider the preponderance of single-parent family structures in many of these communities as the biggest problem …..
Schools and governments should support kids, rather than be responsible for them.
I struggle with the idea that they are “communities” at all. We need a word for groups of people where the fathers are all absent and the offspring are all feral. We also need a place for them, come to think of it, that’s a long way from Britain.
You want to deport orphans?
They have mothers obviously . Absurdly generous welfare makes it easy for single women to have multiple children with no male input . But you seriously believe the consequences are caused by white racism .
They would probably have as many children without the welfare; I don’t think planning is a part of it.
Any ‘orphan’ resourceful enough to make their way to Britain after losing their parents is resourceful enough to make a life for themselves in their country of origin post-deportation; but that is only to be expected of young men, which is what most of these ‘orphans’ turn out to be when their skeletal structures are examined via X-ray. As for those who are in fact children, their parents have often paid a considerable sum of money to traffickers. Genuine child orphans are in fact few and far between, but we do have a duty to the few that arrive on our shores.
That’s what I was thinking while reading the article. Chipping away at the symptoms but not getting to the roots is just a waste of everyone’s time. Fix the father crisis.
“Most teachers told me I would end up dead or in jail. I got told I was worthless.” In 10 years’ teaching I have never heard a teacher say anything like either of these statements to a pupil. On the contrary, teachers generally heap praise on pupils for mediocre or poor work in the hope that unearned praise will prompt greater effort. I am not saying that no teacher has ever said either of the quoted statements. What I am saying is that the frequency with which such comments are made are being exaggerated to excuse violent and criminal behaviour.
The reason why so many young people feel unwanted is because they have been deserted by their fathers. No one who is paid to look after you can be an adequate substitute for a parent and that parent’s unconditional love for you. This is so obvious that only the wilfully blind cannot see it.
Then there is the implication that everything would be alright if violent children remained in normal schools. Do other students not have a right to feel safe in their lessons? In my experience, in many schools the level of violence towards students and staff is hidden by the leadership teams. Sending a pupil to a PRU is not done lightly as it is very expensive for the school referring the pupil. Literally thousands of pounds a year have to be found to cover the cost for every pupil sent. Normally schools just swap violent pupils in managed moves in the hope that some of them will take advantage of the second chance being offered.
Exactly. At the risk of sounding like my dear late mother, respect is something you earn, not something you’re given.
That’s the first time I have ever heard David Lammy called “clued up”.
“5hit thick” would have been my choice of adjective.
That line did give me a chuckle, heres mastermind Mr Lammy in action
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsR4Nx-ELgc
No mention of something that I read about recently – sorry, can’t remember where – namely the influence of Somali immigrant youths in escalating the level of violence on the streets, and therefore the level of violence assumed in calculating the level of defence required, in a vicious spiral.
Having lived in Sweden, this sounds plausible to me.
In the 2000s there was a lot of violence in the Greenwich area between groups of Somali and Afro-Caribbean heritage. Ignored by the BBC because it didn’t chime with the required narrative.
In the school in Wembley where my daughter used to teach, ‘Somali boys’ were singled out as one of the most problematic groups. They were beyond parental control (single parent in many cases, I believe) and were a menace in the school.
Not to mention their male relatives back home being violent gangsters.
Having lived in Ethiopia that seems plausible to me – as they say, if you want to make a Somali laugh show him a knife. Cultures of violence are rife in failed states.
The author makes a point about the government’s abdication of responsibility for these children, but no mention of abdication of responsibility of absent fathers or carefree parents. No mention of the glorification of easy money or perverted status of gangs and violence. Why is it always the government’s fault? If I behave badly, that is my choice, ok I accept some aspects of environment make make it easier to do so if it is condoned by friends and community, but I’m responsible for my behaviour. My parents were responsible largely for my behaviour when I was a child by setting boundaries.
Finally those that cry out for this to be treated as a public health issue often refer our to work done in Glasgow where agencies offered increased support to turn kids array from knife crime, but they often overlook the “stick” that came with such an approach, the police warned these individuals they would constantly be harassed by the police, their friends would be harassed, if the anti social behaviour continued and local housing agencies told families they would be evicted. I can’t see the Met adopting this stick in London.
One feature I have read in the past is that the statistics show many of the perpetrators and victims are in communities made up of young male immigrants from war torn countries who bring their trauma and divisions.
Solving that experience is very difficult. In addition single parent families with little father influence and poor parental moral guidance from ‘forgotten’ and bleak communities is also a key feature.
But why should it be our problem to solve? I dont want Somalian warfare in the UK.
In psychology, they say violence is ‘unlearned’ during early childhood (up to the age of 6), but some children don’t go through this unlearning process and retain aspects of aggression and violence that often leads to delinquency in later life.
The literature, surprisingly, associates the lack of unlearning with characteristics of the mother – the use of power-control (hitting and anger), instead of nurturing or ‘love-orientated’ discipline, mother’s low education and often teenage pregnancy. Teaching young women how to be positive mothers might help – some communities – such as British Indians – seem much better than this than others.
This then leads to a second factor. Both the US and UK appear to have a statistical relationship where states/local authorities with large primary schools also have an more violent crime. Since early development is so crucial for the ‘unlearning of violence’, this suggests keeping smaller primary schools, where children are more noticed as individuals, might be a positive policy in terms of reduction in violence.
Many single mothers use violence to control young children with no thought that by the time their sons are going through puberty the sons will be not just stronger but raised to consider violence as the means to decide who rules at home.
Until the media report properly the truth will remain hidden. This isnt Black kids. It is Black afro Caribbean kids.
African kids do far better at school (better often than white kids) they tend to study hard and have stable home lives.
I think that’s more or less correct except that while West African kids aren’t involved, except as targets of the others, I do get the impression East African ones are.
And the East Africans come from more violent countries than the western ones.
As all the killings are largely the work of one race, it can only be a matter of time before the usual woke pi11ocks pipe up to say this is all caused by white racism.
A very interesting piece. Hits close to home for anyone who has young children.
One of the arguments that I disagree with, though, is the “failure of state to care for its citizens”. This implies that the state should do more for the kids from broken families. The problem is, IMHO, that no matter how hard the state tries, it will never be able to do the job of a family. The state resources would be better directed at preventing family breakup in the first place.
Look up the 1965 Moynihan Report on the breakdown of the family in some communities. The root problem was when, with the best of intentions, the government provided enough financial assistance to black mothers to get them out of poverty, it removed any responsibility from black fathers, and thus the source of their authority.
Referring to these kids as “black” is factually true but about as helpful as diagnosing the Cost Nostra as “Italian”.
In Zimbabwe where I live I have never seen black people behave like this. Likewise the black Africans (Zimbabwean and otherwise) I knew in the UK were more middle-class than their British counterparts and had *nothing* in common with black British yobs who they shared superficial racial classification with.
Knife crime in London is a problem of a particular kind of Jamaican lineage from a particular period in Jamaican history, who migrated at a particular time in British history, and who mixed with a particular brand of local yob culture to produce the hybrid horror show that we have now.
We need to identify the subculture at fault and come up with meaningful policies that counter it socially and economically.
We can’t do that while the public and policy makers assume that some Oxbridge “BAME” graduate living in Clapham is some how “at risk” of being knifed or of knifing others.
In short we must stop using this meaningless “BAME” term that the usual-suspect media insists on using, and which, sadly, the author of this article insists on using, because it obscures the nature of the problem and makes it harder to solve.
You’re so right. But look what happened when the Sewell report tried to make these distinctions and find practical answers. The usual suspects used it as yet another opportunity to ramp up the anger and reinforce the usual narrative about white supremacy.
Good article Max. Approx ten years ago I was fronting a church youth group. We are a traditional working /middle class area. It ran on Friday evenings and offered nothing apart from basketball type games in a large hall. At a certain time the teenagers (12+) would come downstairs for the ‘God slot’ at which I usually spoke We had a tuck shop and pool table downstairs but nothing else. The numbers attending hovered around 30, mainly boys. Overall we had no trouble and they came back week after week. The essence of our success was a deep and abiding interest in those young people coupled with firmness in regard to behaviour, I’m in my 70s now but would give anything to work with young lads again. I absolutely loved them and they knew it. I’m in rural Northumberland but my heart is with the black youth in London. I prayed for them this morning. The authorities don’t need costly initiatives: Just build youth centres staffed by people with love in their hearts and a firm commitment to being there week after week.
You are so right Maureen. The Eden project on the streets of Manchester had similarly positive results; the power of prayer is of course part of it! One of my daughters and both sons-in-law were involved.
In this country we tend to develop habits of the USA about 20 years after they do. In the USA the largest proportions of violent crimes are black on black. The white on black crimes of course get all of the publicity. Basically, young black men have problems with violence and it is important to understand why this is so. Clearly, they have formed an underclass and there will be a plethora of political theories to explain this.
Meanwhile, those white people who can leave the city centres are doing just that. This has happened in the American cities, Detroit being the oft-quoted example. It is likely that the contributors to UnHerd do not live in these battle zones (I don’t) so comments will be removed from the actual reality of the problem.
It is difficult to say anything here without shouts of ‘Woke’ but it is clear that these young black people are in the poorest segments of society. If you give them money, they would probably use it to buy better weapons or to buy drugs. The old British idea of building youth clubs in bad areas might not be relevant now and people would be needed to staff them. In fact, this is one area where wokeism works hands down – woke people would volunteer to work in these areas and non-wokes would probably think that it was the government’s problem.
woke people will tweet about it, the last thing they are going to do is volunteer their time and resources to any practical solutions, particularly where this black on black violence undermines their belief that “whiteness” is the cause of all problems
Agree, woke cretins will much more concerned about what it’s called than about what it does.
It confirms that belief . The violence is the result of white nativists getting pumped up on Brexit and hurting BAME feelings . Black fragility ??
The White Man’s Burden never went away.
Can we not just build more prisons?
That’s a good point.
A 17 year old boy was stabbed to death in Swadlincote on Saturday night. The fact most people reading this will have to look up Swadlincote illustrates just how big this problem now is.
Didn’t it used to have a dry ski slope?
And there was me thinking that knife crime escalated when the Police were either afraid or prevented from dealing with those murderous hoodlums due to concerns over racism.
Obviously, not stopping and searching likely suspects is clearly going to help and not send any messages about open seasons and stuff like that.
Worst thing I have ever read on UnHerd . So the stabbings are caused by brexit and white racism , not by growing up with values drawn from the hyper violent lyrics and ethos of gangster rap . Even when they aren’t directly dealing drugs and the killings aren’t part of a literal drugs turf war they are still aping the values of the gangsta -dealers with the need to save face and exhibit machismo .
A welfare state that encourages single mothers and allows men to have countless babymammas to whom they contribute nothing but sperm is the root cause .
Government way too generous
Why are my innocuous comments awaiting approval?
……because they’re having to root around in their desks, to find a dictionary, so they look up what the word “innocuous” means. (It might be naughty, or something to do with anti-vax’ers)
There is a fascinating book about Salford in the first quarter of the 20th Century called, “The Classic Slum” written by Robert Roberts (yes, really). One chapter of the book talks about the gangs of Manchester and Salford which, as described in the article were less organised crime (though they might well have occasionally been involved) than they were about group grievance, usually expressed at the level of suburb and street. My grandfather spoke about how as a child he would avoid certain streets and areas as since he was from Manchester (around Deansgate I believe) he could get into serious bother with kids from Salford. Knives as well as fists were the weapons that were available. These problems are not new in England.
“The groups of young men and youths who gathered at the end of most slum streets on fine evenings earned the condemnation of all respectable citizens. They were damned every summer by city magistrates and unceasingly harried by the police. In the late nineteenth century the Northern scuttler and his ‘moll’ had achieved a notoriety as widespread as that of any gangs in modern times. […]
That fraternity of some thirty to forty teenagers who lived in the street where our Church of England school stood achieved such a fearsome reputation for gang battle that they were remembered by name in The Times seventy years after. By my youth most of these were married and worthy householders in the district. In many industrial cities of the late Victorian era and after, such groups became a minor menace. Deprived of all decent ways of spending their little leisure, they sought escape from tedium in bloody battles with belt and clog–street against street. The spectacle of two mobs rushing with wild howls into combat added still another horror to the ways of slumdom. Scuttlers appeared in droves before the courts, often to receive savage sentences. In the new century this mass brutality diminished somewhat, but street battles on a smaller scale continued to recur spasmodically in our district and in others similar until the early days of the first world war. This form of violence, vicious and purposeless, seemed to have its root in a subconscious wish to establish ‘territory’. Not only children but adults too felt that the street where they dwelt was in some way their personal property. Householders would even order youngsters who lived in the street away from their doors with a–‘Get down to the other end where you live!’ Boys and youths walking alone in the evening would at times have to avoid those thoroughfares where territorial aggressiveness was strong, through fear of molestation or assault. All the warring gangs were known by a street name and fought, usually, by appointment–Next Friday, 8 p.m.: Hope Street v . Adelphi!”
— The Classic Slum: Salford Life in the First Quarter of the Century by Robert Roberts
https://amzn.eu/3PLA9ld
Thanks for the link. I downloaded, and look forward to reading it.
Fascinating book and one of several that contributed to changing many of my opinions over the years. The social attitudes of people living there are everywhere in the book. It really helped me understand what had molded my grandparents’ generation.
Interesting.
Don’t worry after all I’m sure it will be super easy to control access to easily made, often concealable, simple sharpened bits of metal.
The main problem is that socio cultural resolutions, better smaller schools takes a long time. What in the time before it works ? ?. Look at Sweden. SElf declared humanistic, but accept that young immigrants shot themselves in droves. The aggressive stance of ex. Sascha Johnson BLM group it’s half military approach is an accept of a violent attitude.
This piece needs a lot more context. Specifically, it would be good to know something about murder among teenagers over time. It’s not really a new phenomenon, is it?
And what to do about it? Society doesn’t care? If there were easy solutions, might they not have been attempted?
In the United States there are calls for “restorative justice”. It’s a piece with the business of diminishing punishments in the public schools (the state-run schools) for black children. The idea here is that teachers discriminate against black kids. (Really?) What teachers had really been doing was tying to deal with violent kids — who happened to be disproportionately black.
One can debate the merits and methods of “restorative justice”, but there is one unambiguously obvious policy initiative the authorities could launch: Get rid of programs that pay mothers to have kids. We end up with a population of single mothers who have children, because the children bring in money from state and federal programs. These kids are wanted only insofar as they provide a meal ticket. But, then we hear this familiar story: The boyfriend moves in. The children get abused, possibly sexually abused. We end up with a lot of angry kids.
So, the policy prescription would be: Get rid of the programs that create the steady stream of angry kids. We could then sort what we do about the angry kids we already have.
Also, maybe someone should do a little background research on why we single mothers insist on being single mothers. Might a journalist be tempted to commit some journalism?
I suggest the author reads Thomas Sowell, in particular his experiences of growing up up in Harlem in the 1940s and 50s and today.
Mr Daly blames everyone for black youth crime but black youths themselves. He assumes that a lack of respect for them precedes their disruptive behaviour whereas I suspect it’s the other way around. He wants us to respect delinquent black boys who have done nothing to deserve it; in fact quite the opposite. He never asks himself why Asian children aren’t disruptive in school or crime prone, despite belonging to ethnic minorities. Instead it’s Brexit and nationalism that are cause black boys to go off the rails and then feel unwanted. What an unusually stupid piece for Unherd to run.
Many interesting points, and comments below too. And of course I would agree that the very emotionally-disadvantaged and prone to violence children being discussed are a problem we need to address and if possible improve. There is indeed a reference in the article to Brexit – but my interpretation of the relevance here is about the loud screaming from the anti-Brexiteers that it meant 52% of us hated black people and immigrants, which probably did upset, indeed hurt, many of those people. It is not true – I never heard any personal anti-black or anti-immigrant statements from pro-Brexiteers – and it would be nice at some point to hear some anti-Brexiteers and some media commentators apologise for the upset and hurt they caused by their screaming (perhaps they could even acknowledge that their screaming was unfounded and unfair).
I would bring together the solutions advocated by the apparent opposite sides of the argument here – it would be good for government and society to do more to support emotionally and financially those building real families (you know what I mean here), and it would be good for government and society to listen more to individual children who are hurting and show them that many people in our society are caring and want to help.
Look for real solutions here. Everyone can and should get involved. Launched this month. Please tell everyone too!
http://Www.fightingknifecrime.london
What a good article and how very sad to read so many unfeeling comments from Unherd readers.
I suppose I only have myself to blame for reading the comments. What a lovely bunch of folk……