Race Relations

[poliphilo]

Our friend Khadijah (who is support worker with Social Services)was in Royton yesterday morning and three times she had guys crusing past in cars shout racist abuse at her.

Royton is the suburb of Oldham where I used to be a vicar. It's a "nice" area- upwardly mobile, and almost exclusively white.

Race relations are edgy round here at the best of times, but it looks like they've got edgier since the London bombings. Leastways Khadj has never encountered anything like this before.

She said she wanted to go up to the shouters and say, "Look, I'm a nice person. I'm doing a useful job here. What makes you think you can talk to me like that?"

Her boss would like to pull her out of Royton, but she doesn't want to go. "If I leave," she says, "they'll have won."

Comments

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I'm glad the guy in the Merc got as good as he gave.

But, yes, it's sad. This town I live in is multicultural but- largely because of Council housing policy- everyone more or less lives in ghettos. Our house is on one of the few integrated streets- half Asian and half white- sandwiched between the Asian ghetto of Glodwick (up on the hill) and the white ghetto of Fitton Hill (down in the valley).

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

On Saturday afternoon in a south Knoxville neighborhood known for violence and drug problems, there was a drive-by shooting while some children and adults were out in the yard, and a 25-year-old woman stepped in front of a four-year-old child to protect her and was shot in the head and killed.

No one knows who did it.

When the TV crew went out to interview the neighbors, no one would talk on camera. "It would be like drawing a target on my chest," one said.

No children are out in the yard anymore, and no one sits on their porches.

And it's random, apparently.

This morning, in another Knoxville neighborhood, a man looked out to see if his paper was in the driveway and found a woman's body.

Police are investigating.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

The reason- or one of the reasons- this particular killing made the headlines, is that it didn't happen in a "bad" neighbourhood, but in a leafy, middle-class suburb. We were told that the last "racial" incident that was logged at the victim's college happened 11 years ago.

There have been two arrests. One man is out on bail and the other is "helping the police with their enquiries" (I love that phrase!)