Oh how I can hear the rapturous applause of Nick Griffin and his fascist party at the sight of your unfounded allegative article. I think it’s a shame when a journalist uses the power in his fingertips to generalise and demonise a whole section of society. Mr Dhaliwal, it is clear from this article that the anger in your fingertips got a head start over your brain and even at the very end of this opinion piece it appears the two were never in sync.
I was completely outraged whilst reading Nirpal Dhaliwal’s ridiculous paralleling of the shooting and consequently paralysing of Thusha Kamaleswaran with Mark Duggan’s death at the hand of the police last year.
Forgive me if I am wrong, but the fact that Mark Duggan was a “known criminal and gang member”, as Mr Dhaliwal very thoughtfully put it, is beside the point. I should think injustice is the same no matter who it is acting against. Mark Duggan was an unarmed father-of-four who was allegedly executed by police. The same people who now admit that his killing should not have happened. If that’s not enough reason for his family to protest then I would kindly have Mr Dhaliwal point to me a more appropriate occasion.
Thusha was not shot and paralysed because she is of a particular race. On the other hand, allegedly and most of the black community believe this, Mark Duggan was. Thusha was shot because of a gangland culture that consists of all different types of races. The wider black community as a sole entity is not to blame.
What Mr Dhaliwal fails to consider or at least fails to admit is that my skin being of a darker shade does not contend to me being more prone to a life of criminality. My God, I have lived in the leafy suburbs of Bexley Borough all my life and I have not even smelt a whiff of gunpowder smoke, let alone seen a gun – as Mr Dhaliwal claims that the black community is mainly responsible for stabbings and shootings. I know for a fact that most people within my community have not experienced nor witnessed this life of criminality that Mr Dhaliwal believes is “chronic”.
Not once did Mr Dhaliwal mention that gun crime and stabbings are a London-wide problem. I.e. regardless of race. So, is he telling the world that whites, Chinese, Asians etc. are not also involved in this kind of criminality in London or even Britain as a whole? (Where is your statistic to back this up?) If he is, then dare I say that this is a complete and utter lie. To say that the “PRIMARY REASON”, as Mr Dhaliwal has put it, for the police being armed in London is because of BLACK PEOPLE AND THEIR GUN CRIME is complete and utter rubbish. Stabbings and shootings is a regular occurrence in London but ONLY by black youths? No. The Metropolitan Police’s slogan is “Working Together for a Safer London”. The Police are meant to be on the same side of the innocent people! To be antagonised and almost hunted by the very people you are meant to put your faith and trust in is more than disappointing. It is downright upsetting. This is the very reason why Mark Duggan’s family took to the streets that fateful day. Of course, the black community is concerned about ANY criminality that affects us – not just stabbing and shooting – but how can we focus on that when many of us are being attacked by the people who are supposed to serve, protect and work together with us? We can’t.
How dare you accuse my community of being too sensitive to stop-and-search? I would like to question whether you have ever been stopped and searched. Do you know what it feels like to be completely humiliated and racially profiled in the middle of a busy street? As if you were the enemy of the State – meanwhile you were just going about your daily life? I should think you do not have the foggiest. Do I go around pointing my black suburban finger at every Asian that passes me by and accuse them of being the sole source of terrorism? I should think not. So should we harass 99% of a community, who is already a minority, just to find the 1%. If that is the case, why is it we do not “racially profile” other races who are allegedly prone to certain strains of criminality? Why don’t we? Because it is utter rubbish. Criminality is intrinsically linked to A CULTURE and not to the colour of someone’s skin. If we generalised every crime to a race rather than a CULTURE, dare I say we would be stepping back into time to the days of Cesare Lombroso who said in 1876 that there was a BIOLOGICAL/PHYSIOLOGICAL reason for crime. I.e. people who look a certain way are more likely to commit certain crimes. Also, we would be putting people in the firing line (like the majority of the black people) who have nothing whatsoever to do with gun and knife crime. You are a part of the media who continues to hunt and destroy the public image of a minority group in this country. You take the minimal evidence and discard the overwhelming remains that suggest that black people are hard-working and law abiding citizens of the United Kingdom.
Mr Dhaliwal let us call a spade a spade. Yes, the black community are pained by the unnecessary death of a member of its community. I completely refute responsibility, however, for the black community to be the sole source and protagonist of the riots last summer. Wondering if you saw the pictures on Sky News and BBC, I hope you notice that there were all races involved in the riots last summer. It was a YOUTH problem and not a racial one. How you can blame a small group of Mark Duggan’s family and friends and hold them responsible for lootings and violent disorders hundreds of miles away is beyond me.
Also, you have completely disregarded the actuality in what David Starkey said in his comment “the whites have become black”. Starkey radically and ignorantly reduced the very complex and varying nature and culture of the black community into just one negative stereotype. Black culture began and evolved over thousands of years and yet we have one white TUDOR HISTORIAN who does not know the first thing about being a black person in a white country telling ME about MY culture?! Yes – you’re right Mr Dhaliwal – “funny that”, indeed.
May I remind you Mr Dhaliwal that London or even Britain is very much still a white man’s country. Your opinion piece has done more harm than good. You have demonised a whole section of London society; you have sensationalised and therefore stereotyped the black community in such a way that those who have never come in contact with the community will forever take your word as gospel. Throughout your opinion piece you have made assumption after assumption with not one statistic to backup how much the black community is apparently inseparably linked to criminality. It is a shame that you cannot use your journalistic prowess to point the finger at your own race and its problems (if that is the right thing to do) rather than doing so at others.
For those who care to know what I am ranting about, here is said article by Nirpal Dhaliwal: http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/comment/where-is-the-black-outrage-over-thushas-shooting-7599847.html
have sincerely participated in the season of Lent.
