Power and the politics of race
This week’s events have corroborated my belief that we can learn more about society and politics from Big Brother than from Today in Parliament.
Alexandra’s expulsion from the house for “intimidating” behaviour demonstrates our ruling class’s terror of anything remotely resembling a physical threat; violence is something done to foreigners, not “respectable“ white people.
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Casting the Net: Firefox, Vibrators, and the Police
Tomorrow is Download Day. I’ve been using the Firefox3 beta for some time now, and I’m very impressed with it. If you’re using IE and fancy giving it a shot, you may as well do it tomorrow and be part of a world record attempt. Click the button for the link:
Lynne Featherstone talks about the difficulties of relying on the NHS to provide you with independent movement.
Spirit of 1976 has suddenly discovered an urge to try Khat – why? Because the Tories want to ban it.
The Times has a fascinating article on the history of Vibrators, and how the humble Personal Massager reflects the changing attitude of society to women.
Smash Boredom has a convincing argument that Robert Mugabe is right about something.
PC Bloggs has a very affecting tale of police resources spread too thin. I can’t recommend her blog enough.
And finally, Feminist SF reviews the weekend’s episode of Doctor Who in a rather weary manner.
Not the right sort of person
Yesterday, on emerging from the bowels of the Picadilly line as is my wont at half six on a Thursday, I was dismayed to see a wall of armoured police surrounding a pair of electronic weapons-detecting barriers through which the good residents of Wood Green were being made to walk.
So I took it upon myself to engage a couple of members of Her Majesty’s Constabulary in conversation.
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Reefer madness: an interlude
Shock, horror, disaster! Call the riot boys, summon the G8! Get your placards out! Cannabis causes brain damage!
Well, sort of. Ish. We think. But it’s been days since the last teen stabbing and it’s a slow news morning, so let’s have a moral panic anyway. Cue headlines splashed with the latest drug trials that prove next to nothing about the effects of marijuana on the human brain, as if that were the point.
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We Hate the Kids pt1: the madness of young men
Hypermasculinity, like hyperfemininity, is a pose of the powerless. There is a reason you don’t see gangs of City bankers stalking Moorgate and Maylebone with long knives and hoods pulled down over their heads – and it’s not because they’ve been better brought up.
It’s because they’ve no need to. When you’ve got money and status and class and education and power, you don’t need to act out physical prowess and aggression because it’s not all you’ve got – although the hard-working ladies at Spearmint Rhino might well testify to the fact that city lads too are prone to the odd bout of gibbon-like strutting and howling.
Finer minds than mine have discussed this function of the culture of young male violence.
The pronouncement of US anti-violence educator Jackson Katz on gang culture amongst young black males in the States can be applied equally to disenfranchised boys of every race in London:
“If you’re a young man growing up in this culture and the culture is telling you that being a man means being powerful… but you don’t have a lot of real power, one thing that you do have access to is your body and your ability to present yourself physically as somebody who’s worthy of respect. And I think that’s one of the things that accounts for a lot of the hypermasculine posturing by a lot of young men of color and a lot of working class white guys as well. Men who have more power, men who have financial power and workplace authority and forms of abstract power like that don’t have to be as physically powerful because they can exert their power in other ways.”
Labour’s useless prisons
Whilst the weekend papers were regurgitating the ‘revelations’ in Cherie Blair’s autobiography (did you know Gordon & Tony don’t really get on? Yeah, I was stunned too!), the former Prime Minister’s wife was plotting to make an even more audacious attack on his successor. Why, you might ask, didn’t this feature prominently on Andrew Marr’s Sunday show or get plastered across the tabloids as a ‘Bollocking For Beleaguered Brown’? Well, probably because she was attacking him on a matter of substance.
A cell in Borstal, taken by Flickr user Flipsy (Creative Commons)
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Drugs policy: Brown fiddles while…
Not long after I moved to Hackney, I witnessed an armed robbery. From a range of about three feet, the fact that the robber was a crackhead was as obvious as the hammer and kitchen knife he was waving about.
A few years later, my partner and baby daughter were abducted outside my house. continue reading… »
Trouble in comedy-land
[Note: This article has been updated and revised to reflect ongoing legal action by comedian Johnny Vegas against the Guardian about this incident]
What a day – Mayday protests, an election and now I discover my own profession is being brought in to disrepute with those who care about women’s rights (lets hope that’s pretty much everyone).
I’m talking about Johnny Vegas’s behaviour towards an audience member during the show hosted by Stewart Lee at the Bloomsbury Theatre last Friday. I wasn’t at the show myself so I can only comment on reports from those who were. One audience member James Williams, posting on the NOTBBC forums said the following – and I apologise for the long quote but it is quite hard to locate the original post on the forums so easier to read it here, also I don’t want to quote pieces out of context without the disclaimers James himself includes:
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These people carry guns too
Back in the meatspace I’m now a journalism student, and I learnt something very interesting at hack school today:
You do not mess with the police.
No, really.
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Mayoral candidates launch election broadcasts
The election broadcasts for all candidates were launched last night.
Ken and Brian have their videos on YouTube while Sian Berry’s website has no such interactivity – a huge shame. And I can’t be bothered to promote Boris. So here they are:
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Immigrants on benefits
Let’s say it nice and loud, people – IMMIGRANTS DO NOT COME TO THIS FAIR NATION TO TAKE THE PISS. It is simply inhumane to create a society where there is no safety net for those in need – even those who weren’t born here.
Kitchen worker Vanildo Fernandas, 29, was waiting for a bus on Fulham Palace Road late one night after work in October 2006 when two complete strangers walked up to him and tried to kill him with a couple of knives. He still isn’t sure why they did that; maybe for for the hell of it?
“Maybe for a robbery?” Vanildo’s wife Claudia, 37, asks a couple of times. She doesn’t really buy the robbery theory, though.
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Defining the crime of aggression
Iraq has become the elephant in the room in some discussions of international relations amongst a certain section of liberal-left opinion. David Miliband opened his recent speech about democracy by saying that it had ‘clouded the debate’ about how to promote this, but the main lesson he seemed to draw from it is that future ‘interventions in other countries must be more subtle, better planned, and if possible undertaken with the agreement of multilateral institutions.’
The speech was actually more thoughtful than this extract suggests, but by failing to make it clear the exact circumstances in which the British government would use military force, the Foreign Secretary tied himself to a policy which by every measurable standard has been a complete disaster.
The invasion of Iraq was illegal.
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Youth violence and the working class
David Nowak – a 16-year old kid with the street name ‘Turk’ or ‘TK’ – fell victim to a knife killing in the playground across the road from my apartment block shortly before Christmas. Another teenage gang fight, apparently. Same thing happened to some other boy a couple of blocks away only a few months previously. Shrugs shoulders.
Three young men in the same age group – pictured right – were yesterday jailed for life for the murder of Garry Newlove, kicked to death outside his Warrington home in August last year after remonstrating with them for damaging his wife’s car. They were drunk and spliffed up at the time of the crime; Teenage Kicks, 2007 remix.
Meanwhile, one of today’s top stories in the British media is the controversy over ‘the Mosquito’, a device that prevents young people congregating in public places by emitting a high-pitched noise audible only to those aged under 25. The Children’s Commissioner for England and human rights group Liberty want it banned.
Violent or otherwise unruly behaviour on the part of youth is a real issue for working class communities, in inner cities and smaller towns alike. It is also one that many on the left – I’ll include myself here – feel instinctively uncertain about tackling.
The difficulty is avoiding the twin dangers of coming on like either a ‘Gee, Officer Krupke‘ parody or some deranged love child of David Blunkett and Melanie Phillips, manically demanding the return of the birch.
Yes, we can always advance a standard radical sociology critique. Of course these kids – socially formed under Labour governments, let us underline – are both products of the society around us and obviously deeply alienated from it.
Yes, some of the blame for teenage binge drinking surely lies with the directors of the giant booze companies that endlessly seek out new ways to encourage young people to guzzle their products, from ever-tackier sugar-filled alcopops to expensive advertising and promotional giveaway campaigns.
And no, the iniquities of ASBOs and the de facto return of the sus law – to which I was regularly subjected as a council estate teenager myself – don’t seem to have solved the problem, either.
I can’t honestly say that I know the answers. But if socialists ever want to be taken seriously be the people at the sharp end of this one, we need either to put forward some joined-up social policy thinking or risk leaving the field to the demagogues of all parties. After all, it’s not kids in Belgravia or the posh bits of Cheshire and Surrey that are doing the dying.
* Cross-posted from Dave’s Part
See Saw Marjory Straw
The government’s plans for super ‘Titan’ jails holding up to 2,500 prisoners haven’t gone down well, it seems. Ann Owers, Chief Inspector of Prisons, said:
[I]f we look across the Channel we see the French who built one of these kinds of prisons in the 1980s and have never done so again.
Jack Straw dithered, Gordon Brown didn’t.
It occurs to me that the next step would be to wall in a town like they do in Escape From New York. Look out for it being announced soon as the parties try to outdo each other in the run up to the next general election.
One of the concerns about Titan jails is that all the money is spent on building the things and funding for other programmes could be lost. Programmes to cut the unbelievably high levels of re-offending for example.
A new coalition on prostitution
A new coalition to put forward a feminist perspective against prostitution is to launch on Monday 11 February. The launch is a public event, with the invite extended to “all those who believe in real women’s-rights rather than men’s right to buy women”.
The meeting is at 6.30pm in the Amnesty UK Human Rights Action Centre in New Inn Yard, nearest tube Old St.
Of course, watchers of UK politics will be aware that the launch comes at a time when ministers are putting serious thought into a shake up the prostitution law along the lines of the Swedish model, to make the act of buying sex explicitly illegal – so women will not be charged for selling sex, but the men who buy their bodies will face prosecution. Today we learn that 52% of Britons agree with this approach and 65% agree that buying sex is an act with exploits women.
The Swedish government pioneered this legislation in 1999 and, although the move has not been without controversy, it has apparently produced a drop off in the number of prostitutes on the street, and perhaps on the numbers of women trafficked into the country.
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New Jersey Abolishes Death Penalty
The Democratic Governor of New Jersey, Jon Corzine, has just signed a bill abolishing the state’s death penalty. It is the first state to do so since the USA reintroduced capital punishment in the 1970s. (h/t Tyra).
Two CDs or Not Two CDs – Updated
It’s a matter of only twenty-four hours on from Alistair Darling’s statement on the apparent loss of two CDs containing personal information, including NI numbers and bank account information, relating to 7.25 million families who claim child benefit (an estimated 25 million people in total) and yet it seems that an injection of common sense into this situation is already long overdue.
(Especially in view of the amount of overheated nonsense currently being spouted by blogging ‘expert’, Iain Dale, who really should have learned, by now, the folly of stepping outside the limits of your own technical knowledge and understanding. By contrast, Dizzy – who does know his [technical stuff] has some observations that are well worth reading)
Let’s start with the what – what has actually happened? – for which we’ll turn to this summary provided by the BBC:
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Are ID Cards dead?
As so many people have already pointed out, the loss of the UK’s child benefit database is a disaster for the government. The incompetence beggars belief. This data is so important it should be treated like the launch codes for a nuclear weapon – there is nothing indicating that people were taking it anything like that seriously.
Until the discs are recovered (if they ever are), it seems to me there will be little way of knowing whether they are or have been used for fradulent purposes, who has copied the information, where it might have been sent to, in what new formats. Of the 25 million people who have been put at risk, some are bound to be victims of identity fraud, by sheer law of averages. Each time one of them is it will make another negative headline – whether they were actually connected to these lost CDs or not. Iain Dale has also pointed out that some or all of the people exposed could, theoretically, sue the government (though they would, in effect, be suing themselves). The amount of negative publicity could be endless.
Let us assume, then, that this Labour government is toast, and that we can expect a Conservative government in 2010 at the latest. What does it mean for ID cards?
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“The children are our future,” claim identity thieves
Still, on the plus side, another 25 million people have just realised that ID cards are what’s known in the trade as a Very Bad Idea.
Ian Blair’s fate hangs in the balance
The Metropolitan Police Authority meets this Thursday 22nd November to discuss Sir Ian Blair’s case on the shooting of Charles De Menezes. Paul Linford earlier concluded that Sir Ian Blair should not be backed by liberal-lefties because of the lack of transparency in the way the Met Police conducted this operation. I agree with him.
So, can we put any pressure on this case?
Blogger Yorkshire Ranter has helpfully compiled a list:
- 5 declared Labour members.
- 1 Green, Jenny Jones, still hanging on for the decentralised, human-scale virtues of ecologically plugging random electricians on the tube. But we’re getting in touch…
- 7 Tories and Liberals.
- Cindy Butts, Faith Boardman, and Richard Sumray, who are all for various reasons parti pris for the Government.
- Damien Hockney is voting no confidence in Sir Ian Blair.
- Karim Murji, I’m informed, is voting the Government ticket.That’s 10 members of the Glock 17 caucus to 8 in the Axis of Reason. Who’s left?
Looks like MPA e-mail addresses are firstname.lastname@mpa.gov.uk.
- Aneeta Prem, media@aneeta.com, webform; “has the top electrical consultants to build your home’s intelligent lighting system,” apparently.
- Reshard Auladin: Has “a keen interest in British Muslim affairs” according to the MPA. reshard.auladin@mpa.gov.uk
- Rachel Whittaker; rachel.whittaker@mpa.gov.uk, 020 7202 0223. Not this one.
- Kirsten Hearn “Wishes to describe herself as a stroppy, blind dyke, and proud of it”, apparently, not to mention a professional troublemaker. Surely, surely, surely this woman cannot be planning to vote in favour of the cops randomly shooting people? (E-mail kirsten@flotowers.freeserve.co.uk).
- John Roberts. Has “14 years of experience of working with London’s hard to reach communities”, apparently. john.roberts@mpa.gov.uk
- And Peter Herbert of the Society of Black Lawyers, we think, is sound.If you have any spare time this week at all, and especially if you live in London; can you please take the time to contact one of these people? And if you’ve got a blog, can you please reproduce this? Remember that in a two-horse race like this, every swinger counts double; not just a vote for our side, but one less for them. We’re now 10-9, with 5 votes in play; play up, play up, and play the game.
YR has some more info on the committee here too.
If you are going to email any of these people and explain why they should vote against Ian Blair, please be curteous.
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