16yr old boy shot dead in Stockwell
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No, just that 12 months of full pay off work will not help those who need the most assistance. Especially when the law already gives all women over 9 months (39 weeks) maternity pay.Blagsta said:
Yes, but many secure babies also grow up to be insecure teenagers and vice-versa.Blagsta said:
Apart from the reasons I stated above, I just don't think the decision to wield a gun aged 14 depends on whether your mother had 12 months full maternity pay.
I don't disagree with any of that, but as Black Brits, if we continue to wait for someone else, usually the government to solve our problems, to give us a reason to feel useful and validated as you say, instead of dealing with it ourselves,then we are in for a VERY LONG WAIT indeed.Blagsta said:
Blagsta said:
Whether you like it or not, as a woman I can tell you that access to contraception can make or break you. Nothing changes your life in quite the same way as having a baby. Men can walk away from kids a helluva lot more easily than women can that's for sure.
While improving education sounds like a great place to start, it won't matter if there are high levels of truancy, and of those who turn up a small percentage do not want to learn and are able to disrupt or distract classes for the rest, which was my general feeling when I was a school governor.
It also sounds a bit empty when those who have access to free education, free healthcare, and in many cases free housing complain that they don't have enough, when hundreds of thousands of people around the world risk their lives to get here just so they can have a tiny bit of what we dismiss, simply because some wealthy person in Kensington has so much more.
Personally I can't think of a single example where any government succeeded in giving people's lives meaning. People and communities tend to get on with it and do it for themelves while the government plays catch up. Not the other way round.
Blagsta
Minimum cage, maximum cage
Mind said:
SMP isn't much. I understand what you say about people on very low wages. However, my point still stands - economically forcing women to put their babies in the care of a stranger at 3 months, 6 months or even 9 months is wrong.
Mind said:
Children who are more securely attached develop less emotional problems later in life. Children who get involved in crime, drugs etc tend to have had insecure upbringings. There's a very real connection.
Mind said:
Well I'm not a black brit, but I agree with you there. The initiative must come from the community.
Mind said:
I think you missed my point.
Mind said:
If you improve education, more kids will go to school. Kids naturally want to learn. Make school more relevant and more interesting and kids will want to learn.
Mind said:
Except we don't really have free housing anymore do we? Most social housing has been sold off. Lambeth council has sold a lot of schoolsl off. The NHS is being carved up and sold off.
Mind said:
Agreed.
likesfish
You can't park here sir
the goverment can make it impossible for the gangs to operate we are not talking about
an insurgency just criminal youth gangs swap the estates effected with cops psco's or even troops for 6 months no more gang
. difficult to deal drugs if theres a foot patrol and monitored cctv everywhere and a couple of local plod stations plus you customer base isn't going to be coming in
thats phase one the sticky plaster
phase two is harder but doable revamp schools other education training employment ops. still doable.
make being a neet difficult phase one will have cut out most alternative forms of income and either killed or captured any gangster who wants to to stay in business.
IT comes down to money and political wing if we have the will to travel to iraq to fuck over a country we surely have the will to deal with a few gun toting low life scum
an insurgency just criminal youth gangs swap the estates effected with cops psco's or even troops for 6 months no more gang
. difficult to deal drugs if theres a foot patrol and monitored cctv everywhere and a couple of local plod stations plus you customer base isn't going to be coming in thats phase one the sticky plaster
phase two is harder but doable revamp schools other education training employment ops. still doable.
make being a neet difficult phase one will have cut out most alternative forms of income and either killed or captured any gangster who wants to to stay in business.
IT comes down to money and political wing if we have the will to travel to iraq to fuck over a country we surely have the will to deal with a few gun toting low life scum
steve indigenou
New Member
Even if young people in the Gambia (or Ghana, Nigeria or other African countries) do listen to Gangsta Rap, these negative influences are counteracted by other local cultural forces which have a cohesive effect. In all my time spent working in the poorer areas of urban Accra, I have never heard of the kind of problems we are experiencing. They don't have Sharia law there, so that's not a factor either. They do, however, have strong, cohesive communities with a very strong family structure where the elders generally keep the youth in line. And the povery there is much worse than here.
Lack of a cohesive community is one element of poverty. You can havr materially poor yet culturally rich, cohesive communities. The Old Accra area of Accra is one such area - one of the poorest, dirtiest, most crowded parts of Accra yet even when some people share a water-pipe with 200 others they don't resort to the depths of anti-social beahvior seen in South London.
Cultural influences are definitely a factor.
Most West African countries have strong local music industries, Senegal and Mali particularly so, but also Ghana and Nigeria too. So the effect of the corrosive foreign influnce of US-inspired gangsta rap is reduced. Young men will copy some of the fashion styles, but would never resort to gun violence. Access to fire-arms may have something to do with it too. I have heard worse things about Lagos, however, but I would be surprised if things are as bad there as in South London.
In the UK, we have an indigenous hip-hop culture that is generally more conscious than the gangsta elemennt in the US (so I am reliably informed). If the black community that follows hiphop culture was to shun gangsterism in favour of more conscious, progressive content from indigenous artists, this would help send more positive messages to their young people. Black cultural leaders need to unite to condemn gangsterism, excessive materialism, misogyny and so on and the government could do more to support this.
A discussion of the reasons why some black families do not provide the support young people need to grow up to become peaceful, respectful citizens is a vital one. Certainly I would welcome more resarch into why teenage pregnancy is so high locally - access to housing is one area worth exploring, but the idea that it raises self-esteem is interesting too. However, promoting independence and self-esteem among young women so they don't need to get pregnant to achieve this is therefore vital.
I also think that black churches could do more to address the issues - they are a powerful voice that, from what young people locally are telling me, are not necessarily communicating in a way that is relevant to young people. 'Give your life to Jesus' (and your money too) is about as fart as it goes, it seems. I am sure there are some voices within black churches (Robert Beckford for example), who are talking sense. I was reading his book God and the Gangs recently, and he was very critical about the response of churches to gun crime in Birmingham. I wonder if the churches are even addressing the issue.
Again goverenment could convene a conference at which leading Black cultural commentators could facilitate an honest and reigorous, research based discussion of the problems. The police would have to attend, as often they are woefully ignorant of the social complexities and cultural realities.
So, there is stuff that could be done. But politically I don't see it being a priority at the moment, as all these urban constituencies are solid Labour anyway and it's the floating voters in the marginal consituencies that attract all the attention.
Steve
Lack of a cohesive community is one element of poverty. You can havr materially poor yet culturally rich, cohesive communities. The Old Accra area of Accra is one such area - one of the poorest, dirtiest, most crowded parts of Accra yet even when some people share a water-pipe with 200 others they don't resort to the depths of anti-social beahvior seen in South London.
Cultural influences are definitely a factor.
Most West African countries have strong local music industries, Senegal and Mali particularly so, but also Ghana and Nigeria too. So the effect of the corrosive foreign influnce of US-inspired gangsta rap is reduced. Young men will copy some of the fashion styles, but would never resort to gun violence. Access to fire-arms may have something to do with it too. I have heard worse things about Lagos, however, but I would be surprised if things are as bad there as in South London.
In the UK, we have an indigenous hip-hop culture that is generally more conscious than the gangsta elemennt in the US (so I am reliably informed). If the black community that follows hiphop culture was to shun gangsterism in favour of more conscious, progressive content from indigenous artists, this would help send more positive messages to their young people. Black cultural leaders need to unite to condemn gangsterism, excessive materialism, misogyny and so on and the government could do more to support this.
A discussion of the reasons why some black families do not provide the support young people need to grow up to become peaceful, respectful citizens is a vital one. Certainly I would welcome more resarch into why teenage pregnancy is so high locally - access to housing is one area worth exploring, but the idea that it raises self-esteem is interesting too. However, promoting independence and self-esteem among young women so they don't need to get pregnant to achieve this is therefore vital.
I also think that black churches could do more to address the issues - they are a powerful voice that, from what young people locally are telling me, are not necessarily communicating in a way that is relevant to young people. 'Give your life to Jesus' (and your money too) is about as fart as it goes, it seems. I am sure there are some voices within black churches (Robert Beckford for example), who are talking sense. I was reading his book God and the Gangs recently, and he was very critical about the response of churches to gun crime in Birmingham. I wonder if the churches are even addressing the issue.
Again goverenment could convene a conference at which leading Black cultural commentators could facilitate an honest and reigorous, research based discussion of the problems. The police would have to attend, as often they are woefully ignorant of the social complexities and cultural realities.
So, there is stuff that could be done. But politically I don't see it being a priority at the moment, as all these urban constituencies are solid Labour anyway and it's the floating voters in the marginal consituencies that attract all the attention.
Steve
Yossarian, I see you are familiar with the sweet smell of bullshit.Yossarian said:
He most certainly has not been to the Gambia, if he did he learnt nothing and is not qualified to speak on the subject.
After this statement
I realised he was talking out of his ass and will not respond to him anymore.Citizen66 said:
It's like saying
I'm aware that English people listen to music from Europe like The Beatles.
Youssou N'Dour is from the Wolof ethnic group for Heaven's sake and his music is Mbalanx, which is Wolof music not just Senegalese music.
The fact that they are a minority ethnic group in The Gambia and a majority ethnic group in Senegal, is why an average Wolof boy will identify with Youssou N'Dour from Senegal before a Gambian from the Mandinka tribe, and definitely before any Gangsta Rap Artist.
Any sane person who has seen a map of The Gambia and Senegal will actually wonder how they can be two separate countries and would not use those two as an example of how different African countries can be.
Watching him attempt to educate me, after reading the first 2 lines of N'Dour's wikipedia profile was just hilarious
With the spate of murders this year I think we are suffering from a viral epidemic like the ones described by Malcolm Gladwell in Tipping Point. Is it time for a zero tolerance policy in South London? Have things spiraled out of control because of the badly thought out liberal drugs policies of a few years ago?
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