Reclaim Brixton movement - meetings and April 25th protest planned

[editor]

well those who've been allocated social housing in the area won't feel themselves targetted. Apart from that, who else has moved into the area recently that isn't, in some way or other, pricing out previous occupants?

That doesn't make them a yuppie, ffs.

 

[newbie]

when you say some years ago you in fact mean about 19 years ago. tbh if you fortuitously overheard a lot of people tutting and that then yes, you might have a point. but what i saw yesterday gave me the impression that the people around the demonstration were broadly supportive. although i have no doubt it was not universally popular - what is? - i neither saw nor heard any swell of disapprobation. and even you don't seem to have seen or heard much bar this solitary exchange. you're reading to much into it, frankly, as while these women may have been frustrated at being inconvenienced that hardly leads directly to their adopting the attitudes you imagine for them.

fair enough. You observed the storming of the police station and I didn't. I used my observation to try to raise a general point, nothing more.

 

[Citizen66]

The window smasher had a balaclava on (lol) which means they're as likely to be a state asset as an anarchist. They came tooled up for it, whoever it was.

 

[newbie]

That doesn't make them a yuppie, ffs.

so what does? What would you describe as a 'Yuppie' in this, 2015 in Brixton, context? And how is that distinguished from the people who've spent huge sums in Rushcroft Rd or where the dole office used to be, who eat and yak in 'the Village' and so on?

Who has moved into the area recently that isn't, in some way or other, pricing out previous occupants?

 

[Dexter Deadwood]

Some pics

Great photoset. We have had some outstanding stuff from yesterday.

 

[editor]

I got a little emotional when the Guinness Trust campaigners were cheered into the square yesterday.

 

[David Clapson]

The naivety and hypocrisy is getting too much. The protesting was characterized by violence, it wasn't just one naughty person FFS! There was the town hall incident, the police station incident, the payday loans one, 3 broken windows, people throwing cans at the officer who tried to interfere with the sound system next to the square, etc. Chanting 'fuck the police' isn't exactly non-violent either.

Most people who went yesterday didn't actually protest. They just had a nice party in the sun. Nobody seems to have a clue about how the event might resolve the housing crisis. They haven't thought it through. They listened to speeches and music and chatted over lunch, took photos and told themselves they'd been raising issues and sending a message. It's protesting for the selfie generation. The main thing is that you can say you were there and you took photos and tweeted them. How about admitting that what you did will achieve nothing except to make you feel important?

 

[FridgeMagnet]

That covers most of the usual bases apart from "middle class and don't even come from the area". Admittedly that one would be a bit hard to support in the circumstances.

 

[Dexter Deadwood]

View attachment 70754

I got a little emotional when the Guinness Trust campaigners were cheered into the square yesterday.

Smoke gets in your eyes, I think Brian Ferry did a song about it.

When the marches entered the square it was powerful. The entire day was well organised and bodes well for the future.

 

[Pickman's model]

Smoke gets in your eyes, I think Brian Ferry did a song about it.

When the marches entered the square it was powerful. The entire day was well organised and bodes well for the future.

i don't agree. the police station bit needs a bit of tightening up so boarders not repelled next time

 

[Citizen66]

The naivety and hypocrisy is getting too much. The protesting was characterized by violence, it wasn't just one naughty person FFS! There was the town hall incident, the police station incident, the payday loans one, 3 broken windows, people throwing cans at the officer who tried to interfere with the sound system next to the square, etc. Chanting 'fuck the police' isn't exactly non-violent either.

Most people who went yesterday didn't actually protest. They just had a nice party in the sun. Nobody seems to have a clue about how the event might resolve the housing crisis. They haven't thought it through. They listened to speeches and music and chatted over lunch, took photos and told themselves they'd been raising issues and sending a message. It's protesting for the selfie generation. The main thing is that you can say you were there and you took photos and tweeted them. How about admitting that what you did will achieve nothing except to make you feel important?

If you're on the side of Foxton's and the police then fuck you. You're the enemy.

 

[editor]

Most people who went yesterday didn't actually protest. They just had a nice party in the sun. Nobody seems to have a clue about how the event might resolve the housing crisis. They haven't thought it through. They listened to speeches and music and chatted over lunch, took photos and told themselves they'd been raising issues and sending a message. It's protesting for the selfie generation. The main thing is that you can say you were there and you took photos and tweeted them. How about admitting that what you did will achieve nothing except to make you feel important?

I await with keen interest the updated guidelines on how to successfully participate in a protest from Mr Patronising O' Twat.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

The naivety and hypocrisy is getting too much. <snip>

Chanting 'fuck the police' isn't exactly non-violent either.<snip>

How is chanting supposed to be 'violent'?

Is it a matter of tone of voice or something?

 

[ViolentPanda]

I don't understand what you're trying to say.

Do you support the chant of "Whose Brixton, Our Brixton", and if so why?

Who was chanting it?
Unless it was a mono-class, mono-cultural group, then your whining is irrelevant, and as the chanters weren't mono-class or mono-cultural (ascertainable from pictures and copious video)...

 

[shaman75]

The naivety and hypocrisy is getting too much. The protesting was characterized by violence, it wasn't just one naughty person FFS! There was the town hall incident, the police station incident, the payday loans one, 3 broken windows, people throwing cans at the officer who tried to interfere with the sound system next to the square, etc. Chanting 'fuck the police' isn't exactly non-violent either.

Most people who went yesterday didn't actually protest. They just had a nice party in the sun. Nobody seems to have a clue about how the event might resolve the housing crisis. They haven't thought it through. They listened to speeches and music and chatted over lunch, took photos and told themselves they'd been raising issues and sending a message. It's protesting for the selfie generation. The main thing is that you can say you were there and you took photos and tweeted them. How about admitting that what you did will achieve nothing except to make you feel important?

They might not have thought things through, but they did nearly shut the police station and take over the town hall, both of which might have been more likely to be successful if the protesting was characterised by violence, rather than by most people just having a nice party in the sun.

 

[ViolentPanda]

You sure seemed to be overhearing a lot of things on Saturday.

He's obviously a nosy cunt.

 

[ViolentPanda]

well no, it would have been pointless to try to challenge it yesterday. But I thought it worth raising it today because I read it as being divisive.

Maybe I'm wrong, and part of the point of yesterday was to emphasise division between those who've been here a short time- the 'yuppies'- and those who've been here long enough to claim it's 'OUR Brixton'. How long is that?

It's not about how long you've been here, it's about how you interact (or not) with the existing community. One of the "selling points" of some of the pricey new developments is their closeness to what we call "nu Brixton", allowing new residents to isolate themselves from "old Brixton" as effectively as if they were just visiting flaneurs.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Yet it's become the icon of yesterday. Most of the reports I have read feature the picture of the smashed window .

It's become an "icon" because it serves the media's purpose to make it an icon. Why do you think that is?

 

[shaman75]

Some chanting going on here

 

[newbie]

Who was chanting it?
Unless it was a mono-class, mono-cultural group, then your whining is irrelevant, and as the chanters weren't mono-class or mono-cultural (ascertainable from pictures and copious video)...

the people chanting were those seeking claim "OUR Brixton" to the exclusion of other people. I'd have thought that was obvious, even just from youtube or flikr.

 

[ViolentPanda]

well those who've been allocated social housing in the area won't feel themselves targetted.

We're already targeted, by people with far more power to damage us than a disparate group of protesters. it's one of the reasons some people marched yesterday,for crying out loud!

Apart from that, who else has moved into the area recently that isn't, in some way or other, pricing out previous occupants?

The driver, surely, for the discontent is that what was once a cheap area where relatively poorly paid people could afford to live and shop is changing to exclude them. That local rents and sales, and the incoming shops, price out all but 'yuppies', a shorthand word for those who can afford to buy into the area.

What drives the change?

 

[newbie]

It's not about how long you've been here, it's about how you interact (or not) with the existing community. One of the "selling points" of some of the pricey new developments is their closeness to what we call "nu Brixton", allowing new residents to isolate themselves from "old Brixton" as effectively as if they were just visiting flaneurs.

and? That's just nonsense. No-one was protesting yesterday because some newly arrived residents don't "interact" like there's some sort of acceptability test or something, based on "the existing community", whatever that means.

What's relevant is that rents and prices are being pushed ever higher and existing residents and businesses are being driven out because policy or because they can't afford to stay.

 

[Blagsta]

the people chanting were those seeking claim "OUR Brixton" to the exclusion of other people. I'd have thought that was obvious, even
just from youtube or flikr.

I take it to mean "our" as in "the people's", not the power of capital etc

 

[ViolentPanda]

The naivety and hypocrisy is getting too much. The protesting was characterized by violence, it wasn't just one naughty person FFS! There was the town hall incident, the police station incident, the payday loans one, 3 broken windows, people throwing cans at the officer who tried to interfere with the sound system next to the square, etc. Chanting 'fuck the police' isn't exactly non-violent either.

What's getting too much is your bed-wetting liberal conflation of a handful of isolated incidents into a representation of the #reclaimbrixton demo as "characterised by violence".

Most people who went yesterday didn't actually protest. They just had a nice party in the sun. Nobody seems to have a clue about how the event might resolve the housing crisis.

The remit of the event wasn't to resolve the housing crisis, it was to bring together disparate communities from across the borough, so that bridges can be built and so that with the aid of such solidarities, solutions can be sought.

They haven't thought it through. They listened to speeches and music and chatted over lunch, took photos and told themselves they'd been raising issues and sending a message. It's protesting for the selfie generation. The main thing is that you can say you were there and you took photos and tweeted them. How about admitting that what you did will achieve nothing except to make you feel important?

Have you done a lot of protesting? Over the 35+ years of my adult life, I've seen loads of protests, from fluffy ones you'd expect to change nothing, to violent ones you know will bring about change. the thing all those hundreds of protests had in common was that all of them brought about change, because people are instrumental animals with a keen mind for making choices that serve their own interests. You don't go on even the mildest of protests to make yourself feel important - that'd be a rather stupid risk in a state where the primary function of the police is to enforce defence of private property and privilege - you go because a cause matters enough to you to risk getting gassed, or beaten or nicked.

 

[editor]

I've posted up some pics from the protest.

http://www.brixtonbuzz.com/2015/04/...tos-from-windrush-square-and-central-brixton/

 

[boohoo]

Often male historians, I've noticed!

yes - Martin Pugh springs to mind! Still he is a good historian even if I don't agree with him a lot!

 

[ViolentPanda]

and? That's just nonsense. No-one was protesting yesterday because some newly arrived residents don't "interact" like there's some sort of acceptability test or something, based on "the existing community", whatever that means.

What's relevant is that rents and prices are being pushed ever higher and existing residents and businesses are being driven out because policy or because they can't afford to stay.

As ever, you've missed the point.
When you have a bloc within a community who don't interact with the rest of that community, two messages get sent:
1) Other people within that broader community are sent the message that those who don't interact, don't want to,and
2) People like-minded to the non-interactors get the message that there's a place for them.

That's not my theory, by the way, that's what the work of geographer prof Doreen Massey has shown.

 

[editor]

the people chanting were those seeking claim "OUR Brixton" to the exclusion of other people. I'd have thought that was obvious, even just from youtube or flikr.

To the exclusion of property developers and those seeking to evict or exploit them, you div.

 

[pesh]

am I supposed to give a fuck about 2 teenagers with an aversion to walking being mildly inconvienced?

 

[ViolentPanda]

yes - Martin Pugh springs to mind! Still he is a good historian even if I don't agree with him a lot!

I read his book about the Pankhursts. it was..interesting.