story
Changing the facts
I think you're wrong, yes. When I was in amongst people shouting that, it was being called by everyone who was there: young, old, black, white, men, women, people who looked like they were probably recent incomers, and others who've lived here for a long old while. There was no segregation or apartheid of any kind in the crowd. It was a very mixed group of all aspects of Brixton. I made a particular effort to look at the crowd to see who was calling that chant, exactly because I was wondering about it. I was very cheered and reassured to see that people who appeared to me to be recent incomers were side by side with older more "traditional" Brixtonians.
The issue, for me, is about the craven exploitation of a place, a location, a community, a way of living, a local culture, that is in many ways unique to Brixton.
As has been discussed, Brixton has always been a place of change. That's one of the things that makes it what it is. But these recent changes have a kind of groupie wannabe aspect. Like everyone suddenly discovering the hot new band and trying to pretend they've been into them for aaaages.
I've been in Brixton since about 1987. These most recent changes feel as if a whole culture - a largely white privileged culture at that - has been parachuted in. It's like regime change, or colonialisation.
I wandered through Brixton markets before during and after the demo. There were loads of people simply going about their business: an old man skanking gently to My Boy Lollipop on Station Road, biddies with their shopping trollies, mothers dragging children in and out of shops and along the markets, plenty of people in the eateries with their toddlers, lots and lots of people who may or may not have known or cared about the demo going on nearby, not bothered, not interested, too busy, whatever. To my mind, most if not all of them were "Our Brixton" people, wanting to simply live and shop and socialise and move about in Brixton without feeling as if they were in any way different from each other, or at risk of being unable for reasons of money to continue living and eating and shopping in Brixton. None of them were demonstrating or chanting. But they were in no way being excluded by the chanting: the chanting was in defence of their normal Saturday afternoon.
Or so it seemed to me.
Yes, and that's why I liked it so much that there were several different types of demo and actio., and all of those I saw involved people from all walks of life.
It felt very inclusive to me.
Having had recent cause to talk to estate agents, the local independents (Eden Harper, Martin Barry) both roll their eyes at Foxtons and say that they are known in the trade to hike their prices by 25% as a matter of course. It gets the seller to put their property on with them, and even if they have to drop the price, they get the commission. If they know they've overvalued a property (which they do) they just let it rot on the market for a month or so, then advise the owner to drop the price. There are enough people willing or able or foolish enough to pay the higher price to make it worth their while, and that hikes the price of property locally. Their valuer doesn't live locally, he comes in from an office in North London and values properties here on the fly, in and out the door in 15 minutes. And he's known in the trade to be (and I quote) "A real bell end".
Foxtons are scum. So are Kinleigh Folkard & Hayward.
Just gonna add my voice to the earlier chorus saying that the places that were targeted are not loved by the local community.
As for the thing about it being a shame that a broken window and storming the police station made the news at the expense of the story of the peaceful demo: well of course the headline is about the direct action; but those stories I saw in the press did also cover the reasons for the demo and the fact that it was also/mostly happy and peaceful. More importantly, most people these days are fairly savvy about googling to learn more about news that interests them. Didn't shaman75 say that the video of people dancing on the blocked A23 had had 40 thousand views and shares? People will surf and link from one story to another and get an idea of the background very easily and naturally. It's a cliche (cos it's true) that if there'd been no broken window, there'd be no headline, and the whole day would have been a footnote rather than a story. Because of Brixton's history (civil disobedience, Thatcher death parties, uprisings and riots etc), any story about any action here will draw interest.
