Stephen Lawrence murder trial begins at Old Bailey

[taffboy gwyrdd]

Some very dubious comments under this very good article. Why the torygraph ran it is a mystery, they continue to provide succor for racists.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danhodges/100126
940/your-arrogant-racism-is-part-of-londons-past-an-open-letter-to-stephen-lawrences-killers/#disqus_thread

 

[MellySingsDoom]

Just got in, so I'll keep it brief:

1. About fucking time.
2. It was very moving/saddening to hear Doreen Lawrence's reaction to this verdict.
3. Hopefully, one day, the rest of the killers will be caught and dragged into court.

 

[Spymaster]

Some very dubious comments under this very good article. Why the torygraph ran it is a mystery, they continue to provide succor for racists.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danhodges/100126
940/your-arrogant-racism-is-part-of-londons-past-an-open-letter-to-stephen-lawrences-killers/#disqus_thread

That's an excellent piece.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I am glad for the Lawrence family that today, and a partial form of justice, has finally happened. Seems invidious to say more really.

 

[elbows]

Good news.

In some ways I was surprised by the verdict but I probably should have figured that it was a likely outcome if Id thought about it harder, as the last thing anybody needed was for the farce to continue, and even small forensic evidence tends to count for quite a lot.

 

[Pickman's model]

i thought they were going to walk, so it's a much better result than i expected

 

[elbows]

I don't know Eltham at all. I could be entirely wrong. Maybe it is something in the water round there. I do know we had riots that were attributed to race here, and that it became very fashionable to dismiss the whole estate, or even the whole town, as some white working class shithole where anybody looking a bit different wasn't welcome. Which, inevitably, caused attitudes to harden amongst some.

I'd suggest the vilification QP/Wrexham received in the wake of the riots was nothing compared to Eltham in the wake of Lawrence's murder. I'd suggest negative media reports condemning a whole community and everybody who lives there as backwards bigots often has the effect of creating a siege mentality in which frequently the negative traits attributed to them are embraced, at least by some.

But I don't know. It just seems a bit daft to dismiss the whole place as seemingly populated only by irredeemable racists.

Well I come from a midlands town which has a fair range of unattractive qualities about it. I was born here, live here and there are some people I like here. But I don't really have a problem with focus being drawn towards the negative aspects of the place. Not all of the criticism is always fair, and such things can be used to write off already-marginalised people, but a lot of the problems linger horribly and deserve to be talked about and confronted. Its ok to generalise to make a worthwhile point, so long as the generalisations are gotten away from if the subject is then discussed in more detail or from a different angle. Some places are at risk of getting a bit too much flack if they lack more positive things that are also associated with them, and then the horrible ugly side dominates their entire rep.

At the end of the day most of us are painfully aware of the nature of cycles of broken people coping in unpleasant ways with their lot, and the way the pain gets passed around in a cruel and often rather random way. A way that seldom has resemblance of a just connection between todays perpetrator and the forces that originally planted such ugly seeds in the area. The long-term crimes of economic exploitation combined with unpleasant reactions to change, festering and bubbling away, sporadically bursting out to claim another victim. I don't know Eltham so I can't say how much such factors were at work there, but most of the ugly underbellies I've seen have quite a history. Anyway such concepts are not powerful enough to utterly eliminate the simple desire to 'hate a load of horrific gits who are well worth hating', and Im not suggesting it should be as I too like to see shits face the consequences of their actions, but when talking about an entire place I really need to look at the history and other sorts of victims past. Who made the monsters?

 

[ViolentPanda]

Yep. A young man was murdered. As happened on Oxford Street on Boxing day. And as happens on far to many occassions through out the year. Do we see memorials to those young men ? Did we see charities set up in their name ? No. Not at all. Still they aint classed as 'racist' are they ? I dont see many lefties wetting thier collective knickers over those murders.

I've always thought that one thing the left and the right have agreed about is that all murder is vile.

Still, you appear to view things differently, and believe that "lefties" (whatever the fuck that means) have some sort of index of vileness based on whether a murder is racist or not.

What a sad, twisted piece of shit you are.

What happened to Stephen Laurence was fucking horrible. And it was shocking that the OB took so long to get a conviction. But young men murder other young men on far to frequent a basis and in particular young black men killing young black men. But they aint so much 'fun' to campaign about is it ?

Interesting use of "aint" (it has an apostrophe in, by the way) in an attempt to project your "working classness".

Your problem is that you've got no fucking class whatsoever.

 

[TopCat]

No, but I hear casual racist sentiment expressed almost every day. Don't you?

No.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Do you not think-though I sometimes wonder if you do-that the utterly rotten nature of the original police 'investigation, the police assumption that Lawrence and DuWayne Brooks were not victims, that evidence was lost, the links between the police and Norris dad, in short the complete failure of the police to investigate this case and that the investigation was "marred by a combination of professional incompetence, institutional racism and a failure of leadership by senior officers" makes it a little different from the far too many other murders in this country or are they ALL the same?

Fed, don't you realise that what actually matters is whether a murder becomes a cause celebre for "lefties"? None of that other nonsense has any relevance!

 

[LLETSA]

No.

Oh.

 

[TopCat]

Absolutely. Eltham's a properly nasty shit hole which is why I was after Stoat Boy to explain this:

Most folk who've spent any time in the area, particularly if they're black, will have no problem whatsoever with vilifying this particular section of society.

It's a nasty, scary place.

Fuck off labelling a huge place and it's people as cunts. Just fuck off.

 

[Mrs Magpie]

Oh.

Me neither. If they're from people you know, change your social circle. I'm not saying I never hear anything racist, but it's rare compared to when I was a child, or indeed my younger years generally. I think the last person I heard being a racist twat was David Starkey, and at the other end of of the braincell spectrum, that tram woman, so basically, on youtube, and from people of widely different levels of education. It still exists, but attracts opprobrium.

 

[LLETSA]

Me neither. If they're from people you know, change your social circle. I'm not saying I never hear anything racist, but it's rare compared to when I was a child, or indeed my younger years generally. I think the last person I heard being a racist twat was David Starkey, and at the other end of of the braincell spectrum, that tram woman, so basically, on youtube, and from people of widely different levels of education. It still exists, but attracts opprobrium.

Like most people, I can't so easily change my workplace. Most people I socialise with aren't at all racist, if any.

I don't mean Starkey-type 'intellectualised' racism, just, as I said, casual racism of the type that's passed down the generations and repeated as a matter of course (I hear the same from certain family members sometimes and we have black married-in family members. It clearly doesn't apply to they and their offspring...) Sometimes I challenge it, sometimes I can't be arsed as I realised a long time ago that the world is incurably stupid.

 

[discokermit]

But I don't know. It just seems a bit daft to dismiss the whole place as seemingly populated only by irredeemable racists.

fuck 'em. they're cockneys.

 

[Mrs Magpie]

Like most people, I can't so easily change my workplace. Most people I socialise with aren't at all racist, if any.

I work in an inner-city school and I've never heard racism from the staff and so rarely from the pupils that I can only recall one incident in the last few years. Schools are quite rarified places really and are not quite like working anywhere else.

 

[newbie]

Good news.

In some ways I was surprised by the verdict but I probably should have figured that it was a likely outcome if Id thought about it harder, as the last thing anybody needed was for the farce to continue, and even small forensic evidence tends to count for quite a lot.

that's the grounds for appeal, right there.

 

[LLETSA]

I work in an inner-city school and I've never heard racism from the staff and so rarely from the pupils that I can only recall one incident in the last few years

It is clearly dying out in your corner of the planet. And I don't work in a school.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Many people can and do change their workplaces regarding things like casual racism. In this case your defeatist attitude is misplaced I think.

 

[LLETSA]

Many people can and do change their workplaces regarding things like casual racism. In this case your defeatist attitude is misplaced I think.

I don't want to change my workplace, where I do pretty much what the fuck I want, just because I hear casual racism from arseholes. As I just said, water off a duck's fucking back.

And most people don't change jobs because they hear racism. Many welcome it and, indeed, join in.

 

[TopCat]

Me neither. If they're from people you know, change your social circle. I'm not saying I never hear anything racist, but it's rare compared to when I was a child, or indeed my younger years generally. I think the last person I heard being a racist twat was David Starkey, and at the other end of of the braincell spectrum, that tram woman, so basically, on youtube, and from people of widely different levels of education. It still exists, but attracts opprobrium.

I hugely agree with you. What sort of circles is LLETSA moving in and continuing to move in despite being assailed by racist opinions every day? I hear this sort of crap myself maybe three times a year and act on it.

 

[TopCat]

fuck 'em. they're cockneys.

<insert wanker smilie here>

 

[TopCat]

Many people can and do change their workplaces regarding things like casual racism. In this case your defeatist attitude is misplaced I think.

Or challenge their colleagues.

 

[LLETSA]

I hugely agree with you. What sort of circles is LLETSA moving in and continuing to move in despite being assailed by racist opinions every day? I hear this sort of crap myself maybe three times a year and act on it.

I act on it as well. I usually laugh at them. Most of them aren't hardline racists, it's just part of their normal dialogue to make cetain assumptions or repeat them. Others do it because they think it's funny or rebellious.

I suppose it depends what circles you move in. If you have a right-on type of job or mix mainly with politicos, you're bound to not encounter racism.

I don't see what's to be gained by this pretence that racism is dying out. It is definitely less openly expressed and less virulent than it used to be but it's still there.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I don't want to change my workplace, where I do pretty much what the fuck I want, just because I hear casual racism from arseholes. As I just said, water off a duck's fucking back.

And most people don't change jobs because they hear racism. Many welcome it and, indeed, join in.

I didn't mean change jobs.I meant doing something about the racism where they work.

 

[LLETSA]

Or challenge their colleagues.

I used to do a lot more of this when I believed it was linked to political change. It can be exhausting and soul destroying. Now, as I said, I tend to regard the world as incurably idiotic. I can't help it.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Or challenge their colleagues.

Yes. This is what I meant.

 

[discokermit]

<insert wanker smilie here>

cockneys are all bitter. i think it was because their granddads were all cuckolded by american servicemen during the war. it's left a legacy of hate.

 

[TopCat]

I act on it as well. I usually laugh at them. Most of them aren't hardline racists, it's just part of their normal dialogue to make cetain assumptions or repeat them. Others do it because they think it's funny or rebellious.

I suppose it depends what circles you move in. If you have a right-on type of job or mix mainly with politicos, you're bound to not encounter racism.

I don't see what's to be gained by this pretence that racism is dying out. It is definitely less openly expressed and less virulent than it used to be but it's still there.

Casual racism is not dying out but racists themselves are so often cowards they can be easily challenged. If challenged and dealt with rigorously they tend to keep their opinions to themselves or fuck off. Hence me wondering who you come into contact with and how much you challenge people.

 

[LLETSA]

I didn't mean change jobs.I meant doing something about the racism where they work.

What do you want me to do? It's just part of the everyday nonsense dialogue and isn't personally directed at anybody. The handful of non-white employees are perfectly capable of looking after themselves.

I might have to get something to beep out the nasty words though.