Mark Duggan verdict: We either fight the good fight or our children die.

Wednesday was a cold wet windy day in London, it was the kind of day where people scuttle hurriedly with purpose, through shimmering grey damped streets. A day when peoples coats were hermetically sealed around them, when the wind whipped by in sudden squalls. Just another day in London city.

This was no ordinary winter’s day however.  England, had what I would call its ‘Rodney King’ moment as we witnessed the conclusion of a three month inquiry into the shooting of Mark Duggan by Operation Trident Metropolitan Police Officers.

An inquest jury considered whether the 29-year-old Tottenham father was lawfully or unlawfully killed when he was shot dead in Ferry Lane, Tottenham Hale, on August 4, 2011.  

The jury sat through three months of evidence and pondered for five long tense days, punctuated by the Christmas break, and considered whether Mark Duggan a 29-year-old Tottenham father was lawfully or unlawfully killed when he was shot dead in Ferry Lane, Tottenham Hale, on August 4, 2011.

No ordinary day January 8^th will be remembered as the day when yet again British justice failed a black community.

The 10-strong jury of three men and seven women delivered a confused verdict that many people have simply failed to understand.

They concluded that there was no case to answer and despite what the inquest coroner Judge Cutler called ‘stark inconsistencies’ in police evidence, they concluded Mark Duggan had not had a gun in his hand when he left that fateful mini cab after being subject to a ‘hard stop’ by the London anti-gang unit Trident, they decided despite this Mark Duggan had been ‘lawfully killed ‘

When the decision was announced all hell broke loose as the pent up anger, frustration, tension, grief and sadness spilled both inside and out of the Royal Courts of Justice.

There were huge discrepancies in the police version of events Judge Keith Cutler made a point of highlighting these stark inconsistencies’ during his summing up of the at 12-week hearing at the Royal Courts of Justice in December last year .

He pointed out that the evidence of a Met Police Sergeant who was the operational firearms commander and tactical advisor in Duggan’s arrest team appeared to be “directing officers to go and secure a gun which hadn’t yet been found”.

In statements made in the aftermath of the shooting, the same officer said he had asked another officer, to look for the gun. However this was undermined by other evidence, from three armed PCs who arrived on scene shortly after the shooting of Mark Duggan. All, including the supervising Sergeant, later gave statements saying another senior officer directed them to the gun and instructed them to secure it.

However in damming evidence seen by the jury, a witness’s video footage clearly shows the gun being found only after the three PCs first speak to the Sergeant. At the time of Marks death many suspected the Metropolitan police had in fact planted the gun at the scene to justify his shooting. This evidence gives those views further credence.

However without this crucial video evidence the Jury would have no doubt simply accepted the Police version of events as the truth. The fact is Police officers involved lied.

This verdict also signals the death of Operation Trident a subject I have written extensively, you can read more here . The fact is that the credibility Operation Trident used to enjoy has long gone and the unit should now simply be disbanded. Its reputation has become toxic as a result Mark Duggan’s killing .

Judge Cutler told the jury during his summing in December that “Without that BBC footage that would have been completely accepted and we would not be talking about it,” “Everyone might have felt quite secure about that account if it hadn’t been for Witness B. He added “It is not a question of anybody being mistaken. It is something which is a direct contradiction here; there is that stark problem.”

More than one officer s told the inquest that they had found the gun. Judge Cutler said: “There’s a lot of people finding the gun but not telling anybody else about it.”

The suggestion that Mark Duggan threw the gun into some nearby bushes is inexplicable and irrational. All eleven officers who gave evidence never saw Duggan dispose of the gun, there was no forensic evidence to support his association with the gun, none of the independent witnesses saw him throw a gun and yet a weapon was found some 20 feet away and without a shred of evidence the jury concluded that Duggan had somehow disposed of the gun prior to his arrest.

Judge Cutler also reminded jurors that while tests showed it was possible to throw the gun into the bushes from where Mr Duggan was shot, one medical expert had told them he would have needed “great willpower” to do so having just been shot in that arm, and that the theory didn’t really tie in with witnesses’ accounts.

In 2011 the reaction to the shooting of Mark Duggan was to spark disturbances right across the country as anger against the police exploded onto the streets. Of course there were those criminal element who were intent on looting and looting alone.

However the Guardian’s Reading the Riots report explained that the simplistic dismissal of the events of August 1th 2011 as simply criminally motivated as described by the Prime Minister David Cameron is factually wrong. This deep alienation born of police harassment and economic exclusion provides the rational for the tragic events that unfolded

Their report pointed to the widespread anger and dissatisfaction of many young people with the roughhouse policing including stop and search, a basic lack of respect from officers.

 It’s reputation has become toxic as a result and mirrors the on-going reputational decline of the Metropolitan Police Service.

There is a link between these contemporary issues and black people’s historical experience of oppression. As a result we are hyper sensitive to the treatment of black people at the hands of statutory authorities be it the police, schools or mental health institutions. Our history is replete with a constant stream of injustice and tragedy. Our deepest fears, generated by our own history is to die brutally at the hands of the police. Our latent fear is informed by our experiencing of lynching, racist murders and police brutality. 

You see some us believe that we have never had any real acknowledgement,  apology or reparations for slavery that such things could happen again

Deaths in police custody represents the critical fault line in the relations between police and black communities. The fact is these controversial deaths have increased in recent years in London rising from four deaths in 2008 to sixteen in 2012, according to figures published by the Metropolitan Police.

This palpable fear and anger is not well understood by some white people who don’t understand the cultural symbolism of such events. The very people who are charged with protecting our communities become feared as a violent oppressive force of occupation.

Institutional racism has become rampant and endemic as a result of a changes in the political environment. Since the Coalition and Government came to power the restraining influence of a series of monitoring policy frameworks and the political priority accorded to race equality has been swept away and as a result the police have returned to their natural cultural default setting of open hostility to black people.

The Home Secretary, the  Mayor Boris Johnson and Commissioner Hogan Howe must stop denying the reality of institutional racism that leads to so many black people being criminalised and disproportionately abused, attacked and beaten by police officers steeped in a culture of racism. The elite armed response unit SO19 is no different in this regard to Police Constables who routinely discriminate against black people on a daily basis as evidenced by stop and search figures and disproportionate charging rates for black and white first time offenders.

I believe that too many Police officers see black people differently to whites and racial bias leads them to assume a threat where non exits. We are routinely considered to be criminals, psychotics, super bad bordering on evil.

This racial bias of specialist firearms officers leads to a false perception of increased threat, which in turn leads to the use of overwhelming force being used by frightened police officers.

That’s why black people suffer more violent rates of arrests, are more likely to be tasered by the police and sometimes face overwhelming and deadly force.

In a multicultural city like London a majority white police service should routinely test officers for levels of racial bias and specifically assess whether racist attitudes or unconscious bias leads to perceptions of increased threat when the subject is black.

Politicians of all parties must now accept or be forced to confront the real and growing crisis of confidence that exists between black communities and the Metropolitan Police.

The Association of Chief Police Officer’s and the Home Secretary must also  accept that there is an urgent need to restore the confidence of black communities in British policing or we can expect further disturbance in the future.

No dialogue aimed at improving trust and confidence and building community police partnerships can be effective, or have any credibility if the reality of institutionalised racism is not accepted by Government and the Mayor Boris Johnson. That should be our key starting point for any discussions. Such is the depth of the crisis and the level of political resistance to reinstating institutional racism as a key priority that nothing short of a national boycott on working with the police stands a chance of changing things for the better. A 12 month boycott on all but essential discussion and an all-out national boycott on black police recruitment will bring all parties to the negotiating table. Anything else is simply window dressing and waiting for the next crisis. It’s time to take a stand.

 Unfortunately both police and politicians deny the existence of endemic institutional racism and until the political discomfort and pain of holding that position becomes so great as to become intolerable, then they will not change their ideological Tory view that racism is nothing more than ‘politically correctness gone mad’ or plain old ‘Marxist lunacy’

That political blind spot cost the country hundreds of millions of pounds as a consequence of the disturbances of 201, all of which could have been avoided if the lessons learned after the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence were applied. Instead they were swept away by Tories and senior police officers whose political antagonism to anti-racism became so engrained that some would physically wretch at the mention of the very words ‘anti-racism’ or ‘multiculturalism’.

Government and the Mayor need to reprioritise the issue of racism in policing as an urgent issue if we are to avoid a further descent into deep seated animosity and a Northern Ireland type policing scenario. I can see, in a few years’ time, if this issue is not urgently addressed quickly how Police could find themselves being actively targeted as the ‘enemy’ and subject to violent and deadly retribution. It’s simply not a road we can afford to go down. We’re not there yet but we’re perilously close if someone does not wake up and smell the coffee.

Challenges don’t exist for the Police and politicians alone. The Independent Police Complaints Commission must now begin the process of restoring its reputation after it became clear that they had colluded with the Metropolitan Police in putting out misinformation, in the immediate wake of the shooting, suggesting Mark had shot at police officers. This turned out to be a lie.

Whilst the jury perverse verdict leaves everybody angry and confused, the reality is, that real world public perception, particularly within black communities is that the ‘police executed Mark Duggan’.

My community is seething with resentment and in danger of exploding with anger at the ongoing continued mass criminalisation, harassment and violence they receive at the hand of the police.

Racial profiling, stop and search, racist police officers and a criminal justice system that reeks of institutional racism and injustice provide the fuel for this profound discontentment.

 It’s time we returned to the anti-racist battlefield to secure the future for our children.

We at Colourful Radio  believe that this is an extremely important issue for our communities and as such I would like to invite you listen and join in my live breakfast show on Friday 10th January between 7 and 10 am.  

As you know these issue rarely get the proper coverage from mainstream news outlets and in response to that we have decided that our entire programme will be dedicated to this important issue.  We need you support to make sure the programme is a resounding success.

So this week on my show we will be focusing exclusively on deaths in custody, the implications of the Mark Duggan inquest verdict for the entirety of the programme. 

I will be joined in the studio by my co presenter Dr X and by Matilda Macattram of Black Mental Health UK, Samanath Rigg sister of Sean Rigg Janet Hills Chair of Met Black police Association, Hillsborough Justice Campaign, Peter Herbert Chair of Society of Black lawyers .Deborah Coles from Inquest , Assistant Commissioner Rowley of the Met Police and many many more. 

Stop Press: The Mark Duggan family have called for a peaceful mass demonstration Saturday 11th Jan 2pm Tottenham Police Station. 

www.colourfulradio.com

Groupama and the poison of racism - Pepe Reina in racially stereotypical advert

 

 For background to this article please read:
http://leejasper.blogspot.com/2012/03/obv-campaigns-successfully-to-ban.html



The international insurance company Groupama and Liverpool and Spain goalkeeper Pepe Reina have both shamed themselves in the making of the racially stereotypical television advert that depicts Reina meeting a Black “tribe” in a jungle scene, which is both racist and homophobic.


Groupama commercial

 For centuries, Black people have been forced to endure and live with a viscerally poisonous caricature. History is replete with examples of crude and negative racist stereotypes depicting Africans as cannibalistic savages. In this imagery, Africans are usually portrayed as subhuman, violent and dangerous simpletons usually wearing grass skirts with the obligatory bone through the nose.

The other powerful image is the persistent White association of Black people with monkeys. The inference being Black people are more closely related to apes than to modern man. The cultural resonance of these types of stereotype are so powerful, I bet even as you read this you can see these mental pictures in your head.

There is a view within the UK’s Black communities that we are increasingly expected to laugh at such examples of racism in the name of tolerance. God forbid that Black people should react or publically complain should they have the temerity to do so, their complaint will be routinely dismissed as “having a chip on your shoulder”.

If they are public figures they will be lambasted by sections of the printed press and will undoubtedly face an avalanche of racism from the UK’s growing online Twitter Tea Party tendency.

As you would expect, Black people are naturally reluctant to collude with our own oppression in a society t
hat arrogantly and falsely assumes that Britain is a “post-racist society”. Such denial is the stock response to any accusation of racism in the UK.

To date, neither Liverpool FC, nor Reina has issued a statement on this issue. No doubt they are in denial, hoping this issue will blow over. The club has made that mistake before. It is bizarre that they seem to be determined to repeat the mistakes of the past in relation to this latest incident.

Their reported stance can be summarised as ‘what the player does off the field is nothing to do with the club’. This, of course, is complete and utter nonsense and reinforces the growing perception of LFC as a club that is failing to take racism seriously.

Here is some free advice for LFC: Ensure Pepe Reina gives an immediate explanation and apology. As a gesture of remorse and by way of repairing the damage done, Reina should donate the fee he received for the advert to an anti-racism charity. End of.

What starts off as Reina’s extra-curricular earner or a ‘bit of fun’, ends up as racial chanting on the terraces.
The persistence of racism in sport and advertising affects us all. In particular, Black footballers, Black fans, Black politicians and activists and communities are all forced to endure the ignominy of such ignorant portrayals and the on-going right-wing backlash that follows any attempt to raise the issue of racism. And yet what children see players doing today, they do on the streets tomorrow.

The fact that these cruel and archetypal racist stereotypes persist to this day is significant. Such is the all-pervading power of racism and the prevalence of graphic, racist propaganda dressed up as advertising. These derogatory images of Africans are globally recognised and instantly understood by millions across the world.

In both Europe and the UK, Black people have faced serious abuse and at times, deadly violence when faced with groups of White youth infected by such imagery. Such stereotypes are grossly offensive and extremely dangerous.

The last few months has seen the issue of racism in football splashed on the front and back pages of the British press. Liverpool Football Club’s disgraceful handling of the Luis Suarez affair saw a combination of racial abuse and ungentlemanly conduct inflame racial tension on the terraces. Black leaders from Liverpool and across the country wrote in protest at the clubs action, describing Liverpool FC's inept handling of the Suarez matter as “inciting racism”.

Prime Minister David Cameron called a summit of the resurgent phenomena of racism in the national game. As the economy continues to stall and unemployment rise, there is growing anecdotal evidence that the violent racism and bigotry is on the rise across Europe and the UK.

As we approach the European Championships in Eastern Europe, whose record on tackling extreme, violent racism is abysmal, the Football Association, English clubs and FIFA need to send a strong and unambiguous message to players and clubs that racism will not be tolerated in the beautiful game.

My advice is that Black football fans should not attend the EURO 2012 games without absolute assurances from the UK and FIFA that they will not be subject to racial violence and or abuse.
Liverpool Football Club needs to support the efforts of the FA to challenge racism and take real action to provide a national lead in tackling racism.

Lee Jasper

OBV campaigns successfully to ban the racist Pepe Reina Ad

From OBV 28 Feb 2012 www.obv.org.uk)

Another Liverpool player Pepe Reina in race row

We sometimes forget to our peril the battles we have fought here in the UK against racism and racial stereotyping.

Most of the readers of this article will not remember seeing the type of derogatory stereotyping in cinema and TV advertising, which at the time was not only common place but won awards and acclaimed fame. For example, some 40 years ago the cigarette company Benson and Hedges commissioned the nations number one advertising company Saatchi and Saatchi to make a film for the Silk Cut brand. So prestigious was this account that mini-films with huge budgets would be made. One film in particularly paraded the British Film the Zulu’s.

‘ At the height of the Mbongo uprising a garrison of 80 were surrounded by 30,000 hostile warriors’, Queue a blackened up actor with a plumy English voice dressed as Zulu warrior extolling the virtues of the cigarette brand before threatening to put the English warriors in the ‘pot’.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6Kc5QQ6Pv8

Many of us thought these types of videos would be consigned to the museum of very bad taste. Not so. Today in Spain Groupama Seguros –Insurance company- are running a similar distasteful ad in a tribal scenario in which once again a blackened up ‘African king’ speaking in native tongue is presented with the -and you couldn’t make this up-Liverpool and Spanish international goalkeeper Pepe Reina- Reina in Spanish means Queen. So the joke is the African –eye rolling homosexual –King chooses his Queen, Pepe Reina, who looks to the camera for help to check his insurance.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpmZPeZbI1Y

All very funny if you live in the dark ages and you have no idea or don’t care just how offensive this is. But I’m afraid that’s Spain and much of Latin America too. Remember, it wasn’t too long ago that the former Spanish football manager Louis Aragones  was outraged, and refused to pay a paltry fine for calling Thierry Henry, for no good reason, ‘ Negro de  mierda’. ‘ …Black  shit’. More recently the Uruguay President defended Luis Suarez , for saying, among other comments, ‘No hablo con negros’ . I don’t speak to Black people’.
Despite these shockingly disrespectful ads and comments much of Spain and most of Latin America would argue that there is no racism in their countries. Well I guess on one level if you don’t acknowledge it, you have nothing to confront. But one can only be surprised at Liverpool's  Pepe Reina, who has lived in the UK for a long and is acutely aware of how his  football club has been  embroiled in an unnecessary and protracted  race row.
OBV has contacted the company via their publicist to make an official complaint.
info.wexterbox.escomunicacion@groupama.es
I guess it just goes to show just how far we have come here in the UK.
Simon Woolley

 OBV force Spanish multinational to pull racist ad

(From OBV 29th Feb 2012 www.obv.org.uk)

OBV have learned that Spanish multinational insurance company, Groupama, which has a subsidiary here in the UK, has pulled one of its adverts currently showing in Spain that depicts Black people, in a jungle scenario as stupid, backward, animalistic homosexuals.

Sadly, however, the group go on to say,

“Groupama Seguros does not consider that this advert contains either offensive nor any discriminatory content.”

The advert which stars Liverpool and Spanish international goalkeeper Pepe Reina, plays on his surname Reina-which is translated to Queen in English. In the ad the blackened up chief chooses Reina, the Queen, as his partner in a lustful manner.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpmZPeZbI1Y

 OBV’s Director Simon Woolley said,

“I’m shocked on so many levels. Firstly, how would the Spanish feel if the English stereotyped Spanish people as backward, stupid, and animalistic homosexuals? Secondly, what does this say about Pepe Reina? The Liverpool goalkeeper has lived and worked in the UK for nearly a decade, does he think it’s ok characterise Black people this way? Does he think his Black team mates will laugh at his joke?”

Given that Liverpool football club is trying to move forward from the Suarez affair, it is a shame that another one of their players has caused offence, by appearing in an advert that seems to come from a bygone era. Those who are old enough might remember those despicable Benson and Hedges Silk Cut Zulu ads of the 1970’s."

(Update from OBV www.obv.org.uk March 1 2012)

There has been a lot of heat generated from OBV complaining about a Spanish TV ad starring Pepe Reina. Many bloggers on national websites have been outraged that our organisation should say, ‘this demeaning portrayal of Black people in Africa is not acceptable’. Many comments have been very abusive. But few writers have taken a step back and tried to objectively unpick and understand what is being played out in regards to this ad and what it means in Spain and here in the UK

Pete Jenson writing for the Independent has had a go. Whilst you might not agree with everything he says he has nonetheless written a very thoughtful piece.
Simon Woolley


'It is Alf Garnett humour, and Spanish still think it's funny
In 2004, when Spanish club Getafe's supporters were accused of racist abuse, their president, Angel Torres, offered to make his players black up for a game to prove the club was not racist. He was being serious.
It should be pointed out that Torres also proposed that any supporter found making racially abusive comments be banned for life. His intentions were good but, seen through the eyes of people with a different cultural and socio-political history, his idea was hideous.
Pepe Reina's advert for insurance is the kind of thing that would have been screened on British television about 20 years ago, probably while the Alf Garnett series In Sickness and In Health was airing on the other channel. Today anyone coming up with the idea at a brainstorming session would have been getting their coat before you could say "crude racial stereotype".
The question is: should the Spanish be allowed to define and redefine their own perimeters of what is and is not acceptable, taking on board the opinions and complaints of their own ethnic minorities, or do groups from outside the country's borders have a duty to tell them what is and is not acceptable?
In the advert the Liverpool goalkeeper Reina is introduced to the king of an African tribe. The person presenting him to the king says: "Great white man – Pepe Reina." Then the king says something which is translated to Reina as: "The boss says 'you Reina [meaning queen in Spanish], he Rey'" (king in Spanish). The king then says something else and when Reina asks: "And what does that mean?" the interpreter shakes his head worryingly and a spearholding tribesman puts a crown on to Reina's head and shuffles him forward towards the king – the inference being that he will have to marry the king. Reina utters the advert's catchphrase: "Me siento seguro", which translates as: "I feel secure".' The word seguro also means insurance.
Whether the ad for the multi-national insurance firm Groupama really depicts black people as "animalistic homosexuals", as Operation Black Vote suggests, is highly debatable. It's Benny Hill humour with a silly play on the fact that Reina's name means queen in Spanish. The tribal king is the fool in the story – in another of the adverts from the same series the joke is on the Spanish, with Reina sat on a coach being asked for his autograph by a fan, who turns out to be the coach driver who has left his mother at the wheel – Reina utters his "I feel secure" catchphrase as the coach veers across the road. Women drivers could take offence at that one.
Of course, women drivers have never been enslaved and persecuted, and that maybe is the part that Spanish culture still does not get. Should Reina have got it, with his years of playing in England? The behind-the-scenes shots of him filming the advert have him joking with the black actors as he struggles to say his lines without laughing. He will be as surprised as the Spanish TV audience that the commercial has caused so much outrage beyond the country's borders.'

Pete Jenson writing for the Independent



LINKS:

Reina leaps to defence of Suarez - December 22, 2011 - Liverpool goalkeeper Jose Reina believes striker Luis Suarez has been "crucified'' over his racism charge.

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story/_/id/1000197/liverpoo%27s-pepe-reina-leaps-to-defence-of-luis-suarez?cc=5739

Anti-racism campaigners attack Pepe Reina over 'stereotyped' African tribe advert

http://www.mirrorfootball.co.uk/news/Anti-racism-campaigners-attack-Pepe-Reina-over-stereotyped-African-tribe-advert-article872450.html

Pepe Reina in racism storm: A Spanish TV Commercial featuring Liverpool keeper Pepe Reina has been banned following complaints of racism and homophobia. http://www.insidespanishfootball.com/pepe-reina-in-racism-storm/

To see the extent of the internet coverage of this issue worldwide, please check out: http://news.google.com/news/story?ncl=http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_sports/view/1186384/1/.html&hl=en&geo=us