Riots, Recession & Resistance - Lee Jasper - 11 August 2011

Reverend Jesse Jackson joins BME leaders in voicing concern

A coalition of BME leaders including Reverend Jesse Jackson have come together to voice their concerns about the recent events which have hit Britain.


Read the full statement below:

We, the undersigned, condemn the wanton violence and looting that has been perpetrated in our communities over the last few days. Above all it is good people in our areas such as Tottenham, Enfield, Walthamstow, Birmingham, Liverpool, Brixton who are most affected by these unacceptable actions.

However, whilst, unreservedly condemning the disgraceful actions of a minority, we must not ignore those elements that make these occurrences more likely. For example, the death of Mark Duggan is sad enough, however, the lack of information to his family and very conflicting reports of how his death occurred leads many to hold a deep distrust towards some authorities including the police.

Sadly this unclear, and at times, conflicting information given by the police and other related bodies has occurred in a number of recent deaths of Black men in police custody.

Equally we strongly feel that to do this debate, we must not ignore other conditions that make these occurrences more probable, including high Black and Minority Ethnic (BME):
- levels of youth unemployment
- levels of police stop and search
- detention rates under the Mental Health Act in the country
- the decimation of voluntary organisations which cater for young men and women in these areas.

In no way are these excuses for lawbreaking, but they are factors that need to be considered.

Our final message is to our communities in which we serve. Together, we must forge an even stronger sense of local community.

We call upon our MPs , Councillors and church leaders to meet and discuss our response. We call upon our young men and women to reject those who see this as an excuse for unlawful behaviour including looting, and show the rest of country our readiness to shoulder the responsibility to rebuild our communities out of the ashes of destruction.

Signed by: Reverend Jesse Jackson; Rainbow-Push Coalition; Simon Woolley, Operation Black Vote; Rob Berkeley, Runnymede Trust; Dr Elizabeth Henry, ROTA; Lee Jasper, BARAC; Sharon Grant, Chair of Haringey CAB; Remi Kapo, Author; Matilda MacAttram, Black Mental Health UK; Claudia Webbe, Operation Trident; Jeremy Crook, BTEG; Bishop David Shoshanya; Bishop Joe Aldred; Remi Kapo, Author; Karen Chouhan, Equanomics UK; Vandna Gohil, Voice 4 Change; Bishop Wayne Malcolm; Dave Weaver, 1990 Trust & Viv Ahmun, Black Men in the Community.


(Originally published at OBV http://www.obv.org.uk)

Lee Jasper on ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Watch here:  
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-08-09/violence-in-london-continues/2832204?section=world

Violence in London continues

Posted August 09, 2011 22:58:00

The bedlam in London has continued into its third night with no sign of an end. The violence has spread beyond the city and police are stretched trying to contain the crisis.
(Leigh Sales)

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-08-09/violence-in-london-continues/2832204?section=world

LEIGH SALES: A new day in England has brought fresh fears of more violence.
The nation is reeling from the worst unrest in three decades.
It's also been a dramatic day on the Australian stock market and shortly we'll be speaking to some retirees about their fears for their nest eggs.
But first let's go straight to those extraordinary London scenes. Rioters are now rampaging far beyond the capital.
The violence has shut down entire suburbs and terrified residents are fleeing their homes.
In a desperate move, Scotland Yard has introduced special powers in some areas to try to contain the trouble.
But is the police presence on the ground sufficient?
Shortly I'll be crossing to London, but first have a look at some of the dramatic pictures out of the UK in the past 24 hours.
(vision of the London riots)
VOICE: Put that down! Put that down!
VOICE 2: Police lines, they had the lines had actually charged towards her and started hitting her with a baton. Subsequently it turned out she was only 16 and this absolutely made everyone go up in an uproar.
VOICE 3: Pity the policeman don't carry guns here.
VOICE 4: I just think the emergency services' response was awful.
VOICE 5: The police are fighting us too much. They're telling us no, no and then they killed someone.
VOICE 6: I don't know why people do this.
LEIGH SALES: Unbelievable, isn't it? Joining me now from London is Lee Jasper, he was a policing qualities adviser to the former London mayor Ken Livingston.
We know the protests started in Tottenham on the weekend because of a specific incident where police shot a man but what's driving the spread of this violence well beyond that area?
LEE JASPER, FORMER POLICING ADVISOR: I think there are a number of reasons for its spread. I think we've seen huge levels of austerity cuts in many inner city areas that's leading to a great deal of anxiety, concern, young people themselves now are not able to afford to take higher education, even at a basic level, much less get into a higher educational degree. That unemployment continues, unemployment continues to rise and there is a sense of anxiety but also a sense of moral crisis in the country. I think because of the MPs scandal, the corporate tax dodging issue of huge multinational companies, the News International corruption cases with the metropolitan police and phone hacking, there is a kind of failure really of people in power to uphold the kind of moral standards that we all aspire to. And as such, this has had an effect around the country particularly in some very poor and deprived communities. I saw a youth with a 52-inch screen walking, having robbed it from a local store in London and when I asked him what he's doing he said to me that this is his banker's bonus, it's his MPs expenses. We have a kind of malaise, a crisis of morality in the country. Things are very tough in very many areas and I think there is a sort of criminal opportunism that is riding on the back of a legitimate protest of what was a very serious incident of gunning a man down on London streets. And as a consequence of that lots of people have sought to criminally exploit what is a legitimate issue.
LEIGH SALES: Sorry to interrupt you, but presumably there would be a lot of Londoners who feel disenfranchised or unemployed affected by the austerity measures who are upset with the issues you raise who aren't out on the streets of London looting, is this merely an excuse for people to indulge in criminal behaviour?
LEE JASPER: I don't think so because I think as reprehensible as the attacks on people and property are and Lord knows that that is true, it is incredible that you could think about explaining a situation without making reference to the fact that we've got deeply alienated sections of our inner cities. Young people who don't think they've got any stake in society and I think any society wants to minimise the number of people that feel like that and unfortunately over the last few years we've seen that number grow. People are not able to get houses, people are not able to get into higher and further education. And with the abandonment of hope and opportunity, the policies of cynicism and desperation fill the vacuum. I think what you're seeing is a take up by people in very many inner cities who are deeply alienated, deeply angry, deeply frustrated and are taking out their misplaced anger in a splurge of criminal irresponsibility.
LEIGH SALES: If I could read you a comment which was left on the London Telegraph's website in response to an article that's making similar points to those that you're making and the comment is:"What a load of twaddle. Come from a broken home and was raised on council estates. I didn't look at people who had more than me and think jealous thoughts. Through sheer hard work and determination I retired at 40 a very wealthy man. Opportunities in life stop and start with the person in the mirror." What do you say to that?
LEE JASPER: He's not 21 and living the young black person on a housing estate in the middle of Peckham or Brixton or Hamsworth or a young white person in Wandsworth, Liverpool, Newcastle whose whole family for a generation has been left unemployed. One can't simply discount these things. Everybody wants a return to order and normality but if we think that simply locking people up is going to solve the problem in the wake of these disturbances then we're set to see a repeat of those disturbances at some point in the future. One can deal with the symptom which is the explosion of criminality but one has to also focus on the cause and that is the lack of engagement, democratic engagement, deep alienation that is faced by many young people in our inner cities and in fact not even young people. We've got 40 or 50-year-olds now being made unemployed in the country who are completely angry and alienated that their futures and their pensions are degraded and so on. Let me say this, this is not about young people or indeed young black people. I've been on the streets of London. I've seen middle-aged dentist technicians out there on the streets of London. I've seen people who are in a professional capacity and I think when you find the arrests are made you will find although the poor and deprived areas are represented they're by no means exclusively the ones being engaged in these activities.
LEIGH SALES: Where are the protestors coming from and what's the level of coordination of what's going on?
LEE JASPER: We're living in a multimedia world and all of the tools for coordination are already out there. So people are using social networking sites which everybody now is fairly accustomed to and are able to organise all sorts of activities using this new network and social media and that is providing a communications platform for people to initiate coordinated activity right across the country.
LEIGH SALES: Lee Jasper, thank you very much for making time to speak to us today.
LEE JASPER: Thank you.

 

Lee Jasper speaks to Sky News

 

 

March 4 Justice 4 Demetre Fraser: Planning Meeting

CAMPAIGN FOR JUSTICE FOR DEMETRE FRASER:

Planning Meeting.

Date and time:  12 August 6.30pm - 800pm

Address: Copleston Centre Copleston Road London SE15 4AN

We will be meeting to discuss the stewarding of the march and other logistics. Please support by publicising and ensure you attend.

Event page: https://www.facebook.com/#!/event.php?eid=105170749583433


March 4 Justice 4 Demetre Fraser: Saturday 13th August 12 noon.
Starting at Gibbon Road SE15 onto Evelina Road, turn right into Peckham Rye, bear left onto Rye Lane, at the end turn right onto Peckham High Street, then onto Camberwell Green.

Demetre Fraser aka T.Dot 21 years of age from London died after being visited by the West Midlands Police force on the 31st May 2011. The official version of events is that he committed suicide by jumping off a 11th floor balcony. That is heavily disputed and undermined by the fact that neighbours heard a violent struggle and saw evidence of such on the 11th and 8th floors. Please support the Fraser family's call for justice and join this march and the FaceBook campaign page.
Contact: Lee Jasper
Email: lee-jasper@live.com

Please put the date in your diary and spread the word. The official campaign page for Demetre is https://www.facebook.com/Justice4Demetre

 NO JUSTICE NO PEACE!

WE NEED YOUR HELP TO SPREAD THE WORD AND LET EVERYONE KNOW ABOUT THIS MARCH:

YouTube VIDEO AD for the march, please share on all your pages.
http://www.youtube.com/wat​ch?v=4wfQk6f-GGo&feature=c​hannel_video_title

FLYER/POSTER - Please share the links download, print, display and distribute!

http://www.scribd.com/doc/​60579141/Flyer-Poster-for-​the-March-for-Justice-for-​Demetre-Fraser

http://www.scribd.com/doc/​60501692/Flyer-Poster-for-​the-March-for-Justice-for-​Demetre-Fraser

Demetre Fraser : Activist march for justice

If you know where your son is right now you're very lucky. Consider the plight of Josie Fraser. Watch a mothers emotional appeal for your support here. As a people we must regain our tradition of marching and protest. Please read this and take action in support.
Demetre Fraser aka T.Dot was 21 years of age from London Peckham. He died after being visited by the West Midlands Police Force on the 31st May 2011. He was staying with a friend from Birmingham at the time.
The official version of events is that he committed suicide by jumping off an 11th floor balcony of a highrise tower block in Druids Heath Birmingham.
That version of events is heavily disputed and undermined by the fact that neighbours heard a violent struggle and evidence of such on the 11th and 8th floors. The case in now being investigated by the IPCC.
Demetre’s death follows on from the cases of Kingsley Burrell in Birmingham and Smiley Culture in London.
We are demanding a public inquiry into all suspicious deaths in custody and the immediate suspension of all the police officers involved pending investigation.
Please bring your banners , placards, whistles, vuvezaelas and drums. If you can bring a sound system then bring it. We intend to demonstrate that we will not simply sit idly and be a silent witness to injustice.
We have virtually no resources to organise this demonstration so we are depending on the only real resource we have and that is you. Through social networking we can make this march a huge success but we need you're support to do that. If you can help in any way and want to offer your personal support contact me lee-jasper@live.com . We thank you in advance
Please support the Fraser family’s call for justice and join us on this march. You can help by:

1. Posting this email to your networks and other websites.
2. Joining the Facebook campaign page.
3. Printing of leaflets and distributing them in you're area.
4. Phoning up community radio stations asking them to support the march.
5. Moblising people to attend the march.

Saturday, August 13 · 12:00pm. Starting at Gibbon Road SE1.

Birmingham Coaches:  PRICE £12.50 & TIME 7.30am departure. Deposits are required to book your seat on this coach. For further details please contact Paulette: email paulette60@btinternet.com.

 If you’re on Facebook then you can confirm your attendance here. One Love One Aim – Justice.

Lee Jasper on behalf of Josie Fraser

Inner city youth violence: more casualties than Afghanistan

 

The last decade has seen inner city youth violence kill more black youth in the UK than British soldiers killed in Afghanistan.

The current scale of youth violence in UK black communities is rarely understood by white mainstream society. There is a strong view among black communities that if such levels of serious youth violence and murder were occurring in white middle class communities this issue would be a matter of national concern.

The implication is clear: that as long as black youth are killing each other then nobody really cares. I was interested to try to get some scale on the scope and impact of these murders on our communities. How best could this be illustrated was my challenge and so I did a little research and what I found was quite shocking.

The black community experience over the last decade of serious violence and murder is comparable to that of a country at war. The numbers are compelling.

Since 2001 up to the 4th July 2011, a total of 375 British forces personnel or MOD civilians have died while serving in Afghanistan since the start of operations in October 2001. Of these, 331 were killed as a result of hostile action.

Over the same period 298 black men and 67 black women were stabbed to death. 228 black men and 14 black women were shot dead. That’s a total of 607 black people murdered over the last decade.

The reality is that there is what can be reasonable described as a ‘small war ' going on within our communities.  There is no real support from either local authorities or central government for black communities seeking to deal with the wider consequences of such high levels of death and serious violence.

There is no real strategy or understanding from central Government or the media about the crisis we face or how best to deal with it.

As a result our suffering is largely in silence, there is little empathy for our plight and no acceptance that the drivers of violent crime, unemployment, poor schools, bad housing, the fear of crime and the dysfunctional families that result, are in need urgent attention.

What is equally not understood is the profound scale of the social and psychological damage, the damage to community morale and feelings of safety, the rampant fear of violent crime, and the tragedy of young people who survived but are disabled or walking with colostomy bags and razor scars across their face.

This is the desperate reality of black deprived communities. Add to this the fact that the recorded figures whilst accurate on deaths, significantly under records the extent of violent youth crime. Many, many young people are treated for gang related violence in hospital accident and emergency units and refuse to report these crimes to the police.  These are the walking wounded and when combined with the official figures illustrate the sheer scale of violence that deprived black communities are forced to live with.

Young people are becoming increasingly desensitised to this intense level of violence, primary school children understand the vocabulary of violence and the need for protection that is a major dynamic in driving vulnerable young people into gangs.

Whilst pathways to employment and education opportunities have largely been closed down, inner city areas are awash with hard drugs and guns.

In Inuit folklore there is a tale of a wolf hunter who plants a sword in the ice. The hilt is buried in the snow with the blade pointing toward the sky. The hunter covers the blade in blood and waits as wolves smelling the blood begin to lick the blade and as they do so the cut their tongues and bleed to death. Who does one blame for the deaths of the wolves, the wolves or the hunter?

Black youth who live in the most deprived areas in families made dysfunctional by long-term generational unemployment and high rates of income poverty, being taught in failing schools and living with high levels of knife and gun crime can be compared to the Inuit wolves.

The drug and gun importers represent the hunter here. The flooding of our areas with arms and narcotics results in some of these vulnerable bored, unemployed young people being seduced into crime.

They are alienated, angry and unemployed and are easy pickings for criminals that are intent on controlling their local markets and in need of soldiers to provide protection from rival gangs.

One cannot however escape the simple fact that the black community must also accept primary responsibility for the number of single parent families and the dramatic effect of fatherless homes have on the attitude and behavior of black boys. 

Black men who are estranged or disengaged from their families must take responsibility for their offspring. Black women must themselves be open to constructive dialogue with the fathers of their sons. SACYRD will be discussing the possibility of holding a national black family’s reconciliation day next year; such is the urgency of this crisis.

The current disjuncture between the status of black men and black boys must be repaired and reinforced. Parental responsibility is key to beginning the process of turning the tide of violence engulfing our communities.

However, no community immersed in poor neighborhoods, suffering generational levels of unemployment and high rates of income poverty can sustain itself over the longer term without these issues being addressed. Whole families and communities have suffered long tem unemployment in largely workless households over the last four decades.

Our young people have boundless energy and are bursting with ideas and talent. That latent talent is then wasted through want of real opportunity. As a direct consequence of long-term poverty we have seen develop a culture of poverty, bringing with it poverty of imagination, of ideas, ambition and the necessary resources to fully commit to and sustain family life.

Long-term poverty and unemployment, poor schooling, poor rates of health and worse housing all combine into a multi headed hydra of social problems that undermines the human moral propensity to do the right thing and that vacuum is filled by a moral decrepitude. With dysfunctional parents and no real social support, the culture of MTV and Hollywood rap videos become the model for the surrogate family – gangs.

Whole families and large minorities within communities unable to cope with the strains of modern family life, disintegrate and fragment. 

Such areas as we live in become permanently associated with violent crime and deprivation. The places where we live are flooded (some would say that this is a conscious decision by the authorities) with drugs and guns. Add to this an under reporting of violence that would increase the recorded level of crime by around 50% and the real scale of the problem we face begins to emerge.

And in our weakened fragmented state we turn on each other. Even relatively stable families living on such communities find it difficult to repel the culture of despair and the glamorisation of youth violence.

Remember the Inuit tale of the hunter and the wolves?

Government has to fully address the woeful lack of constructive opportunities for employment and education black youth. The economic state of our communities is acting as a recruitment sergeant for violent criminality. The grave worry is that in the current context of the austerity budget and public spending, these social ills will become gravely exacerbated exacting a terrible social and human cost. 

How are we to prevent another failed generation of our communities? The answer lies in America and Northern Ireland and the adoption of Affirmative Action is the only policy response capable of responding adequately to the scale of the current crisis. Overnight, young black people would have thousands of employment opportunities, as did Catholic youth in Northern Ireland when this was introduced in 1991. Our youth unemployment situation is much worse that that of Catholic youth at the height of the troubles in Northern Ireland. If it’s good enough for those who face religious discrimination why not those who suffer more as a result of race discrimination? This is the only Government policy capable of having a dramatic effect on all of these issues that would result in bringing to an end, in less than a decade, this cycle of long-term deprivation.

Short-term palliatives and incremental short lived project initiatives, however well intentioned, are not sufficient in scale to address these issues. We should reject these conscience saving gestures in favour of a much more radical approach: Affirmative Action, which is likely to finally break the on going cycle of deprivation characterised by racism, poverty and crime.

In addition to this Government should adopt a proactive public health anti violence policy approach to violence and give the confiscated assets of criminals back to the communities that suffer the detritus of their foul endeavors.

Of course parents and black men in particular must also address the issue of responsible fatherhood if we are to see the cessation of unacceptable levels of violence. But a call for a community to ‘do the right thing’ is meaningless in the context of run down deprived neighborhoods and discrimination in education and the labour market.

Yes there is a war going on in our communities and the loss is unimaginable for most other communities. It is a sad fact that the level of death, injury and other collateral damage is not empathetically understood.

The conclusions some have come to is that Black lives are simply not worth as much to the media and some sections of the Government as white lives.

On that score we are degraded as both British citizens, human beings and as people worthy of compassion.

We need to tackle statutory indifference, institutionalized racism and community complacency if we are to save our communities from a violent descent into the kind of mayhem and chaos we have seen in some US cities.

It’s time for action.

Lee Jasper