When ya'll calling for more #StopAndSearch and have no clue, about that mass criminalisation of black and ethnic minority young people. British police charge black individuals and caution white individuals, for exactly the same crime. That's a stone cold fact.
Today the Guardian newspaper published figures that confirmed that over 51% of young people in British jails our black and ethnic minority. now let's be clear the overwhelming vast majority of the young people are African and Caribbean descent young people, with Muslims making the next largest group.
Whatever the law says, that to me is evidence of a strong, discriminatory culture of apartheid justice.
Two individuals, both charged with the same crime, both with no previous criminal records and yet two distinctly different results, that's the nature of Britain's colour-coded justice.
And that not the half of it, research by the Ministry of Justice shows that white defendants, with longer rap sheets get disproportionately cautioned, while black youth, with lesser criminal records are being sent to jail.
Now pause, take a deep breath, rewind and read that sentence again, slowly and this time, let the import and it's weight, sink into your consciousness.
We get disproportionately arrested, charged and convicted of crimes, that whites with more extensive criminal records, walk away from. That's that old apartheid, Jim Cow justice we know from way back when.
Of course the figures have always been disproportionate throughout the last 40 years, but today we see an important and disgraceful milestone. we have allowed the system to reach the terrifying disproportionality and racism of the Jim Crow justice of the American justice system.
Can you imagine, that when David Lammy MP and Black Training and Enterprise Group (BTEG) published their important review of racism and the British criminal justice system, only in September 2017, the number of black youth in jail stood at 40%. In 15 months that has risen to 51%.
This country isn't equal, we are not equal, and we are not all treated the same by the law, We receive Jim Henry Crow justice at the hands of a judiciary that can't see past the colour of our skins.
Once you go to jail, and Im one of the many black men who have, the first thing you realise, is that white boys are being given the soft option, whilst black youth are having the book thrown at them. We see the open racism and apartheid criminal justice system and we are simultaneously oppressed and enraged by it.
Once that sinks in they become enraged. Angry the system for sure, but also angry adults. who sat back and allow the criminal justice system to unjustly and disproportionately, criminalise with grievous intent, whole swathes of our community.
When this criminalised generation hits the streets, their violence trauma untreated, their injustices festering like a deep gouging, naked wound, and their community nowhere to be seen, no wonder they're pissed off.
They come out of the system, worse than when they went in.
When you feel that level of racist injustice, and that is foregrounded by the inexplicable abandonment by your own community, who knowing the racism that black youth face, have simply turned away from confronting the system. That's a bad feeling
Made worse by the reality, that knowing all this, we have as a community, have failed to either confront judicial racism, nor provide any ameliorative or rehabilitative pathways to positive education and employment opportunities.
For those who have suffered so grievously, at the hands of the beast, is It really any wonder that these young people are enraged and have so little respect for their elders? Im now an elder and I have to say, sadly even I've lost respect for my own generation.
