London Is Burning - Washington Should Take Notice

NBC News: "Is rioting the correct way to express your discontent?” Yes," said the young man. "You wouldn't be talking to me now if we didn't riot, would you?" The TV reporter had no response. So the young man pressed his advantage. "Two months ago we marched to Scotland Yard, more than 2,000 of us, all blacks, and it was peaceful and calm and you know what? Not a word in the press."

Mark Duggan, a 29-year-old father of four, was fatally shot last Thursday night in North London’s Tottenham Hale section. Duggan, who was a passenger in a minicab at the time of the shooting, was initially stopped as a part of an initiative to recover illegal guns in the area. Although an illegal firearm was found at the scene ballistic reports now show that all of the gunfire came from police.

After Duggan was shot, his family and the Tottenham community were in shock. A peaceful protest was planned for Friday evening, and the family wanted to meet with police officials to get answers about the shooting. However, police representatives refused to meet with them and the protests turned violent.  Duggan's death was the tipping point. 

Areas such as Tottenham were a powder keg waiting to go off with all the key ingredients: increasing police brutality, growing social inequality and government cuts. Now the violence has spread to other parts of the capital and even to other UK cities such as Birmingham. The poor of all races have taken the signal provided by Duggan's death to engage in the worst rioting Britain has seen since 1981. 

The actions of racist police who are known to harass poor blacks by abusing their stop and search powers, in addition to other violations, has coupled with the ongoing poverty and chronic unemployment; causing the situation to explode.  The poor of all races are suffering from the Tory-Lib Dem Coalition Government's budget cuts in health, education and social service budgets. The economic and social policies of the current government (combined with that of the former Labour Government) have been exacerbated by the economic crisis and served to worsen the situation as employment opportunities diminish further.

It has been 30 years since the Brixton and Northern England riots in the summer of 1981. At the time the Conservative Government of Margaret Thatcher instituted a similar regime of fiscal and economic austerity as part of moves to destroy the Keynesian Social Democratic consensus that had provided jobs for even the poorest Britons. Once unemployment began to escalate social disturbances followed. Riot affected Britons today have made the link between government cuts and the disorder we are seeing. Is Washington paying attention? 

How long before Los Angeles is burning again? How long before New York, San Francisco, Chicago and Atlanta are burning. The unemployment rate for blacks in the United States is at 16%. Unemployment benefits have run out or are about to run out for 6 million Americans. Police brutality is at an all-time high all across the country. The Republicans are unwilling to increase revenue through taxes which leaves social cuts as the only way to balance the budget. Americans are hungry, homeless, and have restricted access to health-care and education.  The powers that be here in the United States should be paying very close attention to the poor in Britain because the poor all across America will not continue to sit on their laurels. 

"Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them." – Assata Shakur