What infuriates me so much is ignorant members of the middle class and people in positions of power perpetuating injustice, pointing the finger of blame and doing nothing but making the situation worse by maintaining racist biased views and clinging desperately to their self-imposed privileged position in society not realizing that maybe it's unjust views like theirs that marginalize sectors of the population and contribute to the overall problem. For Starkey to equate gang culture so strongly with black culture in the way that he does is racist and offensive. Did gang culture spawn from black culture? No. Gang culture has been around since the 1800s with the Chinese Triads and the Italian Mafia. We could discuss the glorification of gang culture in today's society through the media but is the Western media not predominantly controlled by White men? So it's fine to exploit when it suits financial profit and then it's condemned for having a negative impact on youth. People like Starkey will throw the blame around until the cows come home and never take responsibility for how heavily Western society has been crippled by White patriarchal rule and favor.
Race shouldn't be an issue, but racism should be addressed. The balance of power should be addressed. If anything needs to be scrutinized here it's why people like David Starkey still exist in our world today and why the powers that be aren't doing more to educate our society and promote tolerance and equality. David Starkey's viewpoint is racist, and it incites hatred in me and no doubt a lot of other people. How a supposedly respectable historian can go on national television and say something so biased is beyond me. He's ignoring the real issues of wealth and class in regards to the influences of last week's incidents in London and the UK. I am in full condemnation of the looters and rioters, they are criminals who should be punished, but nonetheless I don't really think they did as much damage to our economy as the bankers and investors that lent money that didn't exist and helped plunge us into this economical crisis in the first place so let us not forget that either. Perhaps Starkey has never heard of the saying that goes 'every time you point the finger you're pointing three right back at yourself'.
We as a people have a responsibility to rise up and stand against this kind of mentality as represented by Mr. Starkey. It is this kind of mentality that perpetuates the cycle of injustice that still exists in our world today and that is hindering societal progress towards greater equality because if people in positions of power or influence hold these views then why should they have any power or influence in the first place?
Well said! It's sickening and unfortunately too easy for some to make the riots out as a racial issue, and it does quite frankly scare me to death that we have minds such as this at the top of our society and in the government. We're meant to be living in a place which is equal, yet this is still far from the truth- the only good side I can see to his ridiculous assumptions is that they remind the more naive citizens of our country, who have long fallen for purely what they read in the papers, that there is in fact still an incredible amount of racial prejudice in Britain, and we're made to see as little of it as possible by the government and media.
ReplyDeleteAwesome post.
wise words
ReplyDelete