I read this article earlier, about a largely-Turkish neighborhood successfully defending their property against rioters. The idea of some of the rioting "potentially having an ugly race dimension" isn't surprising; it's a reminder that in anything this big, it's not one group with one aim, it's several -- and there are plenty of opportunists, as well. The danger lies in generalizing *all* or even most participants as being the same "type" and having the same motives, which I imagine various press and politicians and others are wont to do...thus thoroughly not learning any lessons from this.
Right. Many of the shopowners were British Asian. Many of the looters were black and white, I don't think any of them were Asian. Lumping everybody under 'POCs' doesn't exactly help the discussion.
And the fact is, that my knee-jerk reaction is to extend sympathy to the Asian shopkeepers, rather than the supposedly disenfranchised youth.
I think it's a jab at violent assholes, of both the black and the Caucasioan variety, some of which have just killed three men in what appears to be a racially-motivated hate crime.
Because they're *my* people? Let's face it, there appears to be some racial element to these attacks as well. How do you expect me not to have solidarity with other Asians?
This sort of thing happened in the Rodney King riots in LA, too: the rioters bore a special dislike for the Korean community in LA, and came after their shops and community. Upon seeing that the police wouldn't protect them, the Koreans banded together to defend their livelihoods.
Do the rioters in England have any special animosity toward Turks?
I don't know if this is at all helpful but...echoandswayAugust 10 2011, 21:37:49 UTC
(Clarification, the earlier neighborhood defense was by Turks, yes, but the men killed were south Asian.)
Myself I don't know about what specific animosities/grievances exist there (and between whom), but my assumption would be not to assume that the reasons would be the same for different rioters. Seems like different people rioting might be targeting these groups for reasons including anti-immigrant sentiment, community relations or perception of community relations, Islamophobia, resentment and perception of relative affluence, racism, or sheer opportunism that wants to fuck someone's shit up and these people are easy targets. Painting any of it -- or any of the people rioting -- with a broad brush seems like a bad idea. Possibly someone else would be able to shed more light on what specific tensions might exist *in this place at this time*, but I don't think we'd know for sure.
When I hear reportage/analysis on this, I keep flashing back to the aftermath of Katrina, when I had [1] friends and family I was worried about and hadn'
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Re: I don't know if this is at all helpful but...chrys20August 11 2011, 06:35:03 UTC
Apparently there is some amount of resentment from the Afro-Caribbean community towards British Asians. While I wouldn't necessarily blame them or hold it against them letting it spill over to racial violence is unacceptable, no matter what the underlying context.
When the LA riots happened a Korean shop owner had recently shot and killed a black girl she suspected of stealing a bottle of orange juice, and was either acquitted or received no jail time. That hardly ever gets mentioned when people speak of the Rodney King riots.
Yes, but that's no reason to go smash up anything owned by another Korean person you can find. The whole "a person of a particular ethnicity did something I think is bad, so I'm going to go target everybody else of that ethnicity I can find, regardless of whether they've got anything to do with whatever pissed me off" thing? Not cool, no matter who does it.
I'm not saying it does. I'm just offering some historical background indicating that tensions were already running high before the Rodney King beating verdict.
You know what, though? As measured as I'd like to be, I have to say this: I think right now while this is going on it's wrongheaded to look for some kind of specific reasons or catalysts why there would be grievances against this community by that community, or whatever, because while I think examining the root causes of social unrest like this in the hopes of understanding and possibly solving it when it's not a crisis is really laudable, ultimately the notion that "these guys had a beef with the what-have-you community because..." in these situations can wind up feeling an awful lot like glib justification for criminal acts, and even victim-blaming. Truth is, three young men are dead, and the motivations of the killers matter a lot less than that.
I read this article earlier, about a largely-Turkish neighborhood successfully defending their property against rioters. The idea of some of the rioting "potentially having an ugly race dimension" isn't surprising; it's a reminder that in anything this big, it's not one group with one aim, it's several -- and there are plenty of opportunists, as well. The danger lies in generalizing *all* or even most participants as being the same "type" and having the same motives, which I imagine various press and politicians and others are wont to do...thus thoroughly not learning any lessons from this.
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And the fact is, that my knee-jerk reaction is to extend sympathy to the Asian shopkeepers, rather than the supposedly disenfranchised youth.
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Do the rioters in England have any special animosity toward Turks?
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Myself I don't know about what specific animosities/grievances exist there (and between whom), but my assumption would be not to assume that the reasons would be the same for different rioters. Seems like different people rioting might be targeting these groups for reasons including anti-immigrant sentiment, community relations or perception of community relations, Islamophobia, resentment and perception of relative affluence, racism, or sheer opportunism that wants to fuck someone's shit up and these people are easy targets. Painting any of it -- or any of the people rioting -- with a broad brush seems like a bad idea. Possibly someone else would be able to shed more light on what specific tensions might exist *in this place at this time*, but I don't think we'd know for sure.
When I hear reportage/analysis on this, I keep flashing back to the aftermath of Katrina, when I had [1] friends and family I was worried about and hadn' ( ... )
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Joyce Karlin reduced the sentence to probation of five years, four hundred hours of community service, and a $500.00 fine.
LA Times Archive: Slain Girl Was Not Stealing Juice, Police Say Shooting: The incident in which the 15-year-old was killed by a market owner was captured on a security system videotape.
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