Citizens of any culture wonder why someone would ruin their own community with no regard for the innocent people they are hurting. Their reasons for the riots are some many Americans today can relate to: Unemployment and lack of opportunity. In the UK about 2.5 Million people are without a job, that's 7% of the population, but its far worse for the youth at almost 20%. On top of that the government is planning spending cuts to public serves for their own deficit reduction plan (sound familiar?).
As the days go on, the youth are no longer viewed as making a political statement, but being an outright nuisance. I think if any outsiders were on the side of the youths, this girls interview may have just taken all legitimacy from their cause. Listen Here "Everyone was just on a riot, just going mad like, Jacking things, Jacking bottles, breaking into stuff, it was good though, it was fun," She says, while drinking a stolen bottle of Rose'.
The riots first started as a piggy back of the protest to the shooting of a black man. He was a known criminal that the cops had been following. The cops said he shot at them first, but it was later reported that he was unarmed. The initial protest was against the police brutality of blacks in the UK. In a different part of town the youth riots sparked off, almost like a piggy back. Now blacks are the easy target as the cause of the looting, although pictures around the world show it is a huge multi culture uprising with many white faces. Its not a race thing. Its not something black people are doing to their community. Its a class thing. There is a generation of white black, arab and a mix of everything else that is under educated thinking that have nothing to lose.
Now that you have a little background on the story, I want to discuss your thoughts on the situation. I bring it up because it so closely mirrors the issues we have here in the US. Just like in the UK the unemployment problem isn't effecting just blacks. My personal opinion is that in the US we are so divided as a people by race, religion, sexual orientation that even if we NEEDED to come together to fight a just cause, we can't. Instead of working together to fix a broken system, I think the blame game would begin. I'm only 28, and in all 28 years of MY LIFE, I never remember racial tension being so bad. Fox news called President Obama's birthday party a 'Hip Hop BBQ' and a member of congress compared him to tar baby. If you go to the forums on yahoo you can see what some people REALLY think about black people when they aren't trying to be politically correct.
And this isn't just a select few comments I had to search to find. They are right there on the front page.
I pray we don't have a riot like this in the US ANYTIME soon. In the US we have the right to bear arms and I fear our riots would be FAR more deadly. From my knowledge there has been people injured, but only one person has died. With the flash mobs this summer, media scare of the debt ceiling and credit down grade, its not looking good. I think the teens involved have been flying under the radar, and with the riots in the UK, they are about to be front page news for the US .
So I gave you my opinion, what do you guys think?
