‘Why are you ruining my good rioting day?’ by Denise Aitken
Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/aug/06/the-uk-riots-10-years-on-young-people-were-watching-their-futures-disappear-before-their-eyes
Probably my favourite memory of the 2011 riots isn’t the hostile and brutal cutbacks which meant children in Brixton and Peckham, my neighbourhoods, lined up around the block to attend one last remaining after school club, that hadn’t quite been closed. As we drove by one of them few years later and saw the uncut grass growing over the lonely playground equipment and up the paint faded building, I was struck with how small the club was without the children, it appeared small and empty of their busy souls.
I wondered what revenue was clawed back by closing this children’s club and others like it, compared to the currency lost from the banking crisis. Watching first-hand various children’s and young people’s services being ‘cut back’, to bail out the financial crises was painful, especially when considering how little it cost to run these youth services.
Professor Gus John questioned in his Open Letter to the PM why,
‘governments see fit to massively expand police involvement in schools and in youth work and fund the police to do such work, while at the same time getting rid of youth workers and youth and social education provision in schools?’.
Funding policing whilst removing youth services? – that really didn’t make for a nice atmosphere, and the effects were felt immediately. The London School of Economics’ study found that the ‘rioters’ interviewed in their research,
‘were around eight times more likely to be stopped and searched than the average Londoner’
(Prasad, 2011).
(image available at: https://blog.westminster.ac.uk/difference/making-a-difference-capturing-experiences-of-police-stop-and-search/)
I guess that’s another place where the cash saved from the expired children’s and youth services went, into the stop and search initiative. It’s ironical that the guardian published this article in April 2011, just a few months ahead of the August 2011 riots.
The article (Prasad, 2011) references the 1981 riots, but with a sense of premonition of the one to come in August 2011, after Mark Duggan’s shooting. There was definitely an unsettled feeling in those months running up to the 2011 riots – a mutable and almost tangible affect. Or something like Seigworth and Gregg (2010, p1) explain, an
‘Affect, at its most anthropomorphic, is the name we give to those forces – visceral forces beneath, alongside, or generally other than conscious knowing, vital forces existing beyond emotion – that can serve to drive us toward movement…’.
That was kind of the street vibe that summer. An ‘affect’ from the cutbacks’ ‘effects’.
With tremendous irony, a disbelieving blogger commented on the guardian’s anticipatory article written in April before the August 2011 riots, bridging the riots of 1981 to the one yet to come in 2011, blogging,
‘you must be joking… the only riot that will happen in Brixton is if ‘Foot Locker’ decide to give away their stock free, since kids have many more interests and entertainment possibilities than 30 years ago and, arguably, are considerably more apathetic’
(cutslikeawife, the guardian, 2011).
The blogger certainly had the Foot Locker part right and to be fair, and it might have been hard for them to anticipate the sad emanating shockwaves from Mark Duggan’s ‘lawful’ killing.
Closer to Home in Peckham
My sons’ rioting stories, though perhaps eclectic, don’t take the main stage either. One handed out Lucozade to thirsty rioters; the ten-year-old took fake suntan cream from the Sainsbury’s cosmetic aisle. As he came out of the supermarket to my hard questioning: ‘have you been taking suntan cream from Sainsbury’s?’, he denied it. But I said, it’s all over your face – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWPahLc-j5w
Once I’d locked up my sons, we headed over to the only pub willing to stay open, The Albert, Bellenden Road in Peckham, and watched the rioters on TV burn down my favourite lingerie shop on Peckham Rye.
image available at: https://twitter.com/shitesportsnews/status/965700795479089152
Darn
No. Instead. Instead of this austerity context and my family anecdotes, my favourite memory is indeed a shared Riot story that comes from my student’s experience, who had been at a funeral on that rioting day in 2011. Of middle age attired in black mourning dress, and even though in high heels, she took her bike to the local shop to buy some brandy and cycle back to the wake (as she was burying a friend, I guess she didn’t take much notice of the riots because she just propped her bike up as usual outside the offie).
She came out of the shop to witness that a ‘youth’ had taken off with her bike, which meant she had to chase him down in her awkward shoes; nonetheless, she did put him down on the road and recovered her bike. Upon the ground looking up at her, the individual reportedly said: why are you ruining this good rioting day????
She relayed this story to me in a later tutorial, and I have never been able to let go this question/statement. It says so many things which could never be covered in this blog.
At first, I was outraged! This ‘youth’ had stolen a woman’s bike (on a funeral day! And moreover, in her local neighbourhood!)
But I quickly became fascinated with his take on ‘this good rioting day’.
And though it was wrong for him to rob the bike from my student coming back from the off license to her funeral wake, I kind of get that he needed to be a part of the good rioting day, to identify with it. People need to identity with something. And if there’s not much available to identify with, or services to engage in, they can eventually identify with rebelliousness. They rebel.
I also considered Merton’s Strain Theory of Deviance, which explains ‘crime is a result of a ‘strain’ between legitimate goals and lack of opportunities to achieve those goals’ (Revise Psychology, 2022). But that’s just being ponderous, or pontific, or something.
On a more focussed and serious note:
I was very captivated by Professor Gus John’s open letter that followed the good rioting day.
Gus John, educator campaigner and social analyst
To PM Cameron’s response to the riots, Professor John expressed,
‘Sadness, above all, at the utterances of leaders of state, including you [David Cameron], and the appalling lack of understanding that you and others display of the complexity of the situation underlying the violent civil unrest’.
Professor John continues:
It is truly breath-taking that, despite the fact that the taxpayer was made to bear the burden of the financial meltdown and rescue the banks, with the attendant impact on services to local communities, the obscene bonuses those who caused the crisis in the first place continued to receive and the jailing of MPs and Lords and of journalists for the other two scandals, those who broke into shops and helped themselves to goods in the last week could be accused of ‘greed’, ‘materialism’ and a ‘complete lack of responsibility’.
And follows with:
‘But I suppose there is a difference between Members of Parliament looting the public purse to buy plasma TV screens, duck houses, ghost houses and various other goods, and ‘rioters’ breaking into premises and taking goods’.
Here’s some data to confirm the attrition of our youth services since that rioting year.
This research below demonstrates the terrible trajectory that we’ve been on since our 10-year riot anniversary
Berry (2021)
Conclusion
The divide between the rich and the poor is growing.
The road to university is a long one for some people – and shorter for others.
It may be difficult for some people to conceive but services like an after-school club, or a youth club that provides the occasional purposeful activity go a long way to supporting the journey to further and higher education in a young person’s life, where dangerous environments and poor decisions can contribute to devasting consequences that will permanently exclude them from life chances.
Journalist Abbas and Croft (2011) pointed out that,
‘Prime Minister David Cameron blamed the worst riots in Britain for decades on street gang members and opportunistic looters and denied government austerity measures or poverty caused the violence in London and other major English cities.’
The eradication of youth services serves to wear away chances of small adolescent successes that support their completion of qualifications and their path to further and higher education. It’s attrition.
References
Abbas, M. (2011) Cameron denies austerity drive caused UK riots
Available at: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-riot-idUSTRE7760G820110811
AQA (2022) AS and A-level Sociology. Available at: https://www.aqa.org.uk/subjects/sociology/as-and-a-level/sociology-7191-7192/subject-content-a-level/crime-and-deviance-with-theory-and-methods
Berry, S. (2021) London’s Youth Service Cuts 2011-2021: A Blighted Generation. Available at:
https://www.london.gov.uk/sites/default/files/sian_berry_youth_services_2021_blighted_generation_final.pdf
John, G. (2011) Professor Gus John: Open letter to the Prime Minister Submitted 19 Aug 2011 9:56am in News. Available at: https://www.obv.org.uk/news-blogs/open-letter-prime-minister
Keith, J. (2017) The Last of a Dying Breed. London’s Lost Youth Clubs. Available at: https://trenchtrenchtrench.com/features/the-last-of-a-dying-breed-london-youth-clubs
Loose Joints – Is It All Over My Face [Larry Levan Remix] (West End Records) – 1980
Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWPahLc-j5w Ad ·
0:11
0:02 / 0:20
Revise Psychology (2022) Merton’s Strain Theory of Deviance. Available at: https://revisesociology.com/2016/04/16/mertons-strain-theory-deviance/
Prasad, R. (2011) Reading the Riots: ‘Humiliating’ stop and search a key factor in anger towards police. In the guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2011/dec/06/stop-and-search
Seigworth and Gregg (2010) The Affect Reader.
Time and Date (2022) Past Weather in London, England, United Kingdom — August 2011. Available at: https://www.timeanddate.com/weather/uk/london/historic?month=8&year=2011
Walker, P. (2011) Brixton Riots.
Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2011/apr/02/brixton-riots-anniversary
Appendix
Guardian Blogger’s full comment:
– cutslikeawife: you must be joking.
There are no parallels in the Brixton of today. The west indian community that claimed Brixton as it’s own is now just part of the multicultural background noise (newer residents include a thriving Portugese and diverse African community) and everyone is in a similar situation, albeit with benefits and scams to fill in the gaps. Those that may obtain funding for a social ‘problem’ are desperate to talk up any issue since it gets them media time and, maybe, funding as well, or even a role as some sort of media chin-stroker. The only riot that will happen in Brixton is if ‘Foot Locker’ decide to give away their stock free, since kids have many more interests and entertainment possibilities than 30 years ago and, arguably, are considerably more apathetic.