Oy Vey Gevalt

Democracy Now
Over 1,000 Arrested as Anger over Inequality, Racism Boils Over
August 10, 2011


Amy Goodman:  How do you think this should all be resolved? We’re talking about four days of this uprising, of the riots, of the fires, of more than a thousand people arrested, police out in the largest presence in history now in the streets of London and others. What do you think needs to happen right now?

DARCUS HOWE: There has to be an overture made to young blacks, saying, "Peace." And you could do that with making clear that you disassociate yourself—I’m talking about the Prime Minister now—disassociate themselves with Operation Trident and dissolve it, dissolve Operation Razorback, which is terrorizing communities right now.  (Operation Razorback changed the stop and search law which needed grounds, to groundless stop and search on the suspicion of terrorism.  As a result black people are being harrassed and bullied All The Time!)

And the other thing, the genuine black intellectuals and working-class unionists, and so on, should hold an international conference within the next six months to lay out precisely the state of society. We must have black Americans there.

We must have broadcasters from all over the world and discuss the future of a civilization within a civilization, and make that absolutely clear.

We invite delegates from Africa, we invite delegates from the Caribbean, and say this is not the country that Cameron boasts of—and how, beneath the surface, the terror and the disrespect—on the question of race, mainly—and we have to resolve it. We have to resolve it, and resolve it in a civilized way.

..... Not go with a demonstration to the House of Lords or Parliament and to your MP and whatever. We have to lift it sky-high and let the entire civilization of this world know that what they’re doing in Afghanistan is much of what they do to kill people here. I’m not angry, but I’m deadly serious. Every time I walk the street, my eyes are scanning the landscape for rogue police officers. And that’s—I warn my children to do that, and my grandchildren.