Dear Ms Birbalsingh

It has been 5 years since the London riots happened and yet as a nation we are still having problems trying to move on. As a writer yourself, you understand that some things that are said aren’t always going to sit well with the reader. Personally, I believe your piece is more of a racial discrimination towards people of black culture and not addressing the real reasons as to why the riots may have occurred. This is the reason your piece does not sit well with me and I would like to take this opportunity to explain why.

I agree with you that this issue is making all of us hide away from the real truth, but you and I share different ideas of what the truth is. Your idea of the truth is that the street crime London faces is caused because of black people, especially black youth. However, not only black people were involved in the riots. People of all different colour and race were involved because of an issue that is far bigger than what you made it out to be. You made it out to seem that because of an innocent accident from the police, “black youths once again have set London alight”.

That is not the case. The real problem here is the police. The police claim to protect the city but all they do is stop and search everybody and anybody who is of colour. Even statistics show this. For every 1 white person stopped and searched, 17 black people are stopped. Now, by your logic, all the people the police stop and search, get arrested for a crime when in fact most of them are found with no reason to be arrested. Not all the police are this way but unfortunately they are not 100% honest either. Since 1998, 333 people have died in police custody and somehow not a single conviction for any officer was made. Strange. Even the IPCC have allowed these convictions to be swept under the carpet. And you wonder why the people are angry. The riots were not just for the death of Mark Duggan. That was just the icing on the cake. The riots were because of the way the police are treating people all around the country and especially in places of poverty.

Ms Birbalsingh, I think you will find it helpful to look at the findings of Richard Wilkinson in his book The Spirit Level where he says that the crime in cities occur because of an unequal society. We have a very unequal society. In fact, did you know that the country’s top 10% of richest people are 100% better off than the poorer people in the country. By poorer people, I mean people around the country that are not labelled as “upper class”. This is a reason for anyone to be angry and especially the people who rioted. Tottenham, the place where Mark Duggan lived is considered a poor place. In fact it is one of the poorest places in London with one of the highest rated amount of people claiming from the welfare state. It is arguable that they are in that position due to specific reasons as to lack of qualifications etc but if the society were to become more equal, and the police treated these people the same as they treat the “upper class” people, I think you will find the amount of street crime will decrease.

Unfortunately, it seems that we as a nation have all been burying our heads under the sand to the real problem. As a women of your power, it’s a shame that you can not bring awareness to the masses of people who follow you because unfortunately you are blinded from the real truth as well.

Yours sincerely

Unknown