Note: i choose here to write about only one incident that happened as i was growing up in Northeast London in the seventies. There are so many stories to tell and this is but one of them. Everything here is true, and while that may be hard to swallow, i think the weight of cultural evidence supports this story, and more, those who like me, lived through the Race Riots of the seventies and lived to tale the tale could surely tell you equally horrifying stories of their own. Note that this not a story that should divide us among class lines - quite the contrary. It is shared here as a way,perhaps, for us to learn how wrong it is to do that and a way of telling that those London Skins by no means represented all of us, or even most of us, and certainly not me. As i said, this is one story, and if this is interesting to anyone, perhaps i'll share more. — srp
A friend said, you should write about it, you know. And I thought about it for a minute and thought no. Who would want to hear about those things that we somehow survived, that were London in the seventies and gave nothing to recommend. Who wanted to know that where we lived was where the Skinheads had started their riots, where they came to cause trouble in our quiet part of London, where everybody was black - West African mostly, or Pakistani or India, save for me and my friend Stevie, who was also epileptic and white. I guess I had spent so many years of my life in this neighborhood that I never really noticed a difference between the so-called them and the so-called us. I never thought I was any different from any other black kid, except I wasn't black, I was painfully white and no matter how hard I tried to fit in, the younger kids my own age may accept me into their group but the older kids always had a sneer in the eye, a look of real hatred that to a child of seven or so was confusing.
I didn't understand why those bald, white guys would come around throw milk bottles with gasoline in them and light them on fire. OR why they would call people "wog" and beat the crap out of them. They never bothered me. I would watch them move into the neighborhood at night, like a flock of angry gulls descending on the coast, they moved in all peg-legged and stiff and started squawking trouble to the night. They would see me sitting on the ledge by the front door and rub my hair. They were always nice to me, but I could see they weren't' always nice to other people. But since I was young, I had escaped being picked on by either side. I had only black and Indian friends except for Stevie simply because there were no other people to be friends with and they accepted me and I accepted them. We were kids. No one had told us we weren't supposed to like each other and we had managed to ignore the prejudices of our own parents, thank god, so all was well, until one day some older kids got ahold of me in the projects just around the corner and took me as "prisoner" they said.
Article comments
1 - Aaman
Sadi,
You transformed your poison into medicine and that is the best one can do. It will take some re-reading to further appreciate your social commentary.
Which is worse - the color divide or the economic divide? Coming from India, I saw economic disparities everyday and the pains that arose from them - while I did not experience these, other than vicariously, they permeate my social consciousness.
I believe the film you may be referring to is "Rude Boy" from 1980 - perhaps the Amazon ASIN can be added here.
2 - sadi
yes, i think you're right. Rude Boy is probably the one, though i'll check with my friend Ian, who has the disc -- one of them is about the Clash and the RAce Riots, so that was particularly interesting.
This was a hard story to share on a number of levels. First, race issues are always dodgy and one can never be sure how the words will be perceived, even though i am saying that to me, anyway, i never saw any differnece between my west african, indian, or pakistani friends and myself. so much so, that i really thought i was one of them, or just like them.
To be beat up as i was was a shock, to say the least. I wasn't prepared for it, but at the same time, now that i'm older and have some perspective, i see that their anger came out of what was happening to them at the time, and that must have been very tough. i just happened to be a convinient target for that hostility because i was small and i was right there, unfortunately.
What a lot of people don't understand, or some people anyway, is that this is just the way it was in London at the time... I can't pass a judgement on what happened to me because i accept it as part of life that was hard all the way around and for all of us, not just for me or my family. We all had our share, and god knows, even i did my share of ass-kicking as i got older, which i'm not proud of, but it was a natural part of the climate. I remember we were still being caned in those days; that the nuns, teachers etc, could still wield the cane and really come down on your arse or your hand. IF one kid acted up, we all got the cane. I recall one kid who always got all of us in trouble and so one day, in the playground, a pack of us took him down like wild animals. I think we really must have hurt him, and no, i'm not proud of this, but i tell you this by way of explaining the cultural situation. Everyone was feeling the stress. The kid that we all (the entire class) beat up was not beat up for race -- he was beat up because we were ALL of us sick of being caned because of him. I guess the school figured this was the natural order of things and so they never even tried to stop us, even though i know they saw what was going on.
As i said, a lot of stuff happened at that time. I saw my own mother brutally attacked, we were robbed several, terrifying times, there were IRA bombs on a regular basis at the postoffice central where my grandmother worked -- it was just tough.
Now, in the states with the threat of terrorism again, i feel the old anxiety coming back and resurfacing and i'm scared again. It's like a re-traumatization in some ways because i thought i had left all that behind. I've been down this road, you know, i don't want anyone to have to go down that road. Ever, though sadly, most countries have and do and will continue do. Such violence exists every day and the world over and i hate it, but i'm not sure what i can do to stop it other than my own small kindnesses, which i think count, in some small way -- you start small. You start by treating people well and volunteering etc. and you do your part. If everyone did their part that would be great -- but that's not my concern; my concern is only what can i do, and then to go about doing it, though i do encourage my family to volunteer etc.
I'm sure in India you could write many stories about class systems and values etc. -- as i wrote about in my review of Mystic River. I imagine some things would hit home, though a bit different, the underlying issues are the same in some ways.
IN any event, this could go on forever. and thanks for reading and telling us all the disc. I think that's the one.
Cheers,
Sadi