Black is the New White

shib·bo·leth/ˈSHibəliTH/
Noun: A custom, principle, or belief distinguishing a class or group of people. A manner of speaking that is distinctive of a particular group of people

I'll keep this brief and roll in pictures.

Here's everybody's favourite Camford Mafioso, Don Starkey on Newsnight talking about how "whites have become blacks"...

You have to admit this is TV gold. It's got it all - including a crusty old upper class guy reading out rap lyrics (close enough anyway) in a crisp Cream Cracker College accent. Ok, admittedly not as funny as it might have been in, say, 1992 and a little unoriginal comedically speaking, but when he whips out that piece of paper I knew exactly what was coming next. You've got to respect the classics.

But it's a sad day when it takes a patronising old cliché like Starkey to say what everyone's thinking. I remember when that particular social honour belonged to the comedian, instead of their modern substitution - braving the side splitting humorists' no man's land of "making a wine choice for your table-guests" or the the outrageous irreverence of "observations on decorating one's three-bedroom semi".

"You're a wanker like me! Hilarious!!!"

So what are we all thinking? That the roaming bands of feral youths are, additionally to their wanton social disobedience, blacking themselves up like some kind of distasteful minstrel show? Horror of horrors.

Put on your blackface

Some kids, though not all by any means, just the ones who are wilfully ignorant or (more likely) uneducated, cannot speak. Forget about learning to read and write - they were never taught to speak. Oh, they can make utterances and perhaps, to their friends at least, make themselves understood to some degree. Something meaningful will come out of their mouth: communication is happening. But if you spend any time analysing it, trying to imagine having a conversation with them in the same dialect, you'll resign yourself that it is mostly garbage. It has some kind of idiosyncratic structure and syntax, and certainly a colourful diction, but it's an evolutionary step backwards linguistically as it is, so far as I've observed, totally un-nuanced. By that I mean some kids (not all) lack even the language to have an ethical conversation, let alone perform the necessary ethical back-flips in a job interview. It's not even the old middle class joke of the common folk dropping their 'H's and transmuting a 'th' into an 'f' sound. Now we're talking about vowels which have become contorted, distended, tortured into some kind of labial, bass-register hooting - like you'd imagine of some sub-human ape man.

Kanzi the ape: "This...is...demeaning. Release...me...human. Die...purple...woman...die." I'd wager there was no symbol for rebellion.

How serious/facetious am I being here? It's a sliding scale with me. I'm not sure where I sit on it just about now. But I do believe I'm speaking the truth on one important point - many of these kids lack even the language of ordinary morality.

So why's that? I'd hazard it's because it's not a language which was ever important to them. It didn't feature in their lives. I'd put it to you that when these kids were growing up and did something wrong, even if their parents wanted to chastise them and reason out the error of their ways, they never really had that conversation. I mean they were rendered mute, neglected parent and offspring alike, by a vacuum of language.

Why is this so? Well to over-simplify it (trying to keep this as short as poss) I'd blame generational failures in the education system: and a society which dispensed with the moral crutch of religion only to replace it with...nothing. Patronising though this sounds - remember by and large I think people need to stand on their own two feet and dispense with government intervention - but the system really has failed these people. I believe in the welfare state - don't dare mistake me for some kind of right wing free-marketarian - but if you abandon people and leave them uneducated, economically surplus to requirements, whilst at the same time feeding, clothing and keeping a roof over their heads you're asking for trouble. Not immediate trouble, as I said this is a generational thing, but down the line they're going to want to rejoin mainstream society one way or another. They're not hungry or homeless, neither are they yearning to be free from bondage - I told you they lack the language to manifest these thoughts, should they even have them - but as a group they may well be inarticulate but they can still be indignant about one thing: no human being would like being kept as a pet.

Let me stop riffing and breathe a while. This needs to come back on topic.

Starkey's worried about some Jamaican, faux American gangland rap culture taking over. He has a point, but if rap music is popular it's popular for a reason. Lets imagine I'm one of these mumbling young oafs. If I don't know what 'society' means and yet I still want power, consumer goods and sex then it's logical for me to want to kill steal and rape: that's just me fantasizing about winning these things I want. Music, like any art form, can be nothing more than wish fulfilment. Incidentally I don't necessarily want my art form of choice to agonise about the morality of this fantasy, especially if that queer dialogue is overdubbed in a language I don't understand. Come to think of it surely a narrative without any antagonism or angst to speak of is a pretty good definition of pornography? So lets proceed on the basis that these young guys, of indeterminate race, are enamoured with the pornography of violence, AKA rap music and associated 'gangsta' culture. Let me imagine that for a second and see what I feel about that.

"My neck hurts all the time, homes."

I don't care. There's no point trying to prohibit, or indeed condemn these vices into oblivion. It will never, ever work because you are fighting against human nature. And you're a hypocrite to boot. If you're the kind of person who's guilty (or perhaps not guilty) pleasure is sitting down to "Grand Designs", "A Place in the Country" or "Location, Location, Location" then you're a fine one to talk. One assumes that as a wannabe upper-middle class tosser you have a pretty adequate Daily Mail-esq grasp of morality - yet you feel ok to masturbate over a £450'000 house in Surrey while you know in all conscience there are some parts of the UK which are virtually unlivable. Places you wouldn't dream of sending little Jacob and Georgina to the local comprehensive. Places where you know full well they wouldn't have the opportunities in life you've had. When was the last time you broke out that glossary of moral indignation over "A Place in the Country"? You never did, and I'll tell you why: because this is your pornography. It's lifestyle pornography. Your wish fulfilment.

"Just a 180 minute commute each way? To central London? £580,000 baby!"

(I just couldn't leave these two alone...)

"I even want to punch myself."       "And I have a yeast infection!"

So what solution is there? Education, buddy, education! It's late in the day to talk about what I think education is for, but suffice to say that it shouldn't be about trying to make moral judgements on behalf of young people. Don't take away the power or the right of deliberation. It should be about giving them the language to make these judgements for themselves. Any child who grows up and can't express his/herself - be it emotionally, economically, politically or morally - is a tragedy. Language is thought, and thought it language, so if you want your children to make the right choices then make sure they command the language to describe that choice. Language for simple choices and complex ones. Force them to learn that language if it's necessary; but I don't think that will be necessary, because I think most people yearn to make that choice, and are empowered by the choosing.

That was very inspirational wasn't it? But the cynic in me doubts it'll take root in my lifetime.

The cynic in me thinks the political classes can't contemplate that. A curriculum which has at its centre this kind of individual, thought-provoking empowerment won't be on their agenda. They aren't aiming for the 'underclass' to have the same deliberative linguistic powers as their privately educated little darlings. If the great unwashed were taught to speak like a man, to walk upright, then what would be left to distinguish good people from bad? Little Jacob and Georgina might start to sound a little lacklustre in the job market, mightn't they? No - better to seek opportunities for the poor elsewhere. You see I've slowly started to understand how these people think. Even clothed in their most polished, parliamentary language it's plain they want our disadvantaged youth to aspire to be naught but shiny little cogs in a grand economic machine; albeit a machine they can never fully understand. You see it's the shibboleth which is most precious to them. It maintains the status quo, quite aptly sorting the social ears of wheat from the economic chaff, and it will always be there helping us to distinguish, morally and ethically, black from white.

Riot Guns

There is no truth, only stories. Stories are how we make sense of the world.

There's one story about a fairytale kingdom, also featuring a prince and his princesses of course, where everyone lives happily ever after. You've heard this story before many times. If you've heard it enough times and took it to heart then this story is the one which makes a lot of other stories sound perfectly logical. But it's a lie.

People who know me know I'm not in the least surprised by what's been happening. Even on the first night I already had a few items set aside for just such a rainy day, if it came to that. Nothing illegal (yet). Just some ordinary supplies and some items which I'd regard as a last resort. As it happened I was unaffected and more or less went about my business as usual.

On the second night the rioting began to spread. At that point I did a little maths, albeit based on a little guesswork and speculation but tell me if you don't agree with my numbers. They = many, and The Police = few. This will always be so. It's amazing to me that people don't see this. Why would anyone think the police are always going to save the day? Why would anyone, except maybe a very young child, wilfully believe that?

Think about the essence of what these riots are. These riots are crimes of sheer opportunity. They're opportunistic. Forget about morality for a moment. People hear on the news that chaos is the order of the day, in cities up and down the country including theirs, and they want a piece of the action. They honestly don't care why it's happening. They make an assessment in their minds that the benefits of joining in the fun outweigh the risks as they see them, and so they go a-looting. Meanwhile most law abiding people would break out in a cold sweat at the thought of shoplifting a mars bar (or not paying their TV license ;-)). Morality aside who has a better appreciation of risk and reward? Who's to say? I suppose time will tell.

And I'm using the word "people" with absolutely no tonal stress to the word. I mean "people" in it's blandest, most non-judgemental connotation. It was people who set fire to homes and businesses night after night. Not even, I am emphatic to add, the worst kind of people. Not even close. My advice is not to stretch for tabloid-esq hyperbole like "scum" and "feral" to describe the kids, and indeed adults, who were up to mischief these last few nights. The day may soon come when you'll have to find a whole new lexicon of barbarity. People will appear in the night, the circumstances being right also in large organised groups, who will bring to your door a new meaning of horror. It's happened all round the world and all through history. This isn't even the start.

Of course there are many victims in these crimes and a lot of suffering has gone on. In London especially family businesses have been torched, people have been injured and robbed and three young guys have been run over and killed in Birmingham. I'm sad to see that, as any sane person would be. And there'll be an economic cost. Perhaps most importantly there may be far reaching consequences for the rule of law. What's happened once will happen again. And not to be too cryptic but sometimes the cure is worse than the disease. If you want to know what I mean then keep listening to the story as it is told and re-told by usual storytellers. You'll know them. They're the same people who told you the one about the prince and princess. You might hear that Sir CCTV came in with a flashing sword and rescued us all, and what we need "going forward" is better facial recognition technology, so that we can automate the whole process. While you're at it why don't we just make everyone who isn't a criminal wear a tag on their ankle instead? If you've nothing to hide you've nothing to fear, right?

Coming back on topic there are probably a lot of people wondering why the police couldn't, or indeed didn't, stop this. Numbers aren't everything, right? Let me be completely honest about my own individual feelings, for comparison. I ain't sticking my neck out for Miss Selfridges. Same goes for the Foot Asylum. Smash the living shit out of it: it's not my problem, buddy! That's my take. But conversely, do you think the police are always motivated? Do you depend on that? Would you go running after a gang of thirty kids, even (or should I say especially) wearing 20kg of riot armour? Knowing that if by some miracle you manage to catch one, in lieu of incurring injury on yourself, you're going to be leave your colleagues on the streets for at least an hour while you process the arrest with the desk sergeant back at the nick? Even in what for some people would be a utopia, where the police can simply beat the living shit out of the offender and truss them up by the roadside - violence has a tendency to be reciprocated, and to escalate. Baton charges are met with flying bricks, water cannon with petrol bombs. You're fighting an enemy that while it might lack resolve is not lacking in numbers and, to some level at least, actually enjoys this kind of adrenal callisthenics. If you want the police to flex their muscles I hope you'd enjoy living in Northern Ireland circa the 1990s - where you had a generation of kids too young to remember what the fighting is about but for whom fighting the police is a quaint national pass-time.

So you might think I'm saying violence shouldn't be met with violence. You'd be dead wrong. Let me tell you why. Around 40+ people in London have been made homeless, which I imagine represents the people who lived above some of the shops which were burnt out. For my money that represents 40+ incidences of attempted murder: since these rioters had no way of knowing whether the residences were occupied when they set them alight. In actual fact many people did indeed have to flee their burning homes, for their very lives. So if someone was about to burn you to death what would be your response? This isn't the inventory of shop we're talking about protecting, it's human life. That's where I draw the line. I'm not trying to be sensational here but why should a young man about to set his cigarette lighter to my place of residence not expect to look sidelong into the mussel of a shotgun as he does so? What kind of society would object to that? Is that not the best way to inform him of the consequences of his actions?

Many people, and it might well include you, would be so hopelessly devoted to the fairytale as to still believe that would be a sad day - when an ordinary person can own a weapon for this purpose alone. I should add that it's perfectly possible to own a shotgun for this reason, quite legally. You just have to keep your true intentions to yourself. (Say you want it for "skeet" or "clay shooting". These are descended from good aristocratic traditions of eradicating native waterfowl and therefore establishment-friendly). You'll have to spend some wedge on a gunsafe and do a lot of paperwork, and enjoy a home visit by the nosey government, but once you've done the necessaries it can live by your bedside, where it belongs, hopefully collecting dust forever more. Or until it's needed to defend your life. Or, more likely, until the authorities take it away from you because they decided it was just too dangerous to let you have it. In any event you can always dispense with all that hassle and rely on the police, right? They're real heroes.

To my mind the policeman is no more or less heroic than a civilian. I'd bet if your life was threatened and a policeman could intervene he'd do so if he could, even at his own risk. It's something they've trained for. But in these extraordinary circumstances, rare as they are, what sane person would expect a policeman to be in just the right place at just the right time? It's lunacy. Even with the rule of law, in a best case scenario, the police are going to take ten minutes to respond - if for example, amidst some civil unrest, someone has invaded your home. With all the police in a city already deployed, and when the number of 999 calls has also increased by a factor of 4? Lives are endangered everywhere. They'll arrive in a timely fashion, right? Forget about it. You're on your own. You always have been, you just didn't realise it.

When the storyteller says you've got nothing to fear that's a lie. It always was a lie. He's been telling you that owning a gun, or even carrying a knife for your own protection is a terrible folly. Chances are you're going to do some harm to someone you care about, or even yourself, right? We've got CCTV and a 999 switchboard so what else could you possibly need? Did you know it's illegal in the UK to carry on your person any object...ANY object...for the purposes of self defence? A chopstick would qualify if the police think they can second guess your intentions. They'd classify it as an "offensive weapon". There is no such thing as a "defensive" weapon in the UK, unless it's either wielded by a cop or just so happens to be near to hand for another purpose. To be fair the law does provide for the use of deadly force if your life is threatened and there's no other choice: you'll just have to improvise a weapon. Perhaps the guy with a knife coming in your back kitchen window will hang fire a while as you choose between the frying pan and the spatula. Alternatively if you apply for a shotgun license (or indeed a Firearms Certificate, FAC, which is applicable to rifles) and make any mention on that form of home protection or self defence it will be rejected out of hand. Because, so the story goes, it is not your responsibility to keep yourself safe. It's not your job to protect your family or your property. We've got a very small but dedicated number of police for that...so long as you don't mind waiting 10 minutes to get rescued. And so long as the citywide level of disorder remains manageable. And so long as the police are still being paid, fed and equipped by the authorities. Oh, and so long as the police don't themselves have families who are in danger at the same time, because that's when people's priorities tend to change.

Lets remember that in the right circumstances any person can become a criminal. That's life. Some people by virtue of their own life choices, accident of birth, genetics or otherwise might be more predisposed to become criminals, but that's just a fact. If they think they can get away with it some people will rob, rape and kill at the drop of a hat. While some people will have to endure a lot of hardship and brutality before this happens. Imagine your neighbours, or strangers in the street, deprived of food for a couple of days. What lengths would they go to for something to eat? What about to feed their kid? It's human nature. These riots, my friends, aren't even the tip of the iceberg. They're just a bunch of people out for a free lunch, re-assured by the security of the mob. Many of them may be prosecuted. Many may never be: as for example if they took the precaution of covering their face. Either way I hope this illusion of safety has now been shattered.

The political class have shown themselves to be all the same thing on this issue. Protectionists. They've been propagating a lie that it is the government's job to protect people and that only criminals would want a weapon, that ordinary people aren't equipped to use proportionate force in their own defence, or the defence of their home, livelihood or family. The storytellers have been spinning us a yarn that we really can't be trusted to look after ourselves, that we're certainly not to be trusted with a weapon. Even if the criminals have knives, guns and, not least of all, a deadly and indiscriminate weapon which most cavemen would have wielded since 10'000BC - fire!

Like I said, there is no truth, only stories. I don't really believe that of course. I think there is a thing called truth which we can indeed know in the here and now. But for all intents and purposes the better question - the better for getting at the truth - is what story do I believe? And, by extension, this usually means: who do you trust? Who's story makes better sense of what you see going on around you? Do you trust the man who said the police would always protect you, that you should seed all the power and moral authority to him? Who said you should disarm yourself and be afraid to protect yourself and what's yours?

Protectionism is a lie. Wake up.