Birbalsingh Coursework

Dear Mrs Birbalsingh,

I am writing this letter because I have reviewed your article on your explanation of the historical context of the London Riots and I disagree with your agenda.

Firstly, you have made a statement declaring you want to know what people are so angry about due to the death of Mark Duggan. I believe you raised that point due to what you have seen portrayed in the media, as they have framed the death of Mark Duggan at the hands of the Metropolitan Police, where he seemed to be caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, in a stereotyping way. The media claim that Mark Duggan was involved in a shoot out with the Metropolitan Police, in an attempt to stop them from catching him. I understand you know that he was involved in gang culture activity, however you haven’t really thought about this or researched it in depth. Meanwhile, the people who are actually affected by this are angry, because the media and the IPCC have determined the context of the London riots as black people doing what they supposedly do best. They have also described Mark Duggan as nothing more than a gangster from Tottenham, and to manipulate the story and the situation, have even cropped out a picture of him holding a heart. People feel like the IPCC should have acted to take responsibility upon themselves, because they, as well as me, don’t think he should have been killed by the police since he wasn’t shooting at them.

Secondly, my understanding of your argument is that the London Riots were caused for no reason and people are just exaggerating the deaths of black people caused by the Metropolitan Police. You did mention some facts regarding the crime rate caused by black people and then you passed it on to the Eastern Europeans. I noticed you left out the English ethnicity when you had explained the crime rate statistics. My interpretation of this has to be that you think all English people are perfect and they are crime-free.

Thirdly, it is a fact that more than 300 innocent black people have been killed by the police since 1998. It is also a fact that black people today in 2016 are up to 17.5 times more likely to be stopped by the police than white people. The death of Stephen Lawrence was an act of institutional racism, as shockingly highlighted in the 1998 public inquiry by Sir William Macpherson; amazingly, the police as an organisation, who were meant to understand and interact with the community, seem not to realize that they are playing their part in community tensions. This is not the first time there have been London riots. There were London riots in 1981 and 1985, arguably caused by stop and search operations by the Metropolitan Police officers, leading to highly charged relationships between the black communities and the Metropolitan Police.

Lastly, the difficult relationship between the police and the black community has been going on for a really long time; the London Riots started over 20 years before the riots which you have written your article about. I think it’s fair to say you are biased: you have just looked in depth into the media, understanding their point of view and re-used it in your argument to raise your thoughts heavily and make false judgments towards black people. The London riots originally started because black people felt mistreated by the police – it was a reaction showing that they had enough. As you can see, it’s reignited once again, due to the death of a man that was killed by the police. Surely, you can see the connection here. All through your article, you have just merged black people and crime into a single concept, without looking in depth into the subject at all or stating the key facts. My advice to you is don’t compose an article being so confident about making false judgments when you haven’t got the full context, and most of all don’t make one stereotype stand for an entire community.

Yours sincerely,

Malik Mhina