DESPITE THE claims of Tory and Labour politicians alike, the uprising in the Lozelis area of Handsworth last week had nothing everything to do with the double oppression black people face in Britain today.
Handsworth suffers some of the highest vironmental conditions that exist in this country. Within that, black people — and especially black youth - sufter most of all. They are at the bottom of even Handsworth's miserable pile.
That is because they are black - because the racism which is rife in British society means they have the highest unemployment, worst housing. cultural facilities of the lot. From every point of black people have the least to lose from striking out against the system.
It is these facts, and not those of which Thatand the Labour leadership made Handsworth last week. Unemployment, poverty, and racism are the everyday conditions which created the potential for such an uprising; police harassment was the immediate spark that lit the It was entirely predictable that the Tories, the police, and the media would respond as they did — claiming that a 'smali minority' of 'criminal elements' instigated the sacking and burning of commercial premises, and that this represented racial tension between Birmingham's Asian and cher and her friends is to push the whole weight working class - to blame them for its existence and to make them pay its costs.
Labour Party leaders echo so faithfully the selfIt is because Neil Kinnock has set himself, ing to the ruling class that Labour is a safe bet in government, that Labour is just as able - and just as ready — to manage the crisis and blame and Rooker cried 'criminal' and howled for more police repression just as loud as Douglas Hurd or Geoffrey Dear. And that is why those same Labour politicians made hardly a mention of the real causes underlying Handsworth, or the real But it isn't just black people who lose out by the poorer for it. By blaming the victims instead of naming the culprits, Labour's leadership further encourages the racist divisions that exist within the working class and, at the same time, undermines the struggles of all those - black and white — who are prepared to take on the real enemy: the Tory Party reinforces the 'law and order' drive of Thatcher and the increase in the repressive forces that goes with it. That is why support for Handsworth's black community, especially those youth who face the immediate and vicious reprisals of the state, is a crucial task for the whole labour The position of Kinnock and his kind cannot be left unchallenged. It is the responsibility of every Labour Party activist and every trade union militant to labour movement champions the cause of the Handsworth black youth. And it is the task of the leaders of the left to speak out against the path Kinnock has chosen.
Editor: ALAN FREEMAN Published weeklv excent two weeks in August and the last week of December.
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which explain what happened in of The working class as a whole is the demand that the organised SATURDAY It, SEPTEMBER March st Mam Roy Hattersley don't have a clue what is happening THE RESPONSE of leading labour movement figures to the events in Handsworth last week has justifiably action by the police. 'Organised how gangs of thugs was Lord Frank Carter described those involved.
While Edwin Shore, chair the West Midlands police committee, promised full support for the police 'in tracking down the culprits.
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sooner had the flames died down than MPs and councillors were appearing on TV and in the press blaming 'criminal elements' and demanding tough