From Stop and Search to “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot”
Durijng the start of the pandemic and then since then, racism has been so innovative as to insonuate itself into the narrative. Whether it’s people such as Farage, Gove, etc blamingt the Chinese, in 2020, on into the EDL and “Oh Tommeh…Tommeh…Tommeh”,(Tommy Robinson former EDL and now an ‘advisor for UKIP), and the Brexit Party, claiming that PC gawn mad was allwoing the mosques to remain open while shutting all of the Churches, (a complete lie btw). Allied to this has been the vitriolic demonisation of BLM (Black Lives Matter) for having the temerity to stand up against rcism and police brutality
But I see the context of this, is not just the state and it’s racist sub-contractors all of a sudden becoming racist and reactionary because of the pandemic. Rather it can been seen as the issue of health, social and public policy becoming intertwined as a means of projection against any challenge to the system.
The claim has been made a number of times by the right wing commentariat that if it were not for a PC political backlash, the police would be able to fight violent crime. It should be noted that with no small sense of satisfction, the Police Federation announced in the summer of 2020, that it had stopped and searched over 20,000 young POC
According to the Express on April 20th 2018, Simon Kempton, the federation’s representative on stop and search said: “At the moment because of how it has been treated by politicians, police officers are increasingly simply not using the powers because they fear they will be caught up in a political football.”
“The announcement from the Police Federation follows Boris Johnson calling for a crackdown on gangs by using stop and search powers. The former mayor of London said the police needed to use their stop and search powers to bring order to the streets of the capital.” https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/948969/London-knife-crime-stop-and-search-statistics The Police on Merseyside, also made the same plea; https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/merseyside-police-chief-stop-and-search-is-not-racist-it-is-our-greatest-power-hn5kcws7z
Sadiq Khan obviously agreed with Boris Johnson, Independent and said on January 10th 2018, “There will be a “significant increase” in targeted stop and searches by police in London as part of efforts to combat rising violent crime, Sadiq Khan has said. The mayor said that although the controversial searches can cause tension, they are a “vital tool for police to keep our communities safe”.
It is clear however, that the issue of racism in Stop and Search did not start in 2018, Martin Beckford in the Telegraph, 12th June 2012, ‘Police forces accused of race bias in stop and search figures, “The Equality and Human Rights Commission found that in some areas, black people are 30 times more likely to be targeted by officers looking for weapons than whites. ”.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/9324529/Police-forces-accused-of-race-bias-in-stop-and-search-figures.html. Also see the ‘Stop and Search: Exploring Disproportionality’, report Jean Hine, from De Montfort University, Community and Criminal Justice Division, July 2015https://leics.police.uk/media/uploads/library/file/Stop-Search-Report.pdf.
As an issue, it seems to have become worse the more that racism has become normalized in society. Anja Popp, of Channel 4 News, asked the question, in an article 14th October 2018, ‘Is racial bias in police stop and search getting worse?’ “Black people are nine times more likely to be stopped and searched for drugs, that’s despite the fact that white people are far more likely to use illegal substances.” https://www.channel4.com/news/is-racial-bias-in-police-stop-and-search-getting-worse.
During the ‘Effect of police stop and search powers on BAME communities’, discussion, in Westminster Hall, 23rd May 2018, it stated; “At the time, the then Home Secretary Theresa May made the following comments: “The findings of the HMIC inspection, were deeply concerning. The inspectorate reported that 27% of the stop-and-search records it examined did not contain reasonable grounds to search people, even though many of these records had been endorsed by supervising officers.
If the HMIC sample is accurate, more than a quarter of the 1 million or so stops carried out under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 last year could have been illegal. This is not the only worrying statistic.
Official figures show that if someone is black or from a minority ethnic background, they are up to six times more likely to be stopped and searched by the police than if they are white, and only about 10% of stops result in an arrest.2” http://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CDP-2018-0125/CDP-2018-0125.pdf
Events have shown the potency and potential of a pro-fascist street movement, but the racists are also in Whitehall, HoC and other arms of the establishment, especially the police. That is why it’s important that we show the racists, in and out of uniform, that black and white can unite and fight, and that as “Black, white, gay straight, Christian, Muslims and Jews, there are many more of us than you”
