Racial violence on the increase

New virulence
Recent attacks on black people have a ferocity which appals police and community organisers alike. On 4 March a 19-year-old Sudanese student, unconcernedly chatting to his white mate on a bus travelling through Wandsworth in south London, was suddenly stabbed in the stomach three times by a white youth brandishing a knife.

On 12 March Sunil Modi, a 32-year-old Asian scriptwriter from London, driving with his fiancée from Liverpool town centre to his sister’s house in Aigburth, was forced off the road and then ambushed by four white people. Sunil was dragged from the car, his face smashed with a beer can as he was pulled towards a metal fence with his attackers shouting ‘spike him, put the Paki’s head on a spike’. The attack left him with cuts under each eye, damage to the back of one eye, bruises and swelling to the head, multiple fractures to his nose, a broken cheek bone, bite marks to his hand and bruises to the upper arms.

The attack on 21 March on Chris Cotter, boyfriend of black triple-jumper. Ashia Hansen, made the headlines because both are well-known. But the frenzied stabbing of Cotter underlines a deep race hatred. Not only was Cotter told during the attack that he should have heeded warnings ‘not to mix with niggers’, but the attackers even sent a letter after the attack threatening to make sure he was killed the next time.

White heartlands
Granted, the press is now far more sensitised to the issue of racial violence and reports more attacks. A few years ago it would have been unthinkable that The Express would lead with a race-hate story, and the ordeal of Sunil Modi, which was in national and regional papers alike, cannot be unique. It is hard to tell whether we are getting to hear about more attacks or attacks are actually on the increase. But a new worrying pattern does seem to be emerging. There is a kind of unspoken segregation growing up in conurbations. In white working-class heartlands, no-go areas for black people are being created. Mr Modi strayed into one in Liverpool. Ashia Hansen lived in one – Erdington – where retrenchment from the Dunlop factory has increased white resentment. In Bermondsey – a very white enclave in a poor region of south east London – police have, in the past two months, been battling against a 150-strong gang of white children who are consistently attacking the few black residents of the Rennie estate.

Across the UK
Racial violence has not just moved up a gear in England. In Scotland, two anti-racist workers, both members of the Lothian Racial Equality Council, have recently been attacked. In February racists fire-bombed the car of Shami Khan; in March, Faysol Chaudry was the victim of a racially-aggravated road rage incident. Two black families have been forced out of Edinburgh housing estates because of harassment. The Race Equality Council in Edinburgh, which has reported a rise, over the 9 months to December 1999, of 94 per cent in assaults and 56 per cent in verbal abuse and threats, is calling on the police to set up a specialised racial incident task force. In South Wales where such a special task force was set up, the police believe that the fact that recorded racial incidents appear to be up by 185 per cent, proves that the community now has confidence in the police. (Obviously, it also shows a very worrying level of racism!)

Task Force raid
Since the Lawrence Inquiry, many campaigners have been cynical about the police’s supposed commitment to tackling racial crime. It has all been talk about target indicators with few results on the ground. But on 24 March, the Met’s Racial and Violent Crimes Task Force, drawing on the slow, painstaking intelligence on racial harassment gathered by the Met’s 32 Community Safety Units, carried out its first large-scale operation. In dawn raids on homes in Newham, Staines, Hounslow, Richmond, Dagenham, Barnet, Brent, Greenwich, Havering, Islington and Reading, one hundred people were arrested for offences including racially aggravated criminal damage, grievous bodily harm, distributing racist literature and threats to kill. Over thirty people have been charged with racial offences.