Dear miss Birbalsingh,
I am writing to you to discuss on the fifth anniversary of the London riots your article on why the riots started.
In your opinion the riots were started by the criminal instincts of black people. However I disagree with this interpretation and I wont just “bury my head in the sand” about this subject and what has caused this. One of your main arguments is that the police were right to shoot Mark Dugan, and that he was shooting back at the police, however the post report showed that only police bullets were fired and he had no gun on him. So you are wrong when you say that “shots were fired either from him or the mini cab driver” and even the police have admitted that they themselves were wrong to shoot him, but from reading your article I believe the only fact that matters to you in relation to him is that Mark Dugan was black.
You also imply that black people are the cause of the riots and that the only reason they rioted was due to their skin colour, and not anything else when you say lines like “once again black youths have set London alight” this shows a clear bias towards black people. You also use unreliable sources such as one police officer who wasn’t even sure of the figure he gave himself, and yet you would throw this figure around like it was the truth. You would also even deny that the 20% of people involved in gun crime were British as you labelled them “eastern European”, you say that people should stop being afraid to be “politically correct”, however there is a difference to political correctness and the unfair blaming of people due to their skin.
The main reason I disagree with your article is that you failed to look at any other reason for what these people have done other than their race. You don’t even consider that the areas were the riots happened are poor so people would be more inclined to partake in the riots as well as this they were in areas highly populated by black people so there is bound to be black people partaking in the riots. Another point is that you describe black people committing crimes “instinctively” this gives me and every other reader the image of black people as thug like beings. You also tag put black people in the same boat not even bothering to mention the obvious fact that not all black people are criminals, and that really gives you no defence in what you are saying you try to word your article so it does not directly say it but lines like “once again black youths have set London alight” make it pretty clear what your views on black people are.
Much of these events transpiring isn’t a surprise. The UK is the hardest place in all of Europe to go from poor to rich or to gain any social mobility. This coupled along with racism from society means that there was no riot due to skin colour, but a riot due to the lack of wealth. As well as this there was the obvious fact is that if you look at any of the footage from the riots would show that there was people of all races involved in the riots not just black people who “set London alight”. The riot occurred due to the increasing number of people in debt and other economic problems, as well as disagreement on government policies this is a social problem not a racial problem.
In conclusion I believe that you used the riots as a shroud to get your racist views out in public and to victimize people as well as using false figures to lure people away from the truth that skin colour is nothing to decide whether to commit a crime or partake in anything illegal In fact I believe that it is ironic as you seem to believe society has its “head in the sand” well I don’t the only person I think who does is you
React!