I can't comment on the north as I have grown up in London and the black lads have run tings as long as I can remember.
I agree every community has it's thugs, I know some seriously scary white guys but they tend to be lone nutters and and on the whole they don't have big determined groups to back them up.
I know there are gangs up North but you have to admit that the violence is more acute in the black community and the pressure to be a gansta is a lot higher for black kids. Partly because there is an identity crisis for young black males. Being a man is not enough and there is almost a cult of hyper masculinity that afflicts many young black males.
There is a big difference between the way that the white chavs are perceived and dealt with than the way that black thugs are.
No one complains if a bunch of spotty idiots wearing shell suits get harassed by old bill, if the police went into every Northern estate and busted the heads of all the ignorant thugs no one would shed a tear.
They have no sympathy as societies underdogs chavs are openly derided, they are ignorant and they have no glamour but there is a glorification of black violence. Lets face it not many people aspire to be chain smoking, Special Brew drinking pasty faced idiots with Argos jewelery hanging around play grounds bullying goths but to be a bad muther from the hood has it's glamour. I know enough white lads who wish they where Yardies.
Small time black gang culture has this mirage of glamour which is a curse for these lads and society should do everything within it's power to trash this veneer of glamour and save these boys from themselves.
The terrible thing is this glamour instills a certain amount of respect even from those who abhor violence because there is the added impulse to have sympathy for their circumstance and to absolve them of guilt.
"It must be poverty and racism that has made them so bad" So they are not mindless thugs but kind of outlaws kicking back at the society that has treated them so badly. So there is an unspoken culture of sympathy and respect for some of the worst elements in our society.
When many people think about criminals from ethnic minorities they have the misguided and good intentioned urge to treat their ethnic identity as a mitigating circumstance. If this is not racist I don't know what is and it only helps these kids a little further down the road of violence and early death.
As far as I know thugs in Glasgow or Wakefield don't have a groundswell of hand wringing Left wing sympathy and people ready to make excuses for them.
Part of the reason why the problem has got so bad is because people are afraid to talk about this problem honestly for fear of being branded racist. I'm trying to be honest, thankyou for not calling me racist.
