Damn or Fear It, the Truth Is That It's an Insurrection

Pilger, John, New Statesman (1996)

On a warm spring day, strolling in south London, I heard demanding voices behind me. A police van disgorged a posse of six or more who waved me aside. They surrounded a young black man who, like me, was ambling along. They rifled through his pockets, looked in his shoes, inspected his teeth. Their thuggery affirmed, they let him go with the barked warning there would be a next time.

For the young at the bottom of the pyramid of wealth and patronage and poverty that is modern Britain--mostly the black, the marginalised and resentful, the envious and hopeless--there is never surprise. Their relationship with authority is integral to their obsolescence as young adults. Half of all black British youth between the ages of 18 and 24 are unemployed, the result of deliberate policies since Margaret Thatcher oversaw the greatest transfer of wealth from …

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Publication information: Article title: Damn or Fear It, the Truth Is That It's an Insurrection. Contributors: Pilger, John - Author. Magazine title: New Statesman (1996). Volume: 140. Issue: 5067 Publication date: August 22, 2011. Page number: 12. © Not available. COPYRIGHT 2011 Gale Group.

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