When people are offering a view of how to understand these riots, readers miss the context completely. The writers are NOT saying that they agree with the destruction caused or that they believe that burning buildings, homes and peoples businesses is acceptable. They are suggesting reasons as to why these young people are lashing out. Surely it’s better to evaluate the situation rather than dismiss it and try and sweep this under the carpet only leaving it there lurking and ready to happen again?
Kids aren’t born with anger in their blood.
This anger develops through a chain of events. I know first hand that catching children at a young age (4/5) is the only way to provide them with moral stability and sadly a great deal of the downfall is to do with parenting and teaching and how far they are allowed to go with discipline and punishment.
I work in an affluent primary school, the children in the majority are well behaved. The school sadly does have its downfall, they cannot ‘statement’ the kids at a young age unless they are obviously disabled. Meaning the children that desperately need ‘one to one’ help cannot receive it. Cuts in funding have made this all the more severe.
We have a handful of ‘challenging’ children that we approach (sadly) with a ‘softly softly’ touch, but once you get close to them to understand their reasons for being ‘challenging’ you soon discover that they have issues outside of school that they are either trying to forget or trying to understand themselves.
Kids with lower abilities are scooped into a heap together through many reasons that aren’t clear cut and are told that they would be lucky to achieve grades D and below, with such low aspirations why would you have any confidence in yourself? or any self worth?
Whilst doing work experience in a referral unit in outer london i heard the most upsetting statement.. a 15 year old girl sat in the middle of a classroom of 5 children announced that rather than go to college she would “get pregnant and get paid by the council and get a flat for free”.
Luckily for the majority of the population we have the luxury of a good education and good parenting, not parented by role models 14 years older than ourselves.
With the youth centres closing all over the country where will children get the chance to express themselves or just relax in an environment which isn’t their home? My own area is shutting their last open session tonight and sadly it is being re opened as a Hub for ‘young mothers’ and as a place to plan interventions, this sounds brilliant however what example is this setting? Have a baby, be naughty at school and we will provide you with a youth centre, all the children still living like children have to leave. Its an incredibly complex situation that cannot be dissected over Facebook or any other social network but it helps if people are able to discuss it without their point of view being dismissed as just shit or that they are inciting hate.
Just remember that, as we the taxpayers deal with the economic struggle MPs are allowed to claim expenses:
£1,645 “duck island”, maintaining swimming pools, which in my view is a luxury and should be paid out of their own pocket, please correct me if I am wrong. Food bills charged for when Parliament was in recess.
People such as Gerald Kaufman owe £8,000 to pay for the 40 inch flat screen he purchased for himself from Bang and Olufsen.
Michael Gove owes us £7,000 for each of his two properties
Hazel Blears forgot she owned a second house, she sold her property in Kennington making a profit of £45,000 and admitted she didn’t pay capital gains tax on the profit from the sale. Luckily for Hazel she had a lawyer to get her out of her ‘sticky’ situation.
They may not be mindless ‘thugs’ but they are looting from the country, but because they do it in a covert way (suited and booted) they are allowed to continue running the country with no backlash. OH and I almost forgot why should the bankers get paid millions in bonuses?
