From Brixton to Bradford: Ideology and Discourse on Race and Urban Violence in the United Kingdom

Recourse to riot on the part of those disposed of any other means of representing their interests or simply defending themselves from attack and harassment of various types has a long history. (Hobsbawm 1959) What is perhaps more remarkable is its survival into the mature liberal democracies of advanced capitalism. In the United States since the Second World War the riots in Los Angeles (1965), Detroit and many other cities (1967), in Los Angeles following the beating of Rodney King (1992) together with numerous lesser disturbances have all been theatres in which the grievances of the poor and socially excluded have been played out. In the United Kingdom, which is the focus of this chapter, during the same period numerous disturbances, though small by comparison with the American examples, have concentrated the minds of political and policy making elites. 1958 saw the first post war disturbances in the Notting Hill area of London. During the 1980s there were significant disturbances in Bristol (1980) London, Bradford and Liverpool(1981), and in Birmingham and other Midland towns(1985). The 1990s saw outbreaks in the North East, Oxford and Bristol (1991-2), and Bradford (1995). The beginning of the present century was greeted with further outbreaks of rioting in Bradford, Burnley and Oldham (2001)

A notable feature of all the incidents mentioned here, on both sides of the Atlantic, has been their connection with race. While by no means all participants in the riots have been ethnic minorities, racism and the various injustices of discrimination, blocked opportunity and police harassment which continue to be visited upon non-white communities in the advanced capitalist democracies have been major components. Whatever else they indicate about social fractures and the state of the poor, riots have almost always been read as barometers of the state of ethnic relations.

Most of these events have called forth official or semi-official inquiries chaired variously by judges, politicians and bureaucrats (rarely, if at all, by social scientists). Over time these come to serve as museums of official discourse through which the practical working out, and metamorphosis, of dominant political ideologies about the relationship between ethnicity and social stability are revealed.

Colour and Citizenship

The disturbances of 1958 in which gangs of white youth attacked members of the small and newly arrived West Indian community in West London focused the mind of the political elite on the need for a ‘race relations’ strategy. Immigrants from the Commonwealth were being drawn in to meet shortages of low wage labour during the post war economic boom. As Commonwealth citizens they had permanent residence rights and would eventually aspire to full social citizenship. If their aspirations, particularly those of the second and subsequent generations, to upward social mobility were blocked by racial discrimination then further social tensions could be envisaged. But if full integration took place then of course they would less readily accept their role as a low wage labour force. The resolution of this dilemma involved two components. First, the focus of recruitment of low wage labour would be switched from Commonwealth immigrants with permanent settlement rights to migrant labourers with short term work permits drawn from non-Commonwealth countries. As numbers of the former were progressively restricted the latter expanded (Lea 1980). Second, positive steps would be taken to speed the integration of existing ethnic minorities of Commonwealth origin by means of legal outlawing of discrimination combined with the establishment of new institutions to promote ethnic integration.

But integration failed to get off the ground. Entrenched white racism combined with a rate of economic growth insufficient to overcome discrimination in labour and housing markets for existing ethnic minorities of Commonwealth origin. Black working class communities remained concentrated in the same labour market positions as they had entered on initial immigration. By the end of the 1970s they were suffering high unemployment rates particularly concentrated among second generation youth.

Rescuing Multiculturalism: Scarman and the riots of 1981

Black unemployed youth spent a high proportion of time on the streets and bore the brunt of an aggressive policing style which, by intensive use of blanket ‘stop and search’ tactics, maximised the alienation of police from the black community (Lea and Young 1993). These tensions came to a head towards the end of the 1970s and during the next decade. They generally involved street confrontations between black youth and police. The main disturbances took place in 1976 in Bradford, 1980 in Bristol (St Pauls), 1981 in London (Brixton) and Liverpool (Toxteth) and 1985 in Birmingham (Handsworth) and other Midland towns.

Brixton was the most important. While the immediate government response was to characterise the events as an outburst of criminality the rapid initiation of an inquiry by a senior High Court Judge, Lord Scarman, brought forth a report which is a classic of its type. (Scarman 1981)

Scarman showed a sensitivity to the problems of young blacks whose “lives are led largely in the poorer and more deprived areas of our great cities" and whose "difficulties are intensified by the sense they have of a concealed discrimination against them.” (Scarman 1981 para 2.35) Scarman went as far as it is possible to go within his liberal paternalist framework to understand the viewpoint of the rioters. Many young blacks “believe with justification, that violence, though wrong, is a very effective means of protest: for, by attracting the attention of the mass media of communication they get their message across to the people as a whole.” (Scarman 1981 para 2.38)

Brixton was thus read, by Scarman at least, as a demand for inclusion in social citizenship rights by those who had become marginalised through a combination of racial discrimination and economic decay. His proposed reforms were directed to this end. He criticised the tactics of ‘hard policing’ such as mass stop and search operations like operation ‘Swamp 81’. He did not for a moment doubt that such operations were “necessary to combat street crime” (Scarman 1981 para 7.2) Rather he recommended that such stops be made more rule governed through a process of written recording of the reasons for such stops and searches, arguing that such actions against street crime would, moreover, be more acceptable to local communities if the latter were consulted about such operations.

Finally, Scarman saw the existence of “ill-considered, immature and racially prejudiced actions of some officers in their dealings on the streets with young black people.” (Scarman 1981 para 4.63) as a factor in the breakdown in relations with the black community. Besides the direct individual racism of ‘bad apples’ in the police force there was the fact that public bodies, including the police, may adopt practices which are “unwittingly discriminatory against black people.” (Scarman 1981 para 2.22) He failed however to elaborate this observation into a more developed theory of what later came to be called ‘institutional racism’[1] He did make explicit however that “police attitudes and methods have not yet sufficiently responded to the problem of policing our multi-racial society.” (Scarman 1981 para 4.70)

The orientation of the Scarman Report was that of the relationship between the community and the state, crystallised as the relationship between black youth and the police. He read the Brixton disturbances as basically a demand for social inclusion. The aim was to secure the effective citizenship of the black community by eliminating discriminatory attitudes and practices on the part of the police and ensuring effective representation, through consultation, of local interests in police policy making.[2] The implications of Scarman and of the riots more generally, were thus understood by the political elite as urging a speeding up and reinforcement of the existing strategies designed to integrate black communities: an intensification of the multiculturalist settlement.

Interregnum: the white riots of the early 1990s

At the beginning of the next decade, public attention shifted to the decimated industries and dismal housing estates of Tyneside and other places where white youth appeared to be erupting. During 1991 and 2 there were 13 major disturbances, mainly in the North East of England (but also in Oxford, Coventry and Bristol). They generally occurred in large deprived, low income housing estates with very high rates of unemployment and high concentrations of young people. They took the form of street battles among youth gangs, between youth and police, the joy riding of stolen cars, and the wrecking and burning of buildings, including community centres. (Power and Tunstall 1997)

These riots were quite different to those to which Scarman had directed his attention. They lacked the focused attention of the Brixton rioters on the specific issue of police harassment and seemed less a confrontation between a community and state agencies perceived as oppressive than a symptom of socially excluded communities turning in on themselves. Riot by the un-policed rather than the over policed, as an exaggeration of criminality preying on the community itself rather than directed against the state, speak of fundamental changes taking place in the social structure and governance of advanced capitalist democracies. Continuous aggressive patrolling of populations perceived as recalcitrant gives way to a more episodic regime in which poor communities may be left to their own devices and then encounter a sudden massive police presence in response to joyriding, arson or gang fights.

Such communities come to be seen less as facing obstacles to the exercise of effective citizenship and more as ‘self excluded’ by welfare dependency and other pathologies. These perspectives gathered pace during the 1990s under the aegis of the Thatcher government and its neoliberal inspiration. They would come to have a decisive influence on the official discourse concerning the nature and courses of urban violence. Behind them lay changes in the dynamics of globalised capitalism; changes which both neutralised any pressure to undermine race discrimination and to draw ethnic minority communities into the mainstream semi-skilled working class, while at the same time expelling semi-skilled white workers, particularly the young and old, from traditional manufacturing industries.

Bradford, Burnley and Oldham 2001

The riots in Bradford, Burnley and Oldham in the spring and summer of 2001 were the worst for 20 years. They involved mainly young men from both white and Asian communities. Attacks on Asians by whites were partly inspired by the high profile activity of extreme right organisations (National Front and British National Party) which had been active in local election campaigns and which was able to play on fears and resentments in the poor white communities. Asians defended themselves and attacked property such as pubs which were perceived to be strongholds of white racists.

These towns, at the core of the old and decaying textile and steel manufacturing industries of Lancashire and Yorkshire are among the 20 percent most deprived areas in the UK. These areas are a graphic illustration of the way economic forces have sabotaged ethnic integration. The Asian community, mainly Pakistani and Bangladeshi, grew during the 1960s and 1970s as migrants were drawn in to work the night shifts in the textile mills and steel foundries. But with the decay of these industries due to capital moving overseas, they have been the first to lose their jobs. Most employment which still exists is low paid service sector work. But alongside the poorest areas in Britain are some of the most wealthy. In Oldham, two wards quite near the Asian areas are classified as among the 10 percent least deprived in the UK. So the sense of relative deprivation among unemployed youth is high. (Webster 2001, 2002)

There were several reports into the events of 2001. The most important were Sir Herman Ousely’s report on the disturbances in Bradford (Ousely 2001), the report into the Oldham disturbances by David Ritchie (Ritchie 2001) and the more general reports on the lessons of the disturbances by Ted Cantle (Cantle 2001) and the report of the Ministerial Group on Public Order and Community Cohesion (Denham 2002). These reports function as sources of information about the events but, far more importantly, as markers for a new official discourse about race and the problems of social disorder. In this discussion the focus will be on the Ousely and Cantle reports as exemplars of the key themes.

The events of 2001 reproduce many of the characteristics of the riots by white youth at the beginning of the 1990s. Firstly, that these were communities “falling apart from within” (Kundnani 2001:105) under the impact of years of decay and discrimination; secondly, that the state of police community relations, however bad, is no longer seen as the main precipitating factor. Indeed, the police are seen as having tolerated crime and disorder in the Asian communities. Earlier disturbances in Bradford in 1995 were widely seen as anti-police but even then a major source of resentment was based on “a perception of the police as unable or unwilling to maintain order or civility on the street or address their concerns about crime.” (Webster 2002: 3) To the extent that police are criticised it is therefore for failure to act against crime. Absent is any sustained discourse about police racism. There is, in fact, plenty of evidence of aggressive policing of Asians in these areas (Kundnani 2001, Kalra 2001) while inactivity can be as much an indication of racism as overtly aggressive policing.

The subtle change between 1981 and 2001 is that in 1981 the issue was the relationship between the ethnic minority communities and the state: were the ethnic minorities being treated as citizens? When we come to read Ousely, Cantle and Denham the issue is different: how have the socially excluded communities—poor whites and Asians—got into this mess, and what can be done—in particular what can they do—to restore their ‘community cohesion’?

From multiculturalism to community cohesion

Ousely is concerned about a situation in which “different communities seek to protect their identities and cultures, discouraging and avoiding contact with other communities and institutions.” (Ousely 2001 para 2.5.4) Multiculturalism, once part of the solution, is, by virtue of having lead to ‘ethnic fiefdoms’, is now recognised as part of the problem by reinforcing a process of self-segregation. There is little more than a passing nod in the direction of the history of racial and economic discrimination in the labour and housing markets which produced the segregation in the first place, or the contribution of ‘white flight’ out of inner city areas to Asian segregation. This emphasis then leads to remedies which are, again, focused on neither economic development, nor the need to combat institutional racism but on ‘community cohesion.’ Ousely sees community divisions as the main barrier to local economic development and so the body of his recommendations consists of worthy proposals based around the ideas of citizenship education in schools, creation of a Centre For Diversity, Behavioural Competency (the ability to work across cultures), Equality and Diversity Contracts (no funded project should work with only one community).

Scarman, only twenty years before, never had these qualms about the lack of cohesion even of the marginalised and rioting black youth of the inner city. He regarded the inner cities as “not human deserts: they possess a wealth of voluntary effort and goodwill.” (Scarman 1981 para 6.7) He warned, however, that “in order to secure social stability there will be a long term need to provide useful, gainful employment and suitable educational, recreational and leisure opportunities for young people, especially in the inner city.” (Scarman 1981 para 6.29) We now see the consequences of the failure to heed his warnings and we have turned to blaming the victims for their lack of community cohesion.

The result is a stress on the responsibility of deprived communities to 're-enter the mainstream' by taking steps to increase their community cohesion. This can easily acquire repressive connotations. This becomes clear when, as in the Cantle Report, it is linked to a call for greater participation in national mainstream political parties by ethnic minorities “without the burden of ‘back home’ politics” which get in the way of community cohesion (Cantle 2001 para 5.1.12). This theme concludes with a proposal, that “the rights—and in particular—the responsibilities of citizenship need to be more clearly established and… should then be formalised into a form of statement of allegiance.” (Cantle 2001 para 6.1) Kundnani is undoubtedly correct to see the appearance of these discourses as marking the end of the multiculturalist settlement.

“The 1980s solution to riots—a higher dose of 'culture'—now appears to make the problem worse. Whereas before, black youths were assumed to be rioting because of a lack of culture (what was referred to as 'ethnic disadvantage'), now youths were rioting because of an excess of culture - they were too Muslim, too traditional. For the state, the laissez-faire allowances of earlier had to be ended and cultural difference held on a tighter rein. The 'parallel cultural bloc' was now seen as part of the problem, not the solution. (Kundnani 2002)

Conclusion

We have moved a long way from Scarman. He did not doubt, even though he produced his report when a Conservative government was already established and determined to begin the process of rolling back the state, doubt the social nature of citizenship. It meant inclusion in the economy, inclusion in welfare rights and inclusion in legal and civil rights. The focus was on the relationship between the community and the state, how to break down discrimination and extend equal rights to ethnic minorities. The multicultural settlement was a particular way of doing this which served the interests of pacification by establishing separate institutions which would facilitate the development of a middle class in the black community which would have a pacifying ‘leadership’ effect rather than see black workers as a militant section of the working class. Nevertheless many black and Asian people moved into influential positions in local government.

Much of the Scarman agenda, such as the reform of police stop and search operations (while not questioning their actual purpose), repeated almost twenty years later by Macpherson, failed. The disproportionate stopping of blacks is as high as ever. (Dodd 2003) However, the time-bomb ticking away was that under conditions of economic decay and the decline of social citizenship and structures of political compromise, the colonial structures of the race relations industry, would function continually less as subaltern structures of ethnic integration and would develop a tendency to become variants of ‘machine politics’ and ethnic fiefdoms in which competition between blacks, Asians and poor whites would channel what power and resources were left at a local level into the hands of conservative ethnic leaderships on one hand and the extreme right on the other. The losers would the working class: black, white Asian.

Ousely and Cantle, epitomise a new era. The contrast with Scarman could not be greater. Integration into the channels of political compromise is not the route to community cohesion. There is little room for compromise and the politics of the ‘social contract’ when economic integration is a myth, social exclusion is widespread, among whites as well as blacks and there is a growing danger of conflict between the two sections of the socially excluded, spurred on by the extreme right. Integration, it is more politically convenient to imagine, is now a matter of oaths of allegiance and ‘behavioural competency’; of getting communities to take responsibility for the reversal of their own social decay. If perhaps, the reasoning goes, we can get the blacks Asians and the poor whites to become paragons of passivity and offer their services to global capital as the cheapest labour in the world, then, and only then is there a chance of renovating the inner cities and preventing further riots. Hardly a placid scenario.

References:

Arun Kundnani (2002) The Death of Multiculturalism. Institute of Race Relations. (http://www.irr.org.uk/2002/april/ak000001.html)

Cantle, Ted (2001) Community Cohesion: A Report of the Independent Review Team. London: Home Office

Dodd, Vikram. (2003) "Black People 27 Times More Likely To Be Stopped". The Guardian 21 April

Hobsbawm, Eric (1959) Primitive Rebels: Studies in Archaic Forms of Social Movement during the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. Manchester: Manchester University Press

Katznelson, Ira (1973) Black Men, White Cities: Race, Politics and Migration in the United States, 1900-30, and Britain, 1948-68. Oxford: Oxford University Press

Kundnani, Arun. (2001) "From Oldham to Bradford: the violence of the violated." Race and Class 43 (2): 105-131.

Kundnani, Arun (2002) The Death of Multiculturalism. Institute of Race Relations. (http://www.irr.org.uk/2002/april/ak000001.html)

Lea, John, and Jock Young (1993) What Is To Be Done About Law and Order? London: Pluto Press

Lea, John. (1980) 'The Contradictions of the Sixties Race Relations Legislation.' in National Deviancy Conference ed.Permissiveness and Control: The Fate of the Sixties Legislation. London: Macmillan (pp 122-48)

Lea, John. (1986) 'Police Racism: some theories and their policy implication.' in Roger Matthews and Jock Young eds. Confronting Crime. London: Sage Publications (pp 145-65)

Lea, John. (2000) "The Macpherson Report and Question of Institutional Racism." Howard Journal of Criminal Justice 39 (3): 219-233.

Macpherson, Lord (1999) "The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry." Cmnd 4262-I. London: The Stationary Office

Ousely, Herman (2001) The Bradford District Race Review. Bradford: Bradford Vision

Power, Anne, and Rebecca Tunstall. (1997) "Riots and Violent Disturbances in Thirteen Areas of Britain." Joseph Rowntree Trust: Social Policy Research Findings (116) London: Joseph Rowntree Trust

Ritchie, David (2001) "The Oldham Independent Review." Oldham: Oldham Independent Review Panel

Scarman, Lord Justice (1981) "The Brixton Disorders 10-12 April 1981." Cmnd 8427. London: Home Office

Webster, Colin (2001) 'Race, space and fear: imagined geographies of racist violence' conference on Geography and Politics of Fear. University College Students Union, Bloomsbury, London: July 3rd

[i] For a fuller discussion of the dynamics of police racism see cit_bf(Lea 1986). The concept of institutional racism was taken up in the Macpherson report of 1999 following the failed police investigation into the murder of a black teenager, Steven Lawrence, by white racists. The report is not discussed here as it was concerned not with riot and police harassment but the role of racism in the alleged failure of police to police detectives to conduct an effective murder inquiry. Macpherson did, however, include a more general discussion of continuing experience by black and Asian communities of police harassment in the form of stop and search operations. For a discussion see cit_bf(Lea 2000) and cit_bf(Bridges 2001)

[ii] Scarman baulked at any suggestion that policing policy be made formally accountable to democratically elected local authority bodies as was being advocated by radicals in local government at the time cit_bf(Lea and Young 1993), cit_bf(Kinsey, Lea et al. 1986)