A large proportion of the whole thing is completely dependant upon individual failure in life and the blame shifting to something external, such as racism in this instance.

'I didn't get a job, didn't do well in school, am poor, got bullied, feel like an outsider, don't fit in, get moaned at for acting inappropriately etc etc all because of racism, misogyny, homo/transphobia bla bla bla - not as a result of my individual choices'.

This now extends to 'I was harassed by the police, not as a failure to comply with rule of law, but because of racism, wah wah wah'.

Interesting story, I was once at Forest Hill train station, about 6pm on like a Tuesday, meeting a mate for an after work drink. Was nearly run over by two squad cars in broad daylight outside WHSmith and both me and my mate, both white guys, were rammed against a wall a searched on suspicion of armed robbery. This was all on the basis that one of the suspects was wearing a similar style hat to my mate, I sh!t you not. Could you imagine that happening to two black fellas today, there'd be carnage.

I only viewed it as a mild inconvenience and slightly amusing. At least now I have an anecdote! Needless to say we both also complied strictly with what they wanted, most notably because we were completely innocent.

Now Zaha's got a bit of green grass ahead of him here... and finds Ambrose... not a bad effort!!!!

In the 1980's my boss was in a white hire van got pulled over by police with machine guns and made to strip off his shirt. It turned out that an Irish Terrorist of the same name was believed to be in London planning an attack, he had lots of tattoos hence the order to strip.

My boss saw the funny side of it and it was handshakes all around. I doubt that would happen now.

One more point

I wonder how it would feel to have those kinds of experiences every few weeks of your life, could you just brush yourself down and shrug your shoulders.
As she said it had not happened to her before and she wasn't prepared to shrug it off, it seems he had had it happen often, I think if I was someone who was able to afford a smart car without being a criminal I would be very fed up if I was constantly stopped for no reason other than I was black driving a fancy car.It is very hard to fully comprehend the impact this repeated experience with the police is like especially as it happens to all your mates too. The police are not individually anything but as an agency they appear to have racism in their ranks and maybe the senior ranks particularly who train and lead...something needs to change.

All this dancing at the crime-ridden Notting Hill carnival, "Taking the knee", apologising for causing so called "Distress", fearing that if they stop and search too many of the black community they will be accused of "Racism" and the like.Modern Policing in "Woke" and "PC" Britain.

Edited by Willo (08 Jul 2020 2.36pm)

It would no doubt get on your nerves, but you won’t get anywhere objecting to the officers at the time. Trouble is now you’ll get people acting up and filming it. If you comply and you’ve nothing to hide you’re on your way. If you don’t want the police to pull people over after they’ve done something dodgy then you’ll live in a criminal neighbourhood where you could ironically get mugged in your own (expensive) car you were stopped by the police in. The opinion of the police from a lot, but obviously not all younger black people isn’t a good one for anyone, them included.

COYP

Cressida Dick is just not strong enough to run the Met. She should back her officers to the hilt, not compromise them by pandering to every member of the public who has a gripe. If it all backfired on her in terms of officers screwing up (which I don’t think they are) then she can always resign but at the moment the Met is going backwards quickly.