The mill towns of west
Yorkshire and east Lancashire mentioned by Faisal Bodi (Ghetto blasted,
April 21), will not be served well by increased race legislation, which
always seems to hurt those it purports to protect. High unemployment and
abject poverty breed discontent; it is naive to think that years of
neglect will produce anything other than anger and discontent.
Successive post-war governments have failed to find a solution for the
dispossessed masses of post-industrial Britain. What is needed is
increased prosperity for all the inhabitants of these towns. We need a
road from Wigan Pier into the 21st century.
Daniel
Brierley
Clayton-le-Moor, Lancs
brierly56@hotmail.com
• Faisal Bodi is right to worry about the future of young people who
never see the outside of their racial and religious ghettoes. I hope that
Mr Bodi will, therefore, oppose the government's plans to create many more
religious schools. Muslim children living in the Lancashire towns he
mentions will go from ghetto homes to ghetto schools and then back to the
ghetto. They will have little opportunity to meet their peers from
different races and religions and so suspicion and resentment will be
perpetuated through another generation. By opposing the development of
sectarian education, Mr Bodi could make a small contribution to achieving
the assimilation he says he desires.
Terry
Sanderson
London
otherway@dircon.co.uk
• Your article (No go for whites in race hotspot, April 20)
misrepresents the situation in Oldham. Having lived there for most of my
teenage year , I can bear witness to the fact that racism was crude,
violent and overwhelmingly hostile. At the time Glodwick was a Caribbean
community. Attacks from local white youth were routine and the response
then was much as it is now: communities fought back in defence of
themselves.
The ongoing backlash to the Lawrence Report expresses itself through
the subversion of the definition of a racist incident by police officers.
We have received many reports of how some officers suggest the possibility
of racial motivation to white victims of crime when the alleged
perpetrators are reported to be from a minority ethnic group, even when
the victims themselves have not suggested racism.
Oldham has historically been a town in denial - it is time the council
and local police read and implemented the Lawrence inquiry report
recommendations.
Lee Jasper
Secretary, National Assembly
Against Racism
• As a life-long Oldhamer I cannot find any answer to the simmering
racial tensions in our town. Individuals can only counter racist views
wherever they meet them, and hope that someone else has enough skill to
find a real solution.
The large percentage of Oldhamers who have racist views ("I'm not
racist, but...") see our history starting at a point convenient to their
prejudices. They forget that three generations ago professionally
qualified people from Asian cultures could only find work as cotton mill
labourers (things are not much better now) and that rooming house notices
saying "no dogs, no blacks" were accepted. A community will stand only a
certain amount of abuse before it turns to defend itself, as the residents
of Glodwick are now doing.
The inner city troubles of 15 years ago were mischievously called "race
riots"; if something is not done to bring our communities together we will
truly have race riots.
Joan Friend
Oldham
