Hence it was quite easy for the Tory government and the press to begin manufacturing the "Black crime scare" in the 1970s. It also provided them with an opportunity to specifically target Black youth.
This new "second generation" of Blacks had grown up with British racism and unlike their parents had no illusions or allegiance to "Queen and Country". As early as 1969 the government's Select Committee on Race Relations described Black youth as "a social time-bomb".
Their strategy was to harass and criminalize Black youth. For these youth a new crime was invented: mugging. The term had been taken directly from America and was commonly used in the 1940s to refer to street robberies which involved violence.
All of a sudden, scare stories appeared in the press recounting horrific attacks by Black youth on whites for money. The systematic harassment of Black youth was now justified and the police eagerly went about this business.
Labour returned to power in 1974 after a huge movement by the miners brought down the Tory government of Edward Heath. 1974 was also the hear of the first worldwide economic recession since 1945.
The new Labour government came under pressure from workers to solve the problems of rising unemployment and falling living standards.
The government failed to respond. Giving into pressure from the big employers, the Labour government carried out a series of counter-reforms, cutting living standards further.
The ruling class through their press and media unleashed another round of racist propaganda. The fascist national Front came to the fore gaining 120,000 votes in the Greater London Council elections of 1976. They came second in six Leicester election wards and even gained a council seat in Blackburn.
The National Front also organized several provocative marches through Black areas with full police protection. In one instance National Front co-leader, Martin Webster marched alone through Moss Side in Manchester, protected by 4,000 policemen.
There were several racist murders and over 1,000 serious racial attacks.
It should come as no surprise that the 1976 Notting Hill Carnival saw the biggest street disturbances in this country since the war, as thousands of Black youth clashed with police.
This was the voice of the second generation of Black people. Angered by their treatment at the hands of the police their frustrations were vented that day in August.
But it was not just a question of frustration. Political meetings in Black areas were now commonplace as Black people began to organize and channel their anger.
In 1977 for example, the predecessors of the current Panthers set up the organization; the PNP youth movement. This was a radical Black group with a significant national membership which organized demonstrations against the activities of the fascists.
It was also in that year that the fascists suffered a crucial defeat as they attempted to march through Lewisham. They were met by a huge counter-demonstration and although they were protected by the police, they received a severe beating and were prevented from marching.
They never quite recovered after this defeat but the heightened racial climate of the 70s had taken its toll. Between 1976 and 1981, 31 Black people in Britain had been murdered by racists. In almost all the cases of the racial attack, the police arrested the victims rather than the perpetrators. In the face of overwhelming evidence, the police were always eager to deny that the murders were racially motivated. Even now the police still refuse to recognize racial attacks as a specific crime.
Another reason for the dying fortunes of the NF was that, to a large degree, the Tories, then in opposition, had stolen their clothes.
In an interview on London Weekend Television, Margaret Thatcher referred to Britain as being swamped by an alien culture. This was the first time a leader of a major political party made an attack of this kind so openly. A few weeks later the Tories under won the general election.
The harassment of Blacks by the police under the newly elected Tory government intensified. Using an old law, Section 4 of the Vagrancy Act 1824, known as SUS (short for suspicion), the police were given wide powers of arrest. This law was originally used to clear tramps and "vagabonds" off the streets of Victorian Britain.
Afro-Caribbeans accounted for 44% of arrests under SUS while they made up only 6% of the London population. In some boroughs such as Lambeth, 77% of arrests for SUS were Black people.
Specialist police units such as the Special Patrol Group carried out stop and search swoops in Brixton. In one Brixton raid alone, 430 people were arrested.
Still racial violence had not died down. In January 1981 racists set fire to a house in Deptford, London, during a party, killing 13 Black youths.
Not surprisingly, police failed to find the attackers. A huge demonstration of over 20,000 Black people were mobilized onto the streets of London on a march from Deptford to Hyde Park.
All this was a prelude to the massive street disturbances which occurred in 1981.
A year earlier, the warning signs were there as in Bristol, rioting occurred on April 2, 1980 after a raid on a Black cafŽ. 22 policemen were injured and 27 police cars were damaged.
Beginning on April 6, 1981, 943 people were stopped and searched in Brixton and 118 of them arrested in just 4 days of what the police codenamed "Operation Swamp".
Crowds began to gather whenever the police were making arrests. Eventually, unable to suffer the indignities any further, Brixton exploded.
The rioting was concentrated on Railton road, Atlantic road and Mayall road. Shops, pubs and houses were set alight and by the time it was over, 145 buildings and 207 vehicles, including fire engines and police cars were damaged.
7,000 police officers were bought into the area to "restore peace". 450 people, including policemen were injured. The damage to property totaled £6.2 million.
Rioting erupted again in Liverpool on Saturday July 4, for similar reasons as the Brixton riots. But these were even more serious than the Brixton riots. For the first time on the British mainland, CS gas was used against the crowds.
The rioting lasted for 4 days and there were 705 arrests. 781 policemen were injured and one disabled person was killed by the police.
Moss side, Manchester on Wednesday July 8 was the next place to erupt. On Friday July 10 there was again rioting in Brixton after Lloyd Coxone, a local Rastafarian was arrested. This time the rioting lasted 7 days.
There were also disturbances in Lewisham, Balham, Stoke Newington, Fulham and Woolwich. In all, there were serious disturbances in 40 cities and towns that year.
The upheavals of 1981 marked an important turning point in the British establishment's approach to the race question. The uprising had taught them that crude repression alone could not hold Black people in check.
It was now seen as necessary to combine repression with reform. Underlying this new carrot and stick approach was a strategy first signaled in the Scarman report into the Brixton disorders; to buy off a section of the Black community or as Scarman himself later said "to create a Black middle class".
This strategy was put into operation in the 1980s. Former community leaders were drawn into the state machine and given jobs as "race advisers" and "equal opportunity officers".
Entrepreneurs were encouraged to set up Black magazines and newspapers whole columns supported Black participation in free enterprise initiatives.
Suddenly, Blacks were promoted as TV presenters, sports personalities and senior officers in local government. These measures were designed to give the impression that we were now making it in Britain.
This strategy which was much more widely applied in America in the wake of the huge inner city disturbances in the 60s and 70s has completely failed to solve any of the fundamental problems facing African Americans.
It has been even a greater failure in Britain. Social conditions for the mass of Black people in this country have worsened.
The so-called Black middle class in Britain is so small it is not worth counting. In the eighties, the long economic boom to some extent at least masked the deep rooted problems in the Black and Asian communities.
Now the mask is off, youth are returning to the radical ideas of Malcolm X and the Panthers. It was in the midst of this rising Black consciousness that Panther was formed to develop and transform this consciousness for the advancement of our struggle in Britain.
Lorraine White
