The nature of racism changes every decade or so. Currently, as the noughties draw to a close, we have to negotiate the strange phenomenon of the seemingly racist person making racist statements and then howling with indignation when they are rightfully accused of racism.

The earliest case was perhaps Ron Atkinson calling Marcel Desailly a ‘lazy thick nigger’, and then being outraged when there was outrage.

One of the more recent (and admittedly far less serious) cases occurred when Carol Thatcher called French-Congolese tennis player, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, a golliwog in The One Show’s green room - and didn’t seem to understand why it was out of order.

Earlier this week the journalist Rod Liddle wrote a blog that rehashed, in a sneering and condescending tone, the age old theory that black youth commit the vast majority of crime in modern cities; in this instance places like London and Birmingham. In return, Britain gets to enjoy rap music and curry goat.

The crime which prompted Liddle’s ill judged comments is no doubt disgustingly terrible. Unimaginably evil. Kingsley Ogundele and Brandon Jolie lured Jolie’s pregnant girlfriend to Regent’s Canal in Islington. When she arrived she was hit over the head with a metal pole before they attempted to drown her. Those who know Kingsley Ogundele as Maniac will never listen to tunes like Bow E3 or Kidulthood to Adulthood in quite the same way again – if they listen to them again at all.

But what does this have to do with black people as a whole or social problems like knife crime and street robbery? Isn’t this is an extreme case in the vein of Baby P or Anthony Sowell? It is very troubling that the admittedly mind boggingly cruel acts of two young black people induced the desire to reflect on Afro-Caribbean (his words) youth as a whole. Surely the inability to treat people of colour as individuals is a characteristic of most racists. Diane Abbot made a good point when she said that if you substituted the term ‘Afro-Caribbean’ for Jewish at any point it wouldn’t have looked out of place in a speech made by Oswald Mosley.

When it comes to the inevitable defences, he is very selective with the figures. Apparently, the crime statistics support his point. He should look at the figures that prove black men are far more likely to be stopped and searched. This is common knowledge across the country and has been since the days of the dreaded ‘sus’ laws. Similarly, black people are far more likely to be sent to prison in cases where the judge’s discretion is the deciding factor. These are just a couple of the reasons why black men are over represented in the figures. The one sector where black males are genuinely over represented is in the deaths in police custody category. There are obviously aspects of black culture that are negative. But there is also something very rotten in things like football hooliganism. Like Nas said, everybody’s crazy.
 
Words: Russell Myrie. Ctrl.Alt.Shift contributor Russell is the former arts editor of The Voice, author of Public Enemy's official biography, and writer for The Independent.

Photos: First pic - Flickr user ca1951rr of Marcel Desailly, second pic - Flickr user Toque of Rid Liddle