I just want to cry my eyes out, and then stand on a tall building and scream
"THIS IS WHAT THEY WANTED"

I am reading blog after blog, post after post of
" told you so" ,
"the muslim uprising",
"the third intifada",
"stop immigration now",
"let them burn",
"you see what happens when the mud people get together"

(these are all actual quotes)

For more than a week now we have been watching the Paris suburbs burn. Two black boys are dead. But the loudest sound I hear is the right-wing and the extremists rubbing their hands together with glee. They no longer have to argue against immigration. Their answer has been handed to them on a plate. Their point has been made. Don't try and point out any shortcomings of government or society. To them, the evidence is plain to see. Immigration (especially Muslim immigration) equals problems. And the left wing does nothing, as usual.

So how do I respond?

I understand WHY this is happening. But no-one is listening. It wouldn't make any difference if they were. I want to beg the people of those neighborhoods to stop. They are committing suicide. They are destroying every effort we are all making to improve our society by playing into the hands of those who would destroy us. No-one wants a bleeding heart liberal and no-one wants an angry black kid.

So how do I respond?

I was much closer to the Brixton riots or Broadwater Farm in England. They were closer. They were in my city. What I saw there, I see now. Fear and hatred. Anger and frustration. The response was the same. Fear and hatred. Anger and frustration.

So how do I respond?

I cannot pretend to know anything of what it is like to grow up the way these kids do. Although I am black, my upbringing was so far from what they experience as to be laughable. I did not grow up in a poor, black, immigrant housing project. Any understanding from me comes from intellectualising their experience. Being outside their experience. I cannot explain why these kids are burning cars and schools except from an outsider point of view. I have felt only a fraction of their rage. And still, I am angry with them. Angry that they are playing into the wrong hands. I do not want to hug them and give them hope. I want them to stop and see the foolishness of what they doing. The colour of my skin means that I must try, at least, to understand, and I do try. But it is really hard when I am arguing for immigrant/refugee/minority rights in the face of this shit. I will never be able to explain WHY this is happening to your average right winger, let alone the extremists. So again they won. By sitting back and waiting.

So how do I respond?

It's overwhelming. The feeling of helplessness and weakness I am feeling right now. My hands are tied and all I want to do is stop.