Bob Marley
- 1981-05-31
What role did our communities play in anti-racist activism? A look at how a community protects itself.
At the end of the summer of 1980, Matlab Uddin was closing up at the shop where he worked when around 100 skinheads emerged throwing bottles, some of them carrying knives. Throughout 1980 these types of attacks became increasingly common. These incidents got worse in areas such as the Mile End, where there had long been a persistent presence of racist groups.
By the autumn of 1980, there were spikes in racist violence across London. Groups in the East End and South East London in Woolwich, often splinters of the National Front, such as the British Movement, were mobilising young skinheads into violence.
This edition of LWT's multicultural series Skin provides typically nuanced reporting on the season of violence and discusses with victims their experiences of policing. Skin offers a cogent analysis of the ineffectiveness of policing in protecting the individual victims, contrasting their role in safeguarding larger institutions such as the Sikh temple in Woolwich. The programme ends its survey by revealing community mobilisation through groups like the East London Workers Against Racism, showing communities' often forgotten role in effectively fighting against racist movements.
Violent racially motivated attacks against Asians and West Indians are on the increase all over London.