racism

I was absolutely appalled by Monday night’s “Panorama” programme “Undercover – hate on the Doorstep”. The behaviour of the young people featured in the documentary against the two Asian reporters (who posed as a married couple living in Southmead, Bristol) made feel physically sick. I just can’t comprehend how anyone can behave like this towards another human being – it was just barbaric. Yes, I realise that it’s probably only a tiny minority of young people in the area who behave in such a manner, but that doesn’t make it any more tolerable. I’ve just looked on the BBC website and Batook Pandya (Support Against Racist Incidents) is quick to point out that “there's a lot of good work going on in Southmead by the council, the police, everybody else who is with the youth service”. I don’t doubt that this is true, but I found the following quote from Barbara Janke of Bristol City Council somewhat predictable and painfully depressing: “Are we doing enough with young people in schools? Are we doing enough in other agencies within the city to tackle this level of prejudice?”.
It always seems to come down to “are the schools doing enough?”. Very rarely is there ANY reference to the role of PARENTS in all this.
I strongly suspect that the parents of most of the young people we saw on our screens last night are sadly lacking in anything approaching decent parenting skills. The depressing truth is that Monday night’s featured young people will themselves become parents in the not-very-distant future and one can only imagine, and fear for, what is likely to become of their offspring.