Water-fighting whilst being black; now illegal
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By Jody McIntyre
Water-fighting whilst being black; now illegal
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It was late afternoon, and I decided to take a short walk back through the park before I made my way home. Parks can always bring people of all backgrounds and communities together; rich and poor, black and white, young and old, there is no-one who doesn’t enjoy a day in the park when the weather is beautiful. This was the thought that came into my mind. As I wandered along the bank of the Serpentine, I had found myself amongst a group of around one to two hundred, nearly all black, young people. Some sat on the ridiculously priced deck chairs, clearly rejecting the concept that anyone should be made to pay money to sit down in a park. Others were gathered on benches, and some walked in groups along the edge of the lake, or sat on the grass. They were boys and girls, all very young, and all having a fun day out in the sunshine. Some had water guns, and splashed each other playfully. It was the girls who usually came out on top.
But then, as I got a little further down the path, I noticed another presence in the area. Police officers lined the bank of the lake, and at the far end of the Serpentine, three officers stood mounted on horses. Had there been some kind of incident?
One of the police officers walked over towards me. “You might want to get out the way, because they’re going to charge through this area on the horses in a minute,” he said.
“Why is that?” I replied.
“Well, last time they had a water-fight like this, someone got stabbed.”
If I wasn’t so angered by the words I had just heard, I would have laughed. Looking around me, I wondered if me and the police officer who had just uttered the sentence had been born on the same planet. This was a group of young people having fun, coming together in numbers to enjoy a sense of community that is so lacking from our modern-day society. But I had forgotten the golden rule; if there are a lot of black people together, they are intimidating the public. They must be committing a crime. If they happen to be young people, then the evidence is confirmed.
Behind the grassy area everyone had gathered on, I could see a number of police vans and cars had parked up. I could not believe the size of response to a situation that was, essentially not a situation at all. Meanwhile, passers by and families also sitting by the grassy area went about the business as usual.
As time passed, the crowd got bigger. I saw people engaging in dance competitions, egging each other on to see who could pull off the best moves. It was heart-warming to see that the young people’s spirits were undeterred by the presence of the police, who were beginning to act with increasing hostility. At one point, the mounted police had trotted over to the far end of the grassy area. One of the mounted officers had taken a few steps forward, and started ordering people to “just go home”, and telling them that he had “half of the force of London behind me”, and that it “just isn’t worth it”. As you might expect, the aggressive rhetoric only elicited a couple of laughs from the few people who were standing anywhere near him.
But then I began to imagine how the scene would appear to an unsuspecting onlooker. A very large group of young people, surrounded by a large number of police. The predictable response would be; the young people must have done something wrong. Perhaps they were members of violent gangs? Perhaps some of them were carrying weapons? Indeed, this was the impression the police were giving. I went down to the far end of the lake, where most people were arriving from. Every time the police saw a young, black male, particularly if they had a water gun or plastic bottle, the police would casually pull them to one side, and the questioning would begin.
“What is your name? Have you ever been in trouble with the police before? Oh, [looking at water gun], so this is your weapon of choice is it?”
A presumption of suspicion, based purely on appearance. The racism and discrimination, which I consider to be a part of the police, in its most blatant form.
Later on, as the water fight got into flow, the police officers standing at the perimeter of the lake took on the role of snatch squads, dashing into the crowd after each person was sprayed or splashed, grabbing three young, black males at a time, and lining them up against the fence. Each one would have their water gun or plastic bottle emptied of water, their pockets and bags searched, and their personal details taken. Not once did I see the searches result in the discovery of any incriminating item. The three young boys would then be instructed to leave the park, and the snatch squads would get back to work, until another three were detained. As I watched them being lined up at the fence, over and over again, I found myself wishing that I had a camera to capture the moment. For fear of being accused of exaggeration, the image I was seeing was something you might expect to see in a movie about Apartheid South Africa. All black young people, all white police officers. This image was only compounded a couple of hours later, when the police brought out dogs to separate a crowd they claimed were ‘trying to attack each other’. From where I was sitting, it was quite obvious as to who was doing the attacking.
When I asked one of the police officers under which law they had the power to detain the boys in the manner they were, he explained to me that there was a by-law in operation for the “Royal Parks”, which allowed them to instruct any member of the public to leave the park if they were “disturbing the tranquility of others”. I suggested that it was the police that were disturbing the tranquility of these young people.
But, I guess in a sense, there is a partial truth in that point. Perhaps some people do feel uncomfortable or intimidated by the presence of a large gathering of young people who have darker skin than theirs. But it is that racist perception that needs to be challenged, not legitimised by heavily policing a group of people that have committed no crime whatsoever. I remembered the first justification I had heard that afternoon, that last time they had had a water fight in the park, someone had been stabbed. Well, I seem to remember that last time the police raided a person’s home someone was stabbed, so I wonder when the police will end their policy of house raids?
In conclusion, water fights in Hyde Park; fine if you are a well-to-do, white, middle-class family, but illegal if you are young, black people gathered in numbers. Of course.
Tuesday 7 June 2011
Water-fighting whilst being black; now illegal | Jody McIntyre | Independent Notebook Blogs
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