When I was a fire-eater, I was also a fire-breather. On still days I could blow a bubble of fire and leave an ascending smoke ring. I would expand as it went up. The largest I ever blew was about 25 feet across. Once and once only I achieved the fire-breathers’ coup de grace – a smoke ring which ascended inside another smoke ring without the second fire bubble destroying the first ring. Them were the days!
Primarily, this is a message for the lady at weighwatchers who is expecting to get my luncheon recommendations today. I’ll be posting the details I mentioned tomorrow, not today. I’m running a theme for each day of the week. It goes like this:
Monday – Life, Tuesday – Tech, Wednesday – Politics in the Cave, Thursday – Cooking in the Cave, Friday – Old School Cycling, Saturday – Chess in the Cave, Sunday – Random.
Just found out that Smiley Culture died during a police raid in March this year. The police say that he stabbed himself in the heart, once. The wound was fatal. Hundreds marched on the local police to demand an investigation into his death. This protest march was barely reported by the established media.
This failure to report a mass protest about the suspicious death of a well known black man is hardly surprising. It is yet another example of institutionalised racism. Whatever did happen in the police raid in which Smiley Culture died, it does rather look like the press couldn’t care less about the concerns of the black community, doesn’t it? On the other hand, the tabloid media can’t get enough of stories about rioters. This approach sends a clear message to the young black man in our society: if you want to get noticed, get violent. I’m upset at the news. Smiley Culture’s music was a highpoint in my youth.
Here’s a 90 minute film of a second public meeting calling for justice over Smiley Culture’s death.
This is politics in its rawest form. Lee Jasper, chair of the London race and criminal justice consortium, said “Why, if Smiley was arrested, was he allowed to go near a kettle full of boiling water and drawers full of knives? It just doesn’t make sense.” The police in London have form for murdering black people in custody. They are never prosecuted. Why not? Because there is no political will to see them prosecuted. Because after all the years of effort to stamp out racism, the police remain largely untouchable. This is not what democracy looks like.
