Apartheid in Birmingham?

[Nicholas]

BLACK COMMUNITIES in Birmingham are living in an apartheid city similar to white South Africa.



That’s the shocking assessment of academic and broadcaster Dr Robert Beckford, who is organising a summit to explore friction between African-Caribbean and Asian communities.
One year after Lozells and Newtown districts erupted into rioting that claimed the lives of two black men, tensions are still at boiling point.
A fortnight ago a series of tit-for-tat incidents culminated in the death of 19-year-old Meshack Tesfa Bernard-Brown.
According to locals, a minor incident in Handsworth on the afternoon of 13th November may have been the trigger.


They say an Asian taxi driver got into a dispute with an African-Caribbean young women, quickly leading to a large group of Asian bystanders crowding around.

The incident passed without violence, but at 6.42pm on the same day an Asian man was stabbed in the groin in Lime Grove, Lozells.
Half an hour later, another Asian man was hit over the head with a bottle and slashed on the leg with a machete.
Three quarters of an hour after that, at 8pm, Bernard-Brown was gunned down.

Later that night, two bullets were fired into the door of an Asian household a stone’s throw from the murder scene.“He said: ‘Birmingham is an apartheid city in terms of how its managed politically and economically. In 2006 it is comparable with Jo’burg in 1986.
‘We’re like a pint of Guinness, with white on top and black and brown underneath.
'It’s the result of thirty years of failure, where poor black and Asian people are fighting over scraps.
‘The black and Asian tensions are a red herring. We need to focus on the real causes of distress, which is poverty.”

Note the 'victim' mentality creeping into this article!

http://www.blink.org.uk/pdescription...grp=78&cat=406