In response to Simon Batterbury's interesting and thought-provoking
message about the murder of Stephen Lawrence, I'd like to make a
comment. I also have never worked on race relations, so I'm not sure
to what extent I'm reinventing the wheel here.
Like Simon, I was also brought up in Eltham. My family has lived on
the Progress Estate, the scene of the crime, for roughly twenty
years. Although I moved away in 1992 to university, Eltham remains
my home and I return there regularly.
I have followed the media reports this week and the one thing that
has struck me is the focus on place: on Eltham/SE London. As Simon
has pointed out: "why Eltham?" A Mirror reporter wrote a piece this
week in which he claimed that, after having spent a day in Eltham, it was
quite clear that racism was "seeping out of every pore".
My point is this: is there anything so special about Eltham, as a
place, that has led to it being labelled an incubator for racist
attitudes, actions and crimes? I would suggest that there is not. I
wonder how different Eltham is from a lot of suburban, or even inner
city areas in large cities across the UK - where such racist attacks
also take place. I remember growing up
there, playing with other children on the Progress Estate, and not
coming into direct contact with racist attitudes. I remember my
first job working in a bakery in the High Street and not confronting,
on a daily basis, the kinds of racism apparently "seeping out of
every pore". I'm not denying that such attitudes exist, I'm just
trying to suggest that the debate maybe needs to move away from a
rather simplistic focus on "place" and to more complex, socially-embedded
explanations, and how these might differ across space (and time). How
can a geographical focus on poverty, education, or "social exclusion"
help to explain the existence of racism? Does power have anything
to do with it?
This is not a knee-jerk reaction from someone defending their home
town. Obviously there are huge issues here which need to be
understood and action needs to be taken. I just feel that constantly
shining the spotlight on Eltham as a place, without trying to understand
racism as it exists across the UK today, is not necessarily going to yield
much in the way of developing an understanding of racism, institutionalised or
otherwise.
Claire
Claire C Mercer
Department of Geography
University of Wales, Swansea
Singleton Park
Swansea
SA2 8PP
Tel: 01792 295228 x4144
Fax: 01792 295955
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