Mean Streets

For many  white people  living in their  almost homogeneous burghs, Brixton  and its environs are the  badlands. Mostly black, sometimes rioting ,at best edgy,at worst….the kind of place where  urban  myths  and even nightmares can come true.

Of course the truth is different, its never that easy. Our daughter has a flat in Brixton and we know Brixton is what estate agents(bless) call a fast improving area.  Bargain hunting young professionals are moving in and the old black under class is moving out. Famous Brixton Market says it all, on the  one hand the cheapest yams ,  on the other hand the  most expensive organic pizzas are for sale.  Art cinemas and an active pop venue reinforce the point.It’s the big city at work .

But today in the paper a story that confirmed the deepest prejudice. I paraphrase. A young man,Alim Uddin is the son of a successful Indian restaurant owner  he is doing his A levels. He   has said that one of his ambitions is to be a police man. The kind of second generation immigrant  that defies prejudice. The kind of Muslim who is not going to Syria.

But he is not the only kind  who live on the sprawling estates and run down terraces  which make  up part of  Brixton. Another youth also aged 16 tells the good student he can get him a state of the art bike for £90. A fraction of its retail price. Good deal thinks our boy knowing  full well that the bike will probably be stolen. He hands over the £90 . Money he had earned doing a house to house leaflet  round.

So come the day of the transaction he texts and finds there is no bike. Crudely he has been ripped off by the other who considers himself  more street wise, harder. Here I speculate,because he is only 16 no details are published. My prejudice tells me the boy who stole the £90 is shade or two darker than the Asian lad.

In the ghetto  there is no love lost between those  that educate or work their way out and those that are condemned to stay.By the way both are of the age(16/17)  that if they were  in middle class homes they would be worrying about getting into the teams, orchestras, someone else’s pants and which unis to apply for.

But here a different game was being played. There were angry texts, one can imagine  what they might say. Both are y oung men brought up in an environment where Respect is everything. No one backs down unless they want to play the bitch.

There is a meeting. Words are few. It doesnt take long,  the boy with the £90 stabs the other seven times. While one bleeds to death the other flees. He wants to put his blood soaked clothes in the launderette but it is closed. He grabs a taxi to get to his aunt’s house in the next door borough of Tooting. All the time the CCTV cameras are picking him up. He is having his  fifteen minutes. No  doubt like many of the likely lads on the estates he is known to the cops.

When they pick him up at his aunties his clothes are soaking in the bath,the vile dagger is in a carrier bag. Faced with such evidence on the second day of the trial he  changes his plea to guilty. He will be sentenced in two weeks. He could be out aged 24.

£90  cannot buy you a good ticket to watch Chelsea or a child a day at a Fulham nursery. Elsewhere in the city ,south of the river ,It got a young man killed.