Racist terrorism by any other name...

topic:	Racism
located:	United Kingdom, USA
editor:	Gurmeet Singh

In Bristol, two weeks ago, a young black NHS worker was deliberately targeted and hit by a car. His two assailants then used a racist epithet, heard by “15 people”. The young man does not want to be named. As the BBC describes:

"I don't feel safe to walk outside and I can't play football, record my music, go to the gym or even sleep. I don't want this to happen to anyone else, I want people to be aware," said the man, who thanked those who helped him at the scene. His mother said he had to undergo four hours of plastic surgery to remove glass from his face after the car was "used as a weapon" and "drove at him, mounting the pavement. They saw the colour of his skin and attacked him," she said. "He was hit so hard, it squashed his legs and threw him onto the windscreen and the attackers then screamed racial abuse at him.”

Luckily, the young man survived, but with significant physical and psychological trauma.

This sickening act of racist violence is all the more charged given that it took place in Bristol, where the statue of slave trader Edward Colston was recently toppled; the car’s blunt force, a cruel inverse of the statue being pulled down. The statue was the inanimate representation of a human and the car slammed into a living human body.

Racist violence is often the response when racist symbols and ideas are challenged. In the U.S., crowds of Black Lives Matter protesters have been driven in to repeatedly. And several years ago, in Charlottesville, James Fields drove into a crowd of anti-fascist protesters and killed Heather Heyer.

I’m tempted to describe the Bristol act as terrorism. Clear links to political groups may be absent, but like the American drivers, the perpetrators have obvious ideologies and intentions. They are white supremacists who intend to harm human beings who are not white. They mean for this violent act to horrify and worry black people and people of colour. So what’s the difference between this and when an Islamist terrorist drives into a crowd of people?

The car can be a weapon. An unsophisticated one, but a weapon nonetheless. Its use as one demonstrates that a perpetrator lacks either means or the connections to access more deadly, practical arms. Counter-intuitively, when Islamist terrorists were driving into crowds of people in London and elsewhere, it was a sign that their terrorist networks were deteriorating: attackers had neither specific targets nor the means to cause massive damage. The increasing use of cars as weapons by white supremacists, however, may indicate a growth in the spread of this ideology. Actual firearms may not be so far behind.

Finally, the young man attacked in Bristol was an NHS worker. He is on the frontlines when it comes to the nation’s efforts against Coronavirus. No one should be targeted with such violence, but the fact that this young man is working against the pandemic makes the attack even more gut-wrenching. You want to ask yourself, “what more can he do to demonstrate his commitment to the cause and country?” And as Britain initiates a series of new local lockdowns in the north of England, we see a disgusting use of racialised rhetoric to justify the government’s ongoing incompetence and mismanagement. Craig Whittaker, speaking to radio host Ian Payne on LBC radio, said that the local lockdowns coming into effect this weekend are primarily due to “Muslim and BAME communities.”

"If you look at the areas where we've seen rises and cases, the vast majority - but not by any stretch of the imagination all areas - it is the BAME communities that are not taking this seriously enough.”

So, to this MP, the fact that the U.K. has been globally derided for its response to the crisis is meaningless. The fact that the Prime Minister and his cabinet, Dominic Cummings and other senior members of government have constantly been seen to not take this seriously is meaningless. The pubs and beaches and nationwide festivals which were opened in defiance of all medical advice were meaningless. The fact that it’s BAME communities who are disproportionately suffering from the crisis because of living and working conditions is meaningless. It’s simply the BAME communities who are to blame. This is what you call driving a car into an argument.

Image by Javier Robles

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Racism. No way!