"25 year, spouting racist abuse and teaching her child to be a bigot"
As a country, I think we see ourselves as tolerant; we embrace and celebrate diversity and generally thrive as a multicultural society. There are however, pockets of people who are still stuck in the dark ages.
A few weeks back there were a 'giggle' of ambulance crews (I've made up 'giggle' as a collective term for crews but like it!) stood talking outside our local A & E. The riots were still a hot topic of conversation and the term 'Broken Britain' was being branded about. Like a family of meerkats all of our heads turned in unison at the voice of a women not 20 feet from us.
She was about 25 years old, donning a hideous pink velour tracksuit, stomach hanging out and obviously pregnant. Her hair was tied back tight into a council facelift, her eyebrow was pierced and she was chewing gum like Sir Alex Ferguson on derby day. She also had a toddler in tow. An asian man exited the A & E and walked passed her.
"Dirty fucking paki" she shouted
He had enough moral fibre to walk away despite the continued onslaught of racial abuse she continued to shout. We then watched in utter bewilderment as the following conversation occurred between her and her little boy:
"Say dirty fucking paki"
The boy, whose voice was filled with all the innocence that a three year old should be, repeated what he was told.
"That's my boy, now say dirty fucking nigger"
And without knowing better he did.
"Well done, mummy's so proud of you, now say filthy fucking Muslim"
This exchange continued for a number of minutes. Eventually the police arrived and removed her. I can only assume she had been at it long before we arrived. The sad thing about it is, ignoring the profound ignorance of the mother, what chance does that kid have? He is growing up with racism and hatred being the norm and sadly, those opinions probably won't change. I have no doubt that unfortunately, ten years from now, he will be roaming around his estate with a group of friends abusing passers-by, he'll probably be violent and racist to anyone who isn't white British. It's painfully obvious which one of Nature vs Nurture is to blame.
I truly didn't think that this kind of racism was still common place, maybe I've been sheltered from it, maybe I've subconsciously chosen to ignore it but its still there. The riots put the spotlight on a broken Britain but the problem runs much deeper than some broken shop fronts and missing trainers. The estate culture in and around the city is a breeding ground for racial hatred and with communities of one particular ethnic group segregating themselves from the rest this social divide will continue to grow. These are the issues that need addressing. Sure, she can be arrested and charged & will probably be fined, but living on benefits means she'll pay her fine at £5 a week for a few years at no real cost to her. Recently there have been a number of high profile cases of racism in football from the likes of Louis Suarez and John Terry. It highlighted that racism is still in all facets of our society, from the rich to the poor and from various cultural backgrounds. I firmly believe there is no smoke without fire and as much as education education education can help our youngsters understand and embrace multiculturalism, with racist parents and racist role models absolutely nothing with change.