Was Richard Bowes Killed For Being White?
RICHARD Mannington Bowes is dead. He was 68. He lived in Haven Green, Ealing, London.
The Daily Mail calls him a “hero” in the headline:
Hero from the old school who took on the looters loses his fight for life
Mr Bowes is a tabloid hero – just like Harood Jahan, Shazad Ali and Abdul Musavir, who were hit and killed by a car in Birmingham. Two youths and adult have been arrested on a charge of their suspected murders. The arrested adult is black. There is talk of their killings being racially motivated.
The Ealing Gazette also calls Bowes a hero:
Ealing Hero Richard Mannington Bowes dies after attack
Richard Mannington Bowes was beaten up by thugs he was remonstrating with as they burnt a bin near to his home.
Michael Seamark, Tom Kelly and Nick Mcdermott join forces to write a Mail piece that pretends to know the victim:
He was never a man to walk away from something he considered wrong.
Never?
But the civic pride and old fashioned values of Richard Mannington Bowes, cost him his life.
Civic pride? Leave that to the Swiss. Wasn’t Mr Bowes just trying to look after his property and talk to the wrongdoers?
The tabloids see the hero in the ordinary men and then try to build them into something out of the ordinary.
As for his killers… Well, do we sense a smattering of hope amid the ultra violence and mayhem?
Bystander father-of-four Peter Firstbrook dragged the pensioner away from the fire.
The 60-year-old documentary filmmaker, who broke through the lines of rioters to help, said: “There were about 120 youths. One of them, a big black lad in his early twenties, approached me and said something like: ‘There’s one of your lot over there and he’s injured’.
“‘Three young lads from the crowd also seemed quite concerned and helped me drag him to an alleyway. He was unconscious and had blood coming from his ear. There were no external injuries.’”
“One of your lot..?” What does he mean?
Is race an issue in these riots? Was Mark Duggan killed because he was black? Were Harood Jahan, Shazad Ali and Abdul Musavir killed because they were Asian? Was Richard Bowes killed for being white? Did a white man mug Ashraf Haziq because he was Malaysian?
We wait to find out if race played a part in these killings and crimes. But the saddest part of the story on the death of Richard Bowes is this in the Times:
Police discovered his identity yesterday morning, three days after the attack, as no friends or family had come forward to report him missing. Neighbours recognised his face but, in the words of the police officer leading the investigation: “They know who he is, but they don’t know who he is.”
It’s not race, sex and age that divides – it’s ignorance and a lack of care for the people we see every day. Whisper it to yourself: they’re just like you and me – even the idiotic kids, bad mothers, rogue policemen, nurses, militant shopkeepers, the white working class at the bottom of the heap – they who it fashionable among even liberals to call chav and white trash – the young black men paraded on Newsnight to assure the intelligensia that the dark-skinned are not all gang bangers, the judges and the thieves. The joy in demonising The Other is satisfying – it’s not me it’s them. But it’s a lie. Take a look at the faces of the accused in the media (see above). They are a cross-section of society. David Cameron is wrong – they do represent the country.
The odd thing is that these riots may well be the bang on the nose the country needed. The villains are being paraded before us. They are being held in the media’s stocks – named and shamed.
A Cypriot friend tells me that in his country the names of the arrested are broadcast on news bulletins. Everyone knows the wrong uns. Forget the hoods and the balaclavas- that’s you on the telly. Look, mum – I’m famous!
Now – let’s get down to the job 0f mocking the villains. We haven’t lost our sense of humour…
Posted: 12th, August 2011 | In: Key Posts, Reviews Comments (69) | TrackBack | Permalink
