All Lives Matter

I am starting to get completely fed up of these people who think they know everything including how people feel, yet have never ever lived what they think they are spokespeople for! The so called, professional facebook and twitter guessers, the protesters who when questioned have no idea why they are there! I was born and grew up in Glodwick in Oldham in the early sixties, yes, that Glodwick, the one where the Oldham riots were centred, the one where poor Gavin Hopley was beaten to death by Asians, but I'm jumping ahead. When Germany invaded Poland in 1939, brave Polish men and their families flooded to England, not to escape, but to fight! In 1940 there were over 8 thousand Polish airmen alone in England and to them, we were known as the island of the last hope! Among them were numbers of Ukranians, more of which came as part of repatriation after the war. The Polish are amongst some of our most decorated war heroes and RAF fighter aces. For reasons unknown to me, many settled in Oldham, specifically in Glodwick. The other majority race at that time were the blacks who had come here to work, yes, the Glodwick of my time was hugely multicultural. I went to Alexandra Park infant school, now it is just a Junior school, serving the Glodwick area and is probably at least 98% Asian. I have an old school photograph in front of me, there are 32 children in the class, 15 are white English, 3 are either Polish or Ukraine, the rest either black or mixed race black. A couple of years later, a similar picture but with 3 Asians. At home, we had three Polish families who were immediate neighbours, the only problem, ever was probably understanding the older ones, and you soon learned how to nod, say yes and laugh in the right places when they spoke to you, but half the time you had no clue what they were saying! The Poles and Ukrainians were lovely people, extremely hardworking, made every effort to integrate, they loved to grow things, you could spot Polish houses a mile away because they had masses of plants in their windows, many had allotments too, they were known for being 'proper grafters' they were hardcore, they'd even walk tert town and back wi there shoppin' I still have Polish and Ukrainian friends today who I have known practically all my life! What about the blacks? Some will say! To be fair, we never really saw them as foreigners, they spoke just like us, my very best, most inseparable friend through the vast majority of my school days was a mixed race lad, I also still have black friends from those days who I am really fond of. Yet those who haven't lived it, they will tell you that it wasn't like that, they will tell you racism was rife back then! They talk about 'paki bashers' and various other activities. Sorry, but it wasn't like that, even in later life, many of us 'white lads' spent nights at the Kittymans or The Caribbean club on a street off Ashton Rd that I can't remember the name of, drinking Red Stripe and listening to music! As the Pakistanis and Bangladeshis started moving in, it started with Waterloo St and spread outwards, many of the Poles and Blacks disappeared from Glodwick and over time, it became almost exclusively Asian. I was at junior school (Alexandra again) when I was first called a 'white bastard'. That was a pakistani lad who I can still point out on another old school photo. The Asian population grew very quickly in Glodwick and in the late 70's and early 80's, that was when the tensions began to rise, but again it wasn't racial in the way you might expect. The Labour party very quickly recognised the potential of getting the Asians on side and gaining power not only in government but local councils, Labour became known as the party that was easy on immigration. The people of Oldham recognised a pattern very quickly, the Glodwick area received far more than it's share of what were then called "Government Grants" Houses were having new windows fitted, dormers built, roofing repaired, brickwork pointed and various other things, even new back doors! I remember seeing full streets where there was scaffolding on every house, then, come election times, practically every house had a vote labour sign either in the window or on a post in the front garden, the tensions rose, but as stated earlier, it wasn't actually racial as much as a group of people who had lived and worked in that area all their lives and who had contributed, were now overlooked and neglected by local labour councils. This isn't guesswork, this isn't the rantings of some notaclue activist from out in the styx, I saw all this as did many others, and it was even included and acknowledged in the Richie report which was prepared as a result of the Oldham riots in 2001, which was largely ignored by the local labour government! So, we had the riots, which actually started as a disagreement breaking out between some white and Asian folk on Roundthorn Road, they were the result of tensions that had been going on for years! Still the local council was giving favours for votes, there was the grooming which had oddly gone unnoticed or covered up in other towns, there was the large number of high performance cars in this so called depraved area of Glodwick, including the small convoys which included a Range Rover with blacked out windows, people knew exactly what was going on, but again, nothing was done! There were police raids where large sums of money, guns and ammunition were found which would normally make national news! This still goes on today and the people of Oldham know it! Please feel free to google any of the names below. Does anyone actually think this is normal?

In the 1800's, Britain played a major part in the abolition of slavery, it wasn't the predominantly African slaves who brought this about, it was large numbers of white people known as moderates who, disgusted with the way their own people were behaving, rose up and formed the abolitionist movement. In 2015, gunmen burst into the offices of a French magazine and gunned down 23 people, killing 12, the magazine had printed a cartoon about Mohammed. When that cartoon was published, thousands of Muslims protested in London about the French magazine!

Where were the Muslim moderates? Where were the thousands protesting against the shootings? Where were the banners saying "Not In My Name"? It was the same in Oldham with the riots, with the wall of silence regarding the murder of Gavin Hopley, with the fact that members of the towns council can associate with known violent criminals, that there are now huge allegations about grooming gangs and cover ups! How did the grooming gangs stay hidden for so long in northern towns? The numbers involved were huge, yet nothing was done, it was cover up after cover up for years, how many moderate Asians spoke up about it? Could it be that we are not really racists? Britain is probably one of the most racially tolerant countries in the world, what we don't like however is a lack of a level playing field, and it is an English trait to always support the underdog, but what if, it's groups of people being given an unfair advantage that we object to? What if it's levels of corruption amongst certain groups we object to? What if it isn't colour, or race, but that certain groups get stereotyped not just because of their actions, but because the others within their group, although innocent, stand by and do nothing? Where are the moderates?