Originally Posted by
johnny blue
So on that night in June 1981, what was the reason for the evacuation of the Geriatric wards of Princes Park hospital on Upper Parliament Street,? The setting fire to the 'Raquets Club' the looting and torching of shops on Lodge lane. It was down to pure criminality, nothing to do with someone exporting furniture to America or racist language.
Desperate people do desperate things! I was not trying to justify the violence but was objecting to your categorisation of the riots as racial violence, your use of the word meaningless and the implication that the riots caused the decline of the area and not the reverse.
I know there are people outside the area who still think of Toxteth as a place where race riots took place, but don't expect to see such statements repeated here; they were triggered by the repeated police harrassment of black youths, but the whole community rose up to defend them.
Princes Park Hospital was evacuated with the assistance of rioters, who called a halt in the proceedings to allow ambulances access to the patients, some actually helping them personally. This was attested to the following day by letters to the press from relatives, thanking them for this help.
The Racquet Club, on the other hand, was a deliberate target; it was widely regarded, rightly or wrongly, as an ostentatious bastion of upper class privilege, where judges would drink together after 'sending down' a member of the deprived community on their very doorstep. Ironically, one judge - a very wise judge in my opinion - was able to take a wider perspective: I suggest you read The Scarman Report on the riots, which has no doubt that social deprivation and poor relations between the police and the local community were a major cause.
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Of course there were innocent victims of the looting and destruction and there were those who took advantage of the absence of law and order - my own car was destroyed at the time - but I don't believe this entitles us to dismiss the riots as meaningless or 'down to pure criminality'
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