WE can’t say we weren’t warned. Community groups and activists who work on the ground in our long-abandoned areas told us the heat was rising.
Racism, and those who cynically use it for their own ends, has been unavoidable for years now.
Facts are irrelevant. Lies about the rates of immigration and so-called dangers of it are proliferated through AI-slop on Facebook and X.
Nonsensical voice notes about “foreign nationals with poisonous bank cards” float around WhatsApp, terrifying your aunties and making actual immigrants less safe in public.
The facts are clear. Statistics show that the PSNI recorded 1,507 racist hate crimes and 2,367 racist incidents in the 12 months to the end of March, the highest annual figures since records began in 2004.
And that’s only the ones that are reported – I dread to think of the real number.
Far from being a danger, our new neighbours are in danger, and we’re allowing it.
Groups like End Deportations Belfast have been warning for months about a lack of investigations, arrests and convictions and a failure to counter far-right narratives and rumours spread on social media.
With the PSNI acting in support of immigration enforcement in public spaces such as Grand Central Station, no wonder people believe we’re under attack from a foreign invasion.
I’m not going to list the number of dead women who did not receive a riot in their name when they were mutilated by men in the north.
I’m not going to bother listing the number of stabbings Belfast has seen that barely warranted a news story, let alone a pogrom.
It’s pointless. These people who destroyed their own communities do not care about the safety of Belfast or anywhere in the north. They only care about their (white) supremacy.
Only their people can murder women or stab people in the street.
They burn out businesses they don’t like, intimidated by the very notion that a foreigner might be smarter, more enterprising and more successful than them, in their own birth place.
A reminder on the corner of a street that their own life hasn’t reached its potential – but don’t look inward, burn it down.
As we watched cars being “checked for foreigners” and young families burned from their houses, it could’ve been Bombay Street, but with HD footage.
The hatred has remained in place, it’s the target that moved.
As we watched cars being ‘checked for foreigners’ and young families burned from their houses, it could’ve been Bombay Street, but with HD footage
For some people, equality will always be terrifying – what little they think they have could be taken by someone else succeeding, or in this case, quietly living their life.
In this place, that may never change. What can change is the ability to allow lies and hate to spread by those in power.
Cynical politicians who have stoked these lies for years now have the audacity to call for calm.
A police service that has wrung its hands over a wave of racist violence, but has been quick to arrest protesting grannies, should be made to answer for its actions.
If you are quick to blame our immigrant populations for the actions of one man, you’re not worried for your safety, you’re racist.
If you wish to stand with the likes of Tommy Robinson and Nigel Farage, it’s your own community’s funeral you’re heralding and your idiocy will be rewarded in kind.
I’d even suggest moving to England, for most of us would rather have an immigrant neighbour than one that burns others from their home.
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