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Absence & Ashes

Written By Unknown on Wednesday 10 August 2011 | 16:16

#TEAMNATURAL ABSENCE & ASHES
From
LONDON'S BURNING 

Let me start by encouraging you if you haven't already to watch this video!
This lady sums up EXACTLY how I feel about the #LondonRiots.
(Its subtitled just in case for those who are neither British or Caribbean)

MY SENTIMENTS EXACTLY!
As I hope my previous posts shows I'm proud of my heritage be it British, Black etc, this includes being very proud to be a born & bred Londoner, so you'll understand my online absence over the past few days.
Watching my city burn left me devastated! 



Clapham Junction (source)
Earlier that week I had shared on twitter and Facebook my joy at finding a shop stocking all the natural products I'd been looking for, for my hair....a few days later Im watching people smashing up all the shops along that road and setting others on fire.

Again, Im devastated and angered to the point of tears!



Croydon (source)
 Earlier on Monday I walked through the high streets in East London to try and pick up some applicator bottles for my hair, but I felt the tension as the shops and market stalls closed up early.



Hackney, east London (source)
I dont know if it's strangely ironic that on that day, at the time it kicked of in my area, I was attending a film screening about Marcus Garvey and learning about the power of organised unity.
When the film ended they warned us it had kicked off on the high street outside (Clapham Junction). I left the building and was confronted by crowds of people some clearly only intending to add to the trouble, some like me just wanting to get away from it.



Clapham Junction, south London (source)
I'll try not to go into it too much as this is a blog about hair, but I hope below explains my feelings and my temporary absence from the world of #Teamnatural - my apologies but for the first time in a while I couldn't even think about hair.




Hackney (source - same as above)
Personally I'm disgusted at the behavior of those who thought it was OK to behave like this, and destroy our home! 
As the woman said "If we're fighting for a cause, lets fight for a cause!" But this wasn't about a cause, this was about an opportunity for freeness and proving how "bad" you are.




Croydon, south London (source)
I'm unimpressed, sickened and pissed off that they who couldn't see beyond their own greed, have now legitimised an impending backlash of restricted civil liberties, that are going to be imposed on not only themselves but on many of us who fall under government/ media labels of working class OR young OR Black! (yea I said it!)
In short those animals who were rioting have just given the police and 80% of the population all the evidence they need to be in support of even more Stop & Searches, which were not always for good and often stereotyped anyway.



Hackney, east London (source)
It pisses me off!
Now because of them, the harassment from police, is gona get worse not better, and decent people that I know, just because they are dressed a certain way, are more likely in line to be unnecessarily harassed by the police. 




Peckham, south London (source)
I know there are money issues here, take it from some one who spent moments as a teenage contemplating stealing something to eat from poundland cause I was hungry, and visiting my Dad in prison I know the frustration of being broke.

BUT I cannot defend the position of poverty when at 14years old you've got a better Blackberry phone than mine, on which you BBM your friend come and join the madness!

Which leads me to the Parents...one heartbreaking tweet I read at 00.40am on Monday said 
"If your child is not home by now, they're either in trouble or causing it."
So sad but true!



(source)
In some of these cases its not the kids who need a beating it's the parents! (I use the term parent very loosely).

I do not feel either money or race are the main issue here. 
The main issue is Mentality!
The mentality of those who destroyed my city is the equivalent of a monster created by modern society!
 Ignorance is a disease and over the last few nights we witnessed it's spread.



If you're attending any of the clean-ups or resulting activities, let me know because I plan to be there, Let's make sure the bad-mind people know there's more of us than them, Natural or Not!

Again #Teamnatural I apologise for my absence but I hope you can now understand why. I promise to be back on topic with a hopefully more positive outlook.

Stay safe, Crystal  xx

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