Let us never forget that summer of 95
From: Dr Manawar Jan-Khan, Manningham Residents’ Association, Bradford.
AS we come near the 25th anniversary of the Manningham disturbances that began on a summer evening on June 9, 1995, we reflect on what is occurring across the Atlantic.
In Bradford – and in Britain – we recognise police brutality igniting civil protest, fuelled by legitimate anger, an end to racism, injustice and inequality.
These exist today in the psyche of institutions that disregard our rights, denigrate our cultural being and enforce a one-sided racialised discourse that demeans and demonises our birthrights.
Even after a quarter of a century, we should not be complacent about “good policing” or promoting “good community relations” based on a reliance on old systems of patronage, and undemocratic processes, that continually favour compliant and, perhaps, complicit “community” or other leadership.
Scarman, MacPherson, even Ousley in Bradford, were all national and local wake-up calls that have now been archived.
The lesson from America is stark and we ignore it at our peril. Institutional racism has become more malignant, the denial more sophisticated.
It is important we do not forget the lessons of that weekend of June 1995 and resist framing those who speak out as the new “other”. As was said then, the “voices must be heard” and even more so now, to ensure they are the right ones.
As Martin Luther King Jr wrote from jail in Alabama in 1963: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
From: Hilary Andrews, Nursery Lane, Leeds.
WHAT terrible scenes we are seeing after the murder of George Floyd. I can’t help thinking looting and burning is not the way for black Americans to get justice in the future.
Unfortunately President Trump is not helping by his brutal handling of the situation.
Surely there are more black Americans like the mayor of Alabama, who’s right in saying the black community is better than the lawless behaviour that many are showing?
From: Paul Morley, Long Preston, Skipton.
WATCHING the closely packed Black Lives Matter protesters outside Downing Street, and hearing they had come together to prevent more deaths, I could reach only one conclusion: they had all tested negative for Covid-19.
From: Rev Dr Peter Liddell, Canon Emeritus, St Albans.
IT is always hazardous to accuse others of being hypocritical.
Your columnist GP Taylor (The Yorkshire Post, June 3) claims to speak for parishioners, whose mind he knows. His picture is of a submissive group who have to be shielded from diverse opinions.
For him, values are elided into “politics”, the colour of which in those he derides he also claims to know.
I am neither a bishop, nor an Anglican, but must disagree with the correspondent who said it would be wiser for the bishops “to keep their counsel” on the Cummings affair.
Where issues of truthfulness, justice and equity in public life arise, church leaders have a duty to speak for the sake of the people to whom they minister and for all people in society who are wondering what kind of values underlie our common life.
To tell clergy they should keep silent is an old ploy by those in power who fear an ethical challenge being brought to bear on their actions.
Adolf Hitler took the same position in 1934 when he told German pastors: “I’ll take care of the German people, you stick to your sermons.”
From: Alan Morrell, Owler Park Road, Ilkley
DURING lockdown, I have had more time to read The Yorkshire Post in greater detail than usual. In doing so I have been struck by the constant carping and denigration of the Prime Minister by several columnists.
They have been aided and abetted by two Yorkshire bishops, whose remarks have been uncharitable and unchristian.
Whether these commentators like him or not, the Prime Minister is the person who has the unenviable task of leading us out of an unprecedented crisis.
When he has done so, I know these same critics will be exhorting him again to be benevolent towards Yorkshire and the North.
It is to be hoped he will not have been made aware of the negative and unpleasant views of him, forcefully expressed in this part of the country.
From: Alan German, Station Road, Sutton, Retford.
FURTHER to your editorial comment about salmon in the River Don (The Yorkshire Post, June 3), I recall seeing on early Ordnance Survey maps of Sheffield an area called Salmon Pastures.
I think it was in the area that was to become Attercliffe and Brightside, the centre of heavy industry in Sheffield.
I have also come across a theory that Attercliffe may be a corruption of “Otter Cliffe”. If so, it must have been a nice part of town.
From: Roger Crossley, Silkstone, Barnsley.
DOES anyone else buy this use of “warm and friendly” Northern accents by the BBC?
I find it patronising and simply reaffirms the Southerners’ image of everyone up north being “a bit thick”.