Youth violence is not about race – Lammy

Skills Minister, MP for Tottenham and Britain’s most senior elected ethnic minority politician, David Lammy, has written an article for the New Statesman in which he argues we are failing miserably to provide Britain’s teenage boys with meaningful occupations, worthy role models or hope for the future.

Lammy, pictured above last month with US Democratic Presidential nominee, Sen. Barack Obama, Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Dawn Butler MP, says:

“In society, the fetishisation of money and the growth of consumerism add new pressures. In a “bling” culture, criminality easily becomes a short cut to symbols of wealth and power that will otherwise take years of hard work to achieve. Inequality plays its part, as young men from poor backgrounds feel they have the least to lose. Why, one boy asked me, was I worried about his grades at school, when he might not live long enough to get a job? This is the world of “get rich or die trying”.

You can read Lammy’s article, published today, in full here.

His comments are reported here:
BBC News Online – “Boy’s harmed by “get rich” culture”;
The Guardian – “Bling culture turns youths to crime, says minister”;
The Daily Mail – “Senior MP in impassioned lament of self-image ‘crisis’ among young men seduced by ‘bling’ and crime”.

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