Bodi: racists “just jealous of Asian success”

Guardian Unlimited: The racists are driven by envy of Asian success

Faisal Bodi (of Q-News and fairly regular contributor to the Guardian) on the social breakdowns which affect many of the mainly white estates from which racists come and where the BNP gets its votes:

Head east along Fishwick Parade and the predominantly Asian area gives way to the almost exclusively white Callon estate. Callon is the kind of place where youths tear up and down the streets on mini motorbikes and hurl bricks at fire engines arriving to put out car blazes they have started – and where their parents hang the cross of Saint George out of bedroom windows to tell the "darkies" that this is a white area.
Another conspicuous difference is the ubiquitous presence of CCTV cameras. Perched on 10m poles, these were installed several years ago to control rising crime – drugs, prostitution, burglary and violence – on the estate. Cameras never lie, and their location reflects an uncomfortable truth. They begin at Callon, which indicates that crime here is of a much higher order than in neighbouring Fishwick, which is predominantly Muslim and south Asian.

The facts regarding CCTVs speak for themselves, but I think he is generalising a little bit too much – Pakistanis I spoke to in Walthamstow (east London) a few years ago told me that there are actually quite a few petty criminals of Muslim origin in their area and the same is true in other parts of east (and west) London – and don't we all remember the stabbing in Tooting in April this year?