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Glenda and riots

Glenda's life was not so privileged; she knows personally what it was like to work in the kinds of shops now being looted and burnt. The problem is that a subculture of youth exclusion has grown over decades where drugs, weapons and instantly -- and illegally -- available trinkets have replaced any loyalty to the wider society.
Talk to them? They no longer listen to anyone outside their gangs, and they know -- and have already closed their ears to -- whatever you say. For this hard core a new youth club or two is probably too late. The followers are too scared to swim against the current of this whirlpool, even when back in the day they know it's all wrong. Most of these outcasts won't be going to any community centre anyway, unless to cause trouble or rob it. For them, life is nasty, brutish, and all too often, short. The usual deterrents are failing. Media images of instant (if ephemeral) “success” abet this mindset, as does a far wider feeling that “everyone else is on the fiddle” from the top down.

Unlike politically articulate protests, they have no message for us. We do do have one for them: you really don't win an Oscar by smash-and-grab.

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