Photo essay on inner london youth

[misskatiemo]

I dont really know much about how to solve inner-city youth crime and lack of success for them. nor do i care really...i find dealing with the kinds of attitudes these kids have...and i know its not their fault....says to me...fuck it...go solve your own lives...

But I do know alot of kids who are black, from deprived areas, who because they came from strong, loving, secure families, we're focussed and motivated to go on and study hard and work...and its paying off big time for them now...these same kids who would walk with one trouser leg above the other...becuase it signifies one above the white man..now are making big bucks...purely because they remained focussed and consistent...

its up to YOU as a person to use the education given to you and keep focussed to live your dream...


u can only take a cow to water...but u cant make it drink it....

I agree - but then one brings up if their parents come from the same background of not caring, what honest chance do the kids have to think that they can change their lives? Yeah it goes back to parents, but if they weren't brought up in a loving home that supported them like they needed... then what chance do the innocent young kids have? The switch was somewhere, the thing with kids is you don't choose where you're born - you don't choose who you are born to.. you can choose your attitude though - and I do say that if the persistant attitude is "not my fault can't change it eff off" - then whatever... but if you get them young and show them there is a different way, that's a bit different imho.

[mos dan]

there was a good programme w/ darkus howe

i met the legendary mr howe the other day - really safe. he had the most amazing 1920s jazz two tone shoes on.

[search]

"I dont really know much about how to solve inner-city youth crime and lack of success for them. nor do i care really...i find dealing with the kinds of attitudes these kids have...and i know its not their fault....says to me...fuck it...go solve your own lives..."

Yeah i know what your saying and fair play to you these issues may never have effected you. But when you have your kids and you bring them up proper and send them to school and their rubbing shoulders with kids like these you will care. Coz its like sending lambs in with the wolves. Then you get situations like the narrator talked about; young lad gets bullied at school from good background etc.. but switches one day turns in to a wannabe badman gets in to some stupidness to gain credability and ends up in feltham. The cycle continues.

[spaceboy]

"I dont really know much about how to solve inner-city youth crime and lack of success for them. nor do i care really...i find dealing with the kinds of attitudes these kids have...and i know its not their fault....says to me...fuck it...go solve your own lives..."

Yeah i know what your saying and fair play to you these issues may never have effected you. But when you have your kids and you bring them up proper and send them to school and their rubbing shoulders with kids like these you will care. Coz its like sending lambs in with the wolves. Then you get situations like the narrator talked about; young lad gets bullied at school from good background etc.. but switches one day turns in to a wannabe badman gets in to some stupidness to gain credability and ends up in feltham. The cycle continues.

sob story brother. i know what your saying tho..school life is a nightmare if your on the wrong end of the stick. but these kids are shrewd. shrewd as fuck. if they could use their intelligence correctly and see thru the shit they get, they'd easily climb MUCH higher than they will probably end up in reality. its up to their parents...their soul mates...those who they can confide in....

value of money...takes u much further than just having endless cash to spend...i see it everyday in my life...my friends who are multi-millionaire dont have to raise a finger are totally discontent...other friends who know the value of cash...have made their own money...have a much more fulfilled life...

[search]

Glad i aint got no kids anyway. Suposse we'll have to agree to disagree big ups anyway.
Peace.

[obiwan]

Like we didn't know that black youth commits a disproportionate amount of crime.

He doesn't say in the commentary that black youths commit a disproportianate amount of crime. I think you need to watch it again. From my own my knowledge Per capita crime is actually worse in rural areas than inner city ones anyway.
The guy Wheatley sounded a bit removed sometimes, but a lot of what he says is true, like it being useful for youth workers to have some knowledge of what they're dealing with, and I was taken aback by the kind of trust he received from practical strangers. All in all I think the photo essay was beautiful but sad, the bleaknesss in a way makes it all the more compelling. I think its absolutely ridiculous to demand of Wheatley that he provides answers to the problems. Like he has any choice if the council sell school land to make high-end apartments! That bit was the most revealingl in the whole commnetary, that the pattern of non-education, unemployment, crime and imprisonment doesn't just happen because the youths choose it, there is a pattern, involving central government, lcal councils, and amoral housing companies and businessmen. I think people forget what they would act like in someone elses shoes, if your parents were too busy or messed up to look after you in early life, had no money to give you, nothing to leave you when they die, and you crave responsibility but arent ready for it, of course you might turn to crime, or teenage pregnancy/parenthood as a substitute for what you haven't got. The sad fact is that even in a country with a welfare state etc there are still the same problems that are present in much poorer countries, kids in Britain don't know they're born compared to the global picture, but we have a different kind of deprivation, mental, educational and spiirtiual. To me this just a Thatcherite hangover, with no remedy given by New "Labour".

[obiwan]

Perhaps more practical courses as they start their gcses like bricklaying and plastering so the ones that aren't going to uni still have options. (you seen how much cash brickies can make.) Music tech courses more funding for sports etc. If they have education/options they are less likly to repeat the mistakes they see people make around them.

WTF!!!! so you get to study whatever you want but kids from deprived backround have to do music or sports or be brickies. I know where your coming from but you really have to be a lot more careful about how you lable people. I think people and life are a lot more diverse than you are giving them credit for. I also think the combination of encouraging capitalism and the throwaway culture in combination with underfunded schools and low income households takes a lot more toll on lives in London then the kids choosing to mess their own lives up.

[search]

The bricklaying was supposed to be an example of a pratical skill and music and sport are things kids are genrally interested in. The point was that what grips them should be catered to more to keep them interested aswell as teaching more vocational classes. I know he doesn't say about disproportionate black crime but again it was an example of a inner city problem that we are all aware of.

One thing i don't do is label or judge and if it came across that way then thats not how it was meant. I agree with what your saying about the global picture and i have seen alot of this deprevation in south America and we are no where near it, which is why the problems are still potentially resolvablein Britain.

[obiwan]

Cool, I think I misunderstood what you meant

[hi-def]

Liked the photo essay. Does come across as a bit voyeuristic, narrative kinda wanders a bit too. As to the debate above: the piece is a document, not a government white paper; as such it proposes no solutions. These problems (poverty, poor education, lack of opperunity) are entrenched in most developed societies and have been for decades if not centuries. The most powerful statement this 'film' could have made is if it had been authored from inside the underclass it documents, a kind of 'look at how we live' rather than 'look at these poor sods'.

[elgato]

ignoring the comments up-thread, i thought it was worth bumping this one... i think the photography is absolutely breathtaking, he's a voyeur, but he knows it, he even tries to grapple with it at one point.

but leaving that debate aside, the product is some incredible photo-journalism, such personal and touching images

that shot of crazy titch is so deep

the photo in the radio studio with scratchy in the backdrop and the brer with the sword is amazing, but horrifying, he's caught a phenomenal moment in that shot

[ramadanman]

had a look at that again

amazing

[metalboxproducts]

yeah, glad this has been bumped

[-blade-]

I agree - but then one brings up if their parents come from the same background of not caring, what honest chance do the kids have to think that they can change their lives? Yeah it goes back to parents, but if they weren't brought up in a loving home that supported them like they needed... then what chance do the innocent young kids have? The switch was somewhere, the thing with kids is you don't choose where you're born - you don't choose who you are born to.. you can choose your attitude though - and I do say that if the persistant attitude is "not my fault can't change it eff off" - then whatever... but if you get them young and show them there is a different way, that's a bit different imho.

^^^ fully agree

LOCAL ACTION HEROES NOT DELOCATED INTERACTIVE HOES

same shit shame... we have to make the big shift! its on us now- there is no us and them: if we dont do it_ nobody does.
every action cause a reaction...
evryday life takes alot of breath many fights will be lost but we must carry on and stay focused and openminded at the same time, its not easy in fact its hard work and then at the end of the day someone spit in your face or try to take you down...

in the meantime...

I think i cant do it im to weak

[.rudetone.]

Wicked...nuff said.

[.rudetone.]

Wicked...nuff said.

Ha ha oops double postizzle!!

[benjybars]

the photo in the radio studio with scratchy in the backdrop and the brer with the sword is amazing, but horrifying, he's caught a phenomenal moment in that shot

yeah that's a really good shot.. anyone know what pirate studio that is??

[docdoom]

'the first place dizzee rascal went outside of london was hollywood'

fuckin hell, that is crazy.

[benjybars]

'the first place dizzee rascal went outside of london was hollywood'

fuckin hell, that is crazy.

yeah dat can't be true tho cos he was mcing in nappa before he went america... also mcing in raves at milton keynes

[the wiggle baron]

Just because we are aware of something it doesn't mean it's commen knowledge.

Just want to say first off that was one of the best collections of its type ive seen in a long time. I studied photography for a couple of years at college, and seen many exhibition in the style of this, but nothing has pulled it off quite like this one.

(going back to the quote)

He's right there man. Without sounding like a twat, before i came to uni a couple of months back, i had lived my entire life in a small, rich village in Oxfordshire. The kind of picture postcard, midsomer murders place that just makes you cringe (but dont get me wrong, i love the place)

Alot of people from London or other cities can't understand how detached people like myself can be from this kind of society as much as I cant understand the society itself. These kind of things are important. This is part of Magnum photo's, which has in its time publicised some of the most influencial commercial photographers of all time, and as such is a great way to bring documentation of this to people who would never normally come into contact with it.

While i am of course "aware" of the problems in the inner city, to me it is no more real than the war on terrorism or global warming. All i have to go on is the media, and at least a photojournalist working under such a prestigous name as Magnum is going to be more believable (IMO) than the front page of the sun saying "Gangster rap claims another victim".

Long story short, I (and many others) been brought up in an extremely priveledged society, and without the more trustworthy names of Magnum for example bringing this into the lime light in a different way to the tabloids, it would seem as real to me as any of the other bullshit the papers spout these days.