En taus prosesjon gikk gjennom forstaden Clichy-Sous-Bois lørdag, for å minnes de to guttene som døde torsdag kveld. Forstaden hvor det bor 28.000, de fleste fra Nord-Afrika, eksploderte i voldsomme opptøyer torsdag. Uroen fortsatte fredag, med 40 brannutrykninger. På et tidspunkt følte politiet at de ikke hadde kontroll. -Det minner om borgerkrig, sa en politimann. 19 uromakere ble anholdt, 15 politimenn og én journalist ble skadd.

Lørdag lyktes lokale myndigheter å dempe gemyttene og arrangere en fredelig minnemars.

Men bildene av biler i brann, og politi med visir, skjold og køller, forsvinner nok ikke så lett fra borgernes netthinner. Er dette begynnelsen?

NRK

På NRK ble ikke urolighetene nevnt med ett ord lørdag. Heller ikke urolighetene i Birmingham i forrige uke fikk særlig oppmerksomhet. Man aner en motvilje som dekker over en rådvillhet. Men problemene forsvinner ikke selv om de ikke omtales.

Også i Storbritannia vakte Birmingham ubehag i visse medier:
Alice Miles hadde en god kommenar i Times:

We have no cultural references with which to shape pat conclusions from what happened (is still happening) in Birmingham. The very way in which the rioting began — because of a rumour spread by pirate radio stations Sting FM and Hot FM, and the Blacknet UK internet site — is a challenge to the conventional media.
…
The poverty and unemployment that unites this and other tinderbox areas where rival communities scrap over thin pickings, is far greater than what divides them from the rest of Britain. Whites as well as browns and blacks live in some of the most deprived inner-city wards in the country in parts of Birmingham. Yet local segregation ensures that the very things they have in common threaten rather than unite them.

Formal segregation in Britain’s ghettoised areas often begins at primary school (informally it begins in the very street in which the child is born), so that children reach secondary level in ready-made racial groups, even if they do not attend the faith schools Tony Blair is so keen to encourage. By the time the boys reach their teens and early 20s and begin fighting over women they are fighting as racial gangs and not as individuals.

And they do fight over women. I remember being told in Oldham after the riots there four years ago that trouble frequently sparks at the secondary schools, because a white boy has kissed an Asian girl or vice versa. Look at Lozells, and the black men springing to the defence of a young black girl. Listen to one of the protesters, Carmen Marshall: «What has happened to this poor girl isn’t right, this is out of order. If she stole something, don’t rape her. What if a black man was to attack an Asian girl?»

Den opplyste eliten debatterer gjerne fattigdom, rase, kultur, politikk hver for seg. Men når det opptrer samtidig under navn som Lozells, blir de tause. Det er en virkelighet de ikke kjenner, og ikke greier forholde seg til.

Poverty, race, murder, politics, Lozells. We know the words, not the meaning