I have just heard an article on the news this evening (my dad was watching it) about a Black teenage boy being murdered by a gang of youths in the Handsworth area of Birmingham today, and my instant thought was 'does this spell the umpteenth riot in the area, and possibly elsewhere?', especially with recent events in the USA and of course last year's BLM protests worldwide still fresh in people's memories.
I also dread the thought of riots breaking out in Burton on Trent, especially near my day centre, as that particular area has a sizable Asian population, though I've never sensed any obvious tensions there so far.
Of course I also dread the thought of major disturbances occuring in my town (Tamworth), but we don't have a large BAME population here despite being in closer proximity to Birmingham, and of course Tamworth was one of the key overspill destinations for families from the W Mids conurbation in the 60s and 70s, plus we were one of three Staffordshire towns labelled a 'chav' town back in the mid-2000s (the other two being Cannock and, believe it or not, Burton), though our reputation as such a town has generally lessened over recent years, and it was probably just another moral panic blown out of proportion by the media at the time, in a similar sense to Nottingham and its 'Shottingham' label back in the 90s and early 2000s.
That was one of the main reasons why I was previously hesitant in stating where I live on here, for fear of 'town-bashing', but it's never been a full-on 'problem' town though, and we do have a great castle here, and it is a mostly caring community, despite what I said above.
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