Is The USA For Real With This?

Yes I know that this is an old headline from two weeks ago, but I’m going to address it in part, at least while we are still enjoying/tolerating [delete as appropriate] the World Cup. So forgive me, I’ve been busy. I have a habit of starting a blog and then leaving it mid-way through and working on another one. I repeat this until I have about 7 or 8 unfinished blogs just piling up all over the place. I still haven’t even finished my blog review of Sex & The City 2. I don’t care though I’m still going to post it. There’s never any expiration date on what I have to say. 

On Topic:

First off! It’s called a DRAW not a TIE. There are no TIES in Football the game in which players predominately use their FEET, refrain from kicking it once and run with the ball cradled under their arm in head to toe padding like a pansy! *COUGH* NFL *COUGH*

REAL MEN play Rugby. Rugby is American Football WITHOUT the helmets and padding. This may get me a lot of grief from American Football fans but I don’t care. I’ll respect them a little more when they get rid of all that costume guff, where I can actually see who is on the field and not just a number on a shirt. I'm not saying they aren’t fit [as in health wise], just saying they aren’t that brave whilst running with a ball.

I L.O.V.E. the USA, I really do. You have finer men, a great national anthem [of which I know every word to, but don't know the ones to ours]. You have better food, are much friendlier and in most states have better weather than us. You give us great entertainers, movies, music, actors, singers, legends. Hell...YOU GAVE US LAS VEGAS, NEW YORK, MIAMI and Sex & The City! [We'll forgive you for the 2nd movie…Just not yet it’s still too raw...too too raw].

I probably spend more of my money in the USA than I do here. No actually aside from bills etc I do. No probably about it, but some of you are some damn fools I swear. Go on and clutch your pearls, I'll explain why shortly. Its front pages like this, The Republican Party and your last President that gives you guys a bad rep, as well as some other dumb stuff. The New York Post does not speak for the whole of the United States of America I know, but it’s not putting your nation in the greatest of lights either. A lot of Brits just point, laugh and respect you that little bit less, and its a shame really, cause for the most part you guys are lovely as hell!

To round it off as a Brit there are some things I’d like some people in the USA to know.

• USA played England NOT Britain in their first World Cup Game. Yes it was reported on some US media outlets that the match was “USA v Britain” **Bangs head on desk**
• Britain/Great Britain is made up of the following countries : England, Scotland and Wales.
• United Kingdom (UK) is made up of Britain/Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
• London is the capital of England.
• Edinburgh is the capital of Scotland.
• Cardiff is the capital of Wales.
• 1-1 is a DRAW not a TIE.
• 1-1 does not constitute to the USA winning a damn thing. You don’t even need to know the rules of the game to know that 1-1 is NOT a win.

Things we’d like you to know aside from football:

• We do NOT all know the Queen. Stop asking us that!
• There ARE black people in the UK. There are also Black Irish, Scottish, Welsh and English people here too.
• We know you don’t like English food; well guess what....neither do a lot of us here either and have over 5,000 restaurants in London alone. Pick a cuisine and shut up your moaning. If we can manage avoiding English food for a lifetime, then you can also for a poxxy 5 day holiday.
• Learn our words for a change. If we know sidewalk is a pavement, trunk is a boot, and vacation is a holiday, then so should you.
• We really don’t give a f*** about how much you love Benny Hill. We just don’t! He died over 18 years ago and you're the only ones keeping his memory alive. Every time you mention him I'm reminded of every Monday night at 8pm just how much I hated my childhood for 30 minutes a week because of him.
• Please refrain from saying “Oh my goodness that’s so cool.” If you meet a Brit on US soil and they tell you they’re from London. We don’t wake up in the morning thinking that, and find it overly moronic that you do...constantly!
• No, our streets are not cobbled. [Yes someone actually asked me that in Miami].
• Every food, grocery, drink, car that you have in the USA is NOT sold in the UK. So please stop acting surprised when you find out that there are no Church’s, Popeye’s or Ihop here. Come to the UK for some culture, something different and if you can't bear to be parted from your fried chicken, waffles and pancakes for a week, then stay home!
• Exercise that passport of yours, come on over and see that we don’t have Nissan Altima’s or Ford F-150’s over here. Yes some people I speak to are genuinely shocked by this. Do you want us to drive the same cars as you as well? Why is it ALL ABOUT YOU AMERICA? Why?
• Saying “Oh yeah, you guys drive on the wrong side of the road AND the car over there. What’s up with that?” will warrant a slap. I did not invent the car, nor have anything to do with the Highway Code or rules and regulations of the roads over here. Stop asking me car and driving questions. I'm on vacation I'm not a representative for Queen and country working for some secret Government agency.
• Me: I don't like James Bond. Them: "But he's British!" Me: "What am I supposed to say to that? I'm supposed to like him because he's British, when he isn't even REAAAAAAAAAL?"
• If I’m watching a show and commenting about it on Twitter, please don’t ask me what channel is it on so that you can tune it. [This has happened to me before I kid you not].You’re 5,000 miles away. Our networks are NOT the same.
• The BIGGEST annoyance....I get complimented on my accent every time I open my mouth. That  small part right there is fine. I think for some it’s even stranger that I’m British and Black. They just want to hear me talk. LOOK!!! I am NOT a performing seal, bear, killer whale or monkey! Geeeeeeez it's all “Say something! Wow that’s so cool.” 
• This is the part where I always need a drink: “Oh my gosh you have an accent.” This is when my face is non-responsive and I’m looking at the person like a prize twat.

My response is usually along the lines of “Thanks. I like yours too.” 

This then gets a “Oh. I don’t have an accent.”

**Pause. Big A$$ pause!**

THEN WHAT THE F*** IS THAT COMING OUT OF YOUR MOUTH THEN?

I have a British accent!

You have an American accent!

EVERYBODY ON THE PLANET HAS AN ACCENT! Indian, Pakistani, Jamaican, Bajan, Trinidadian, Liverpudlian, Mancunian, Texan, Bostonian etc etc etc….if you can speak, you got one. Got it?

Why is it that every American I meet claims to NOT have an accent? Boston, New York, Southern, plain good old fashioned American…it’s an accent people. The last person that said that to me was an older black woman working at Hudson News at the airport terminal in Chicago. “Do I detect an accent?” as she leaned into my face saying it like I was a rare specimen at the zoo. I was this close to going ABH on one of my US elders. Get out my face grandma! Fall back dearie! Ain't nothing to see here but a Black Brit tryna buy some gum and a copy of US Weekly.

I’m not even schooling you guys on this anymore. I’m just gonna say thanks and keep it moving when it comes to the accent thing.

I love you America, I really do, but sometimes…..

I just can’t!...........

P.S. Yesterday you won the group, not the actual World Cup. After that whole 1-1 USA WINS headline I don't want you guys to start bussin out your vuvuzelas just yet.

UK Gangs

Coming back from DC in January I was at the airport bookshop and typing all of the bestsellers that caught my eye that I wanted to pick up on Amazon when I got back home to the UK. One was called Gang Leader For a Day by Sudhir Venkatesh. I think this will be my next read.

So I'm coming to the end of my E. Lynn Harris Novel, Anyway The Wind Blows, and need another read and think I will opt for the sociologists study about being a gang leader on the streets of Chicago. Whilst having a search on Amazon. I came across One Blood - Inside Britains New Street Gangs by John Heale.

I won't be getting this book as quite frankly as I've heard and seen enough of the BS on London streets at the hands of these ferrel youths, and the last thing I want to do is be reading about them. Times have changed in London and I'm tired of telling people who really do think this place is very safe, that it's not. I'm not doing any distinctive compare and contrasts, but please know that there is 7 times more crime in London than New York based on a 7 and 8 million population respectively. That should give you some idea. And check this link also to give you a vague idea or where we sit on the global crime rate scale. And as we sit very highly that means there are plenty of safer places to one day piss off to.

I don't care how many times you've visited, when you were last here or what you heard. If you're not here living in the city then you don't know. You simply don't know.

Pretty much every single person in my peer group wants out. Our days, not even 10 years ago were totally different to the kids these days. They are on a different level. It's not even about watching for that shady man who may rob you or even kill you. You have to watch out for these kids. I've seen teenage boys who really think they are of size, scoping my sneakers or watching my Blackberry or ipod on the train like they're ready to rob me. Trust me a young black boy will feel no way about killing another black person to get what they want. Why do you think I'm so aggressive? You have to ready to stand up for yourself and fight if need be living here. Somebody always wants to test you, and you have to be ready and waiting to protect you and yours.

These kids have their own identity now. Our generation was HEAVILY influenced by US culture. The UK now has it's own, centralised [in music especially] around the grime scene. These kids don't care about US hip-hop or R&B it's all about their beloved grime. More so than ever it seems urban culture in the UK and that encompasses all colours FOR ONCE since we've settled here have their own identity that can't be accused of biting their US counterparts.

I could go on and on about these kids, gangs, UK gang culture, the works. It's an extensive topical debate. And when me and the girls get together it's an issue. I turn on the news on occasion it's an issue. I turn on LBC and real people in London are debating calling in and talking about their own real experiences. Trust me, it's an issue.

So when I hear and see these ferrel kids, or have a teenage cousin of my own having already have done time before he turned 18, and read about how this one and that one is now dead and a statistic I get TIRED. People want to act like we live in a Shakespearean country all polite and saying hello to one another on a daily basis, having gentlemen holding the doors open for you and we walk on cobbled streets eating English muffins and drinking tea all bloody day. We drink bloody coffee too ya know. London is not short of a coffee shop or two. Those things are not going on. London is getting worse by the day, week and the month. NEVER would I raise a child here and I'm deadly serious about that. Some of my friends who have children [black boys] fear for them growing up here, you can see it in their eyes. I fear for my cousins I really do. He lives in one area and goes to another he says they're really not supposed to [All because they don't come from there]. So every time I hear a news bulletin I hold my breath until they name the victim. I've been doing this since Damilola Taylor. He was the same age when killed and went to school in Peckham. To this very day I remember making sure I saw a copy of the black boy on the Evening Standard newspaper just to make sure it wasn't my cousin after I saw the headline Peckham school boy, 10 stabbed to death.

And trust me don't let the size of these kids fool you. The smaller they are the more 'bad breed' they are.

So unless you're here living in London...
Reading the morning Metro, the free London Paper & London Lite taking in all the news stories.
Maybe even pay for an Evening Standard, tabloid or daily broadsheet.
Watch the national and local news.
Listen to talk radio and people phoning in talking about their experiences and the demise of London and the youth.
The countless documentaries about gang violence in this city and country.
And walking the streets on a daily basis

I don't wanna know what you hear from your Aunt Bessie telling you one news story from across the pond.

Every city has their fair share. London, Manchester and the like are on a different level than say the last decade. So much so it's a government issue, new laws on dealing with under-age offenders have been introduced, random stop and searches becoming more random.

People please don't pacify us and think it's all in our heads or not that bad. I think I'm well within my rights as a citizen of this country and city for nearly the past 30 years to know exactly what me, my colleagues, friends, and family are talking about.

I don't believe these issues in London will get better [I really don't. So either don't come here to live or find a place that is relatively safer than here]. Work toward getting out if that's what you choose and make a plan. You can't just pack up a suitcase and go about your business, some things need to be taken care of, you can't do a move in one fail swoop.

One more thing. The girls are apparently worse than the boys. So 'they' say.

Just Google 'UK gangs' or 'UK Gang Culture' and see if it's all in our heads. Because I'm tired of someone who lives here being told by people that don't, that it's not that bad. I can't take nonsense in my ears from folks trying to school me and mine on what we're living. That really becomes a serious kiss teeth moment for me.