Remember Ray Lewis, the youth worker recruited as a "deputy" by Boris Johnson at the start of his mayoralty to sort of youth crime? He had to resign following investigations into his past by The Guardian, Channel 4 and the Standard. There was a press conference earlier today - to which the Guardian was not invited - announcing that he is again to assist the Mayor in addressing the problems of youth crime, in this case specifically among black boys. Here's Lewis quoted in the Standard:
Very often they don't get those role models at home or at school, so they grow up without the support and guidance they need. As a consequence they're finding it from the streets - they look up to older boys in gangs and get dragged into criminal activity. We want to get them early - it's work that's essentially preventive. We're going to start an aggressive recruitment campaign to find black males who can provide the culturally appropriate intervention that we deem necessary for these young people. Mentors can teach boys about what being a man is all about.
And here's passage from a piece by Decca Aitkenhead for The Guardian:
I had heard about the marching regime at [Lewis's] Eastside Academy, but was still unprepared for what I found. "We! Are! The! Young! Leaders'! Academy!" the boys chant at the end of a morning's drill, as Lewis enters the hall. "What are you looking at his bottom for?" he barks at a young adolescent. "You a batty boy?" His gaze sweeps up and down the lines. "I don't see any rhythm in this room. You move like poonani! "Someone," Lewis announces, "has been going to the Paki shop across the road. And stealing from that shop. Does anybody know who the guilty party is? Say so now!"
So that's gay men, women and a different ethnic group all made the objects of masculine contempt in practically the same breath - the kind of talk I associate with gangsta rap. So that's how we turn black boys away from crime, is it Boris? So that's "leadership"? So that's what "being a man is all about"?
