It is acknowledged that columnists like Afua Hirsch (Rod Liddle is wrong about black deaths, 16 January) write stuff that is a reflection of their views; what is harder to accept is when those views are informed only by intellectual or prejudicial positions. Both Hirsch and Liddle arrive at conclusions about the causes of black teenage deaths (predominantly in London) without having had adequate (or perhaps any) experience of this tragedy on the ground.

Although the majority of black boys in London achieve well in school and thereafter, a few things cannot be denied: black boys in London are massively over-represented in stabbings; black-on-black violence is significantly gang-related; gangs in London are crime-focused; the age of recruitment and grooming of young people for gang activity is dropping to primary school levels. Poverty and deprivation (of life chances and opportunity) can drive boys and young men into violent criminal activity. When male role models for these boys are neighbourhood gang elders (often replacing absent fathers) and a “gangsta” culture prevails, the boys stand little chance of escaping.

Agencies must collaborate and intervene. When they do, and if it’s done right, the success and achievement of these young people can be breathtaking. Without exception, there are no lost causes, as long as we keep them alive.

Julian Lee

(Executive headteacher in east London, 2010-2018), Winchester, Hampshire

• Afua Hirsch is right to focus on the self-blaming narrative that has taken hold in some sections of the black community in relation to knife crime and black-on-black violence. However, when she states “most violent crime is conducted by white people and the majority of stabbing victims in Britain are white. But as long as any black children are tragically dying on the streets, it is hugely important to debate the causes”, she buys into the same narrative.

Black-on-black violence is a myth created by a section of the law and order lobby to facilitate an acceptance by the black community of intrusive policing techniques. The causes of black-on-black knife crime are the same as those of white-on-white knife crime – but we do not speak of white-on-white violence.

Knife crime results from fear, social insecurity, and the development of a drugs-based counter-economy which fills the gaps caused by austerity. We should focus on the issue of knife crime per se and abandon the racialisation of it (not least because it is important to debate the causes whoever is the victim).

The construct of black-on-black crime was developed to allow Operation Trident a foothold in the black community. Operation Trident was initially focused on supposed Yardie gun violence– another racialised policing construct. It has been repackaged to deal with black-on-black crime – a term which implies there is something peculiarly pathological about crime within the black community.

Nick Moss

London

• In article after weary article, Afua Hirsch depicts a cold-hearted, white supremacist Britain which is simply not the one I see around me. My friend in her nineties is being looked after in a care home by a young black man with all the tenderness and devotion of a son. Recently, a group of older people, black and white, some disabled, were enjoying a day in the park, having a laugh and looking out for one another. Kids of all races from my local primary school walk past me holding hands. And I doubt if my black and Asian friends bother to think of me as a white, middle-class, fairly privileged male, indelibly tainted by the criminal legacy of post-imperial Britain. We’re just friends, just people. Sure the garden isn’t always rosy, sure there’s a long way to go and we must always stand up against the racists and the bigots, but all Hirsch seems to see is oppression and injustice wherever she turns. To use that old cliche, what brings us together is greater than what divides us. So much of Hirsch’s writing makes her the problem rather than the solution.

Alan Clark

London

• Much as I sometimes wish Mr Liddle would moderate his views, do not stop journalists like him, Jeremy Clarkson and Melanie Phillips raising uncomfortable topics because, if we are not careful, they become “no go” areas for debate. Views that cannot be aired just fester and become the boils that are now perhaps being very painfully lanced. I am of course thinking of such things as immigration and grooming gangs, which we are sometimes discouraged from talking about for the sake of political correctness.

Linda Marriott

Lincoln

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