Know Your Football New Haven

The riots last night in Tottenham apparently broke out after the peaceful protest turned to mahem after the peaceful protest of the murder of Mark Duggan, 29, father of four, by police in the neighborhood of London on Friday. No one really knows the details of the situation other than the protest seemed to be about Duggan being killed by police. It could be that the police report & the article about the shooting may have been tainted, but this has not been varified. However, it’s hard to say what happened that would make people protest this incident if it wasn’t the fact that the police report may have been wrong. The UK has a history of terrible journalism in the wake of tradegies like this, and it continues with the Mark Duggan story & the coverage of the Riots in his wake.

With the mainstream media painting the people of Tottenham as the gritty troublemakers, it’s important to remember that only 300 people were responsible for all this damage. If 300 were responsible, one has to ask, where were the police protecting the public? Where were the police protecting the community? Did the people causing the riots really care about Mark Duggan? or where they anarachists taking advantage of a vulnerable situation which to them came just at the right time? This is a football blog, but the biggest part of football is the community they represent. Tottenham Hotspur had a really exciting season last year, playing champions league football, and an uplifting one the season before. It seems that all is going right at White Hart Lane. I think if you’re supporting a team from afar, it’s important to know what’s going on in the community itself, whether it’s good or bad.

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In a time when the international is painting Tottenham as a run down neighborhood in the mean streets of North London, it’s important that people stick up for Tottenham & the people who live their keep the community’s integrity intact. Most of the reports seem to be direct copy & pastes from wikipedia claiming siting Tottenham as an area with a large afro-carribean population. Why the international media is citing this: I'm not sure. It very well be the case that most people outside the UK who don’t watch football, may be hearing about Tottenham for the first time in the coming days as a place of rioting, anarchy, & useless violence in the streets.

Even if Tottenham is a rough neighborhood, it’s people don’t deserved to be labeled by outsiders as uncouthed ruffians by people who have never even been there, or set foot in London, or England itself for that matter. It’s the same with every tough neighborhood around the globe: not all people who live there are bad. It’s the few that sour the reputation of many.

And while the facts are only myths at this point, it’s important to not listen to everything you read.

Personal Note: I’m not from Tottenham, or England, but in the media in this country they’re painting Tottenham as an absolutely horrible place to live with horrible people except the ones giving quotes about being ‘shocked’ of the behavior of others. As someone who has been exposed to Tottenham in a different way than the others around me, I have to take these media reports with a grain of salt. The integrity of the English media always has to be questioned when things happen like this as they have a history of printing things that are untrue. I know this is a football blog, I never get political, but if you support football, if you support Spurs or just communities in general, than it’s important that you seperate fact from fiction. New Haven, Connecticut is the 4th most dangerous city in the United States per capita. Most people who live here are shocked by that. New Haven is also home to Yale University, one of the most prestigious universities to the United States. I love New Haven, 95% of my experiences here have been good, so to the statistic that says we have a worse crime rate than New York City, I say fuck off. Because that’s what these sort of statistics are good for: unjust stigmas about people & places. So people of Tottenham, we’re with you, and for all of you that haven’t made up your minds about Tottenahm, go with this: