Before Christmas I attended a meeting focused on preventing and tackling hate crimes and violence in Brighton and Hove. It was organized by Spectrum and a follow-up to the candlelit vigil held in November where I and others pledged support to the LGBT community.
Crime and the fear of crime are often high on peoples’ list of concerns about their local community and recent high profile homophobic hate crimes, including the horrific murder of Andrea Waddell in Brighton, have created a sense urgency to take action here at home.
We talked about a variety of ideas and approaches. I thought the idea that LGBT groups (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) link up with the Black and Minority Ethnic communities to explore the similarities in their experience was a good one. Minority groups have plenty of experiences to share and it is only by standing together and sharing understanding as one community that we can successfully tackle hate crime.
No decent society can accept acts of violence or bigotry and we must never tolerate those who would have us live in fear of walking down the street or speaking out against abuse. But I also don’t want LGBT and minority ethnic issues to be niches or distant from other groups in our community. I want to explore how we bring a broader section of our community in to tackle these problems.
In Brighton especially we shouldn’t be thinking about an LGBT community separate from everyone else. In particular, I’d like to see other community groups (regardless of sexuality or background) getting involved and helping out. I’d love to hear your ideas on how we might make that happen.
Leadership is also essential. I know that Spectrum will do its best to support any new initiative but they are not funded by the Police or Partnership Community Safety Team and the Council is cutting their funding by a quarter from April. I’ll be asking Labour colleagues on the City Council about what can be done about that.
Since this meeting, I have arranged to meet the Police to discuss how crimes and ‘incidents’ are being recorded as this was clearly a major issue for people at the meeting and plenty of them, including me, wanted better answers.
It’s important to be optimistic. We have amazing people in this City and no problem is insurmountable, we have to believe we can create positive change within our communities. But it will take time, effort and energy to make progress. Like many others at the meeting, I’m personally willing to make that commitment. I hope that many other citizens in our city will too.
Tags: LGBT
Posted on January 2, 2010 in City Council, Community Projects and Charities, LGBT.
