UK news This article is more than 22 years oldMean streets in a divided town
This article is more than 22 years old"Paki-shagger," shouted a white man passing Oldham-born Melanie Livesey and her husband Shaffi Khan. The mixed race couple were walking in a "white area" of town. Only one Asian family had attempted to live on this "white patch". They left after three months because of the number of dog turds pushed through their letterbox.
In Oldham - the scene of Britain's worst race riots in 15 years - there are a small number of deprived estates where white children have never made an Asian friend and vice versa. Most primary schools are single race, and many secondaries are 99% white or 99% Asian. For many people, the first prolonged contact with different cultures comes at sixth-form college. By then, isolation, poverty and unemployment have already cemented attitudes on race.
Asians - including Pakistanis, Bangladeshis and Indians - make up 11% of Oldham's population. But they constitute only around 2% of the workforce at the local council, the town's biggest employer. The rate of mixed race marriage in in the town is less than 1%. Many Asians who have lived there for 20 years have never seen a police officer in their area.
Shaffi Khan, 50, is known as a local "hard man" - standing in a gold chain and camouflage jacket on one of the streets worst damaged by the race riots in the predominantly Asian area of Glodwick. Mr Khan has been based in Glodwick for 36 years - with a 22-year absence for a jail term. He says incorrect assumptions that streets are "race-coded" is causing damage.
Mr Khan said: "My white wife does her shopping in Glodwick everyday. She feels completely comfortable. She's never had a problem here. Look at all the white people in cars taking shortcuts through these Asian streets. They've got no problem driving through here. The problem is bad policing which gives people no confidence in their own town; and stereotypes written in the papers."
Asian youths who went to segregated schools call Glodwick "the ghetto". Asif, 23, a trainee lawyer will not walk five minutes north of his front door because he would cross into a white estate and that would be "asking for a beating".
He said: "Some kids - even educated kids - never get to know white people except teachers. When the only whites you see are rushing through the streets having smashed your windscreen, or a skinhead chasing you down the road, people start to demonise whites in their minds. Race relations here are going back in time. You feel whites don't actually want to know you."
In Fitton Hill, a white estate half a mile away, shaven-headed Cliff, 25, had done 100 hours' community service for smashing an Asian cab driver's windscreen. He said he was defending himself. Cliff still uses an Asian cab firm, because it happens to be the best. But he does not want any of "them" [Asians] living near him.
"This is a white area," Cliff said. "Now and again, one of them [an Asian] will walk down a road at the top of the estate. I don't like that since the riots. They look like they're planning something. I wouldn't want my kids going to a school with them, no way. I tell my mum to be careful of them when she goes shopping in town. I just don't like the way they [Asians] walk around. They've got sports gear and all this jewellery on. I'm not jealous of what they've got. I just find they have an attitude."
[Some names have been changed]
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