Black Brits are not ‘traumatised’ by the Chris Kaba case

The acquittal of Martyn Blake, the British police officer who shot and killed 24-year-old Chris Kaba in 2022, has fostered something truly ugly among supposed anti-racist activists.

This week, a jury at the Old Bailey in London concluded that Blake acted in self-defence. Kaba, attempting to evade capture, had driven his vehicle towards the officers surrounding him.

Rather than encouraging reflection or helping Kaba’s family come to terms with their tragic loss, some activists have used this case to further their claims of institutional racism within the police and justice system. They accuse not only the police, but also the jury – composed of ordinary citizens – of being complicit in racism.

These claims lack any substantive evidence. As I predicted in 2022 shortly after Kaba was killed, if ‘the officer is not eventually convicted, then those who have already made up their minds might take this as evidence that justice has not been served’. This is exactly what has happened. When the case concluded this week, author and activist Dr Shola Mos-Shogbamimu wrote on X that Blake was ‘cloaked in the authority of an institutionally racist Met Police’. According to her, he had been ‘acquitted of killing an unarmed black civilian by an equally racist justice system’. Of course, using your vehicle as a weapon cannot exactly be classed as ‘unarmed’.

A similarly fact-free narrative has been pushed by the Runnymede Trust, an ‘anti-racism’ charity that has received government funding in the past. In a now-deleted thread on X, it declared: ‘The legal system doesn’t deliver real justice for families bereaved by racist state violence. Since 1990, there have been 1,904 deaths in or following police custody or contact. In that time, only one officer has been found guilty for manslaughter, and none for murder.’

This sweeping statement conveniently overlooks the fact that less than 10 per cent of those deaths involved black or ethnic-minority individuals, a lower proportion than we see in the general population. It is troubling to see how far some organisations, especially those that are ostensibly committed to fighting racism, will go to stoke division and racial tension.

Perhaps the most egregious example of irresponsible reporting came from the BBC, which published an article with the headline, ‘Chris Kaba verdict leaves community traumatised’. This claim of so-called trauma was based on the opinions of individuals described as ‘black community leaders’. According to the article, ‘black communities in south London are really traumatised and feel they have been denied justice’.

Did the BBC also go out and speak to the parts of the ‘black community’ that supported the jury’s decision? After all, polling shows that support for the police in general is high among ethnic-minority Britons. The Crime Survey for England and Wales shows that a comfortable majority of non-white Brits have confidence in the police. According to another study, 64 per cent of respondents from an ethnic-minority background agree that the police are, on the whole, a force for good.

Journalists and activists alike have uncritically accepted the narrative of the eternal black victim. Even the most complex cases, such as Kaba’s, are subsumed into the notion that a black person is always the moral hero and a victim of a racist society. This leads to perpetuating some horrendous stereotypes – namely, that black people are a homogenous group that valourises criminal behaviour. Such thinking takes away all agency, individuality and diversity of perspective from black people. And it is emblematic of a new racism that has become deeply entrenched in some of our institutions.

Nowhere has this been clearer than in the Kaba case. Chris Kaba was initially portrayed as an innocent ‘aspiring architect’ and soon-to-be father. But with the lifting of reporting restrictions this week, a fuller picture has emerged. He was a known member of the notorious 67 gang and, had he not been killed, he would have been investigated for shooting a rival gang member at a nightclub. The reality is that he had a history of domestic abuse and six prior convictions, escalating from knife crime to firearms offences as he grew older.

Blake was unaware of Kaba’s criminal background at the time of the shooting. But the vehicle Kaba was driving was flagged for its connection to a firearms incident. This was why he was stopped in the first place – not because Blake decided to randomly terrorise a young black man.

In response to these inconvenient facts, some activists have shifted their arguments. They now claim that all black people should care about Kaba’s killing, arguing that the police would treat all of us in the same way given the chance. As one viral commentator sarcastically remarked on X: ‘These Canary Wharf blacks are the funniest people. They think they’re exempt from police brutality because they wear a gilet and carry a briefcase. Jokers.’

This type of crabs-in-a-bucket mentality only perpetuates more victimhood. It suggests that no black person in Britain can trust the authorities, regardless of their behaviour. It suggests there is no point seeking to improve your lot, because you will always be a victim of racism.

The tragic death of Chris Kaba is undoubtedly complex and emotive, but the reactions of certain activists and media outlets have done little to clarify the facts. Instead, they have inflamed tensions with accusations of systemic racism – accusations that are based on selective or misleading information.

Justice must always be based on the truth, not on narratives that seek to exploit tragedy for political ends. Everyone deserves to live in a society based on the rule of law, not on divisive racial politics.

Inaya Folarin Iman is a spiked columnist and founder of the Equiano Project.