There it is again, a wonderful event in London that gets overshadowed by the media's insistence on focusing on the one crime that occurred. Notting Hill Carnival 2009, 45th year of bringing together all the people of London to celebrate diversity (excuse the cliche, but its true).
Lucky for me, I have a brother who did well buying a flat at the corner of a building looking right over the Carnival parade. So for two days, we were up at 9am and hearing the booms, whistles, MCing, and lots of different music. It was great! To see the masses of people all over the pristine yuppy streets of Notting Hill, dancing in their fabulous colours, face paint, drinking coconut water, eating jerk chicken and other meats on sticks. It was indeed great! Sound systems blasting different styles of music from dub to techno, raggae, funk and other stuff that I can't spell. We got to do it pretty well this year, making the rounds from one system to the next, eating from the stalls, and just checking out all the people.
It is unfortunate that the poor boy got stabbed, some said it was gang stabbing. Who knows. But it could've happened any day, at any time. In fact, there was, this same weekend, two other shootings at parties in London. One at Ministy of Sound and another somewhere else. Again, it's unfortunate, and in fact terrible. But it's also unfortunate that the news focus on it and not on the successes of the 45th year since Rhaunne Laslett had her vision of vibrant people and music as an action against racial riots and that this is now the biggest carnival in Europe, the third biggest in the world. I do agree that it is important to let people know about the violence that inevitably does occur, but why must it steal the headlines? almost all of them...
I look forward to the 50th because that can be the biggest party in the world!
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