UK teens who lived through racist riots want change

It was supposed to be a regular Saturday afternoon basketball game. But when 18-year-old Callum and 15-year-old Blaize came out of training last weekend in Liverpool, they saw men in balaclavas running past them.

"We were just like: We don't know where to go. We don't know how to get home. And then we saw a helicopter above us," Blaize told DW.

"We ended up going to the train station but didn't want to get on the train because this guy was just staring us down there. And then we ended up nearly walking into the middle of it all and running away."

What they witnessed was one of the far-right riots that rocked cities across UK in the weeks after false claims spread online that the perpetrator of a mass stabbing attack in Southport on July 29 was a Muslim immigrant. It was the most widespread civil unrest in the UK in a decade, with mosques and migrant support centers targeted amid violent clashes with police.

"It was scary. To be honest I was scared, and I've never seen some of my friends that scared," said Blaize.

"We had to go to a restaurant and wait to get Ubers," Callum explained. "It wasn't really safe to be in the city. I was seeing videos of people getting attacked. Police officers, civilians, people just in shops minding their own business."

Racism steps up a gear

Callum, who grew up near Liverpool with an English mother and Nigerian father, said he's experienced racism all his life. But the last two weeks have felt different.

"These are things that were happening decades ago. I didn't really think when I was 18 that in 2024 it would still be happening."

Callum believes people now feel emboldened to express more anti-immigrant views.

"I actually didn't think there were that many around me who really felt that way. So it's quite scary to think that you're coming across people every day who really have that opinion," he said.

But since last weekend, thousands across the UK have also showed up to anti-racism rallies, and hundreds of rioters have been arrested.

In Liverpool's crown court, several people have already pleaded guilty to violent disorder — including teenagers.

Teen rioters facing charges

Fifteen-year-old Binah, also a keen basketballer, told DW she believes some of her classmates were involved.

"I think it's really childish and it doesn't really make sense to me. I don't see the need for doing all this. Some of them think it's really funny to do that: burn stuff up, be racist. They don't see how it impacts other people," she said.

Blaize, meanwhile, thinks many got too caught up in the moment. "I'd say probably 95% of the people there, if you genuinely ask them why are you here, they wouldn't know. They're just there because they're misled by information you see online. And also, they're able to go smash things up," he said.

Callum feels no sympathy for the rioters, but thinks inequality is part of the problem. "I feel like people see the UK as a very rich and very 'silver spoon' type of place.

"But there's a lot of people and different parts of the country — like certain areas of Liverpool, London, Manchester, Birmingham — that don't really get the same that other places do. It's not all nice," he said.

Is more spaces for teens the solution?

Blaize's father, Emile Coleman, who is coaching the teens, isn't surprised that so many local young people were involved in criminality.

"They've got nothing to lose," said Coleman. "You engage with some of these kids, you just see the dead in their eyes. There's a huge amount of self-medication from them. The use of ketamine is massive in the young population here in Liverpool. It's like the go-to drug alongside smoking weed," he explained. "They've got no fear."

Coleman set up his basketball program, dubbed Toxteth El8te, to get kids off the street and into sports. With the help of extra funding from the police and a local violence prevention network, he's organized free training for more than 3,000 people aged 6 to 25 since last September.

Some kids still scared to go out

On the night of the riot, Coleman said, there were few places open for kids to hang out or play. That's why he thinks schemes like his are part of the "antidote" to the digitally-fueled divisions on display in recent weeks.

"We have people from all over the world," he said, before reciting a long list which he insists is just the tip of the iceberg.

"Brazil to Congo to Cameroon to Nigeria to Sudan and Australia, Ethiopia, Kenya, Hong Kong, India... it's like the UN!"

Coleman has been paying out of pocket to organize private taxis for some of the players from minority ethnic backgrounds who now feel unsafe — Binah among them.

"I usually take the bus to get there and I was worried," she explained. 

"Once I get there I'm safe and I feel free. I feel good."

Signs of reconciliation?

A week after the riots, Liverpool is calm. Coleman described the mood in the city center as "flat" and "quiet" on Saturday. But in this almost-eerie aftermath, some signs of positive change have been cropping up.

A local mosque organized an open day and invited those who attended anti-immigration rallies to come in and ask questions about Islam.

A local influencer who participated the march before it descended into a riot, and who has since spoken out against the violence, is also taking action.

He's organized a "digital detox" day to offer busloads of children a chance to go out walking in Welsh countryside with no phones allowed. An invitation was specifically extended to Muslim families when they attended Friday prayer earlier this week.

'We just have to deal with it as Black people'

But for now, the teen basketballers remain unsure whether things will change for the better. Blaize is soon moving to Spain to start intensive basketball training. "It's my biggest relief that I'm able to leave the country," he said.

Callum plans to stay and start studying law at university later this year. He said his long-term goal is help fight racial injustice.

"It gets passed down generations, racism. It's been years and I don't think it will end. I don't think there's any real solution. We just have to deal with it as Black people, as Asian people, as other ethnic minorities.

"There's ways you can help minimize it, but as a whole it's too far gone," he said.

Binah, meanwhile, said she wants to continue playing basketball and get on with her exams when school restarts in September.

"I just hope everything gets going back to normal and there's peace and love everywhere again," she said.

Edited by: Andreas Illmer

Correction, August 11, 2024: An earlier version of this article incorrectly identified Emile Coleman as Binah's father. He is, in fact, Blaize's father. DW apologizes for the error.