While I was in South Africa, Brixton exploded in a mini riot following the police shooting of a black man in Angell Town: he had got out a cigarette lighter in the shape of a gun, and they had assumed it was a real one. On the very same estate, I had been carded to attend a function, as a tenth-rate celebrity who continues to live in Brixton.

Everyone I spoke to commented on the age range of the rioters. They were largely schoolchildren interested as much in the material benefits of rioting as in the issue of police malpractice.

Just before I left the country, I had spoken to senior officers in Brixton. They were extremely nervous, huddled together in meetings working out a damage-limitation strategy. A propaganda war is on.

The London Evening Standard told the world that Brixton resembles the Wild West. Guns are everywhere, the paper said. They are not. The smell of cordite dominates the landscape, the paper added. It does not.

These statements add up to a justification for shooting someone who happened to have been circling round the loony bin. And, contrary to what some activists in Brixton think, this is by no means racial. A white swordsman was executed in the north of England under similar circumstances.

Then there is the question of censorship. A remarkable film called Injustice, which records the deaths of young men in custody, has fallen foul of members of the mighty police legal team, who want it suppressed. Their complaint is that the film calls some policemen "murderers". This may be an exaggeration, but I doubt that those who died in custody committed suicide.

I have spoken to a senior police officer who was particularly concerned about one officer who cracked a baton over the head of a young man who eventually died. I have spoken, too, to those who run the local Ritzy cinema, where the film was shown. They tell me that they are inundated with requests for further screenings.

Back to Angell Town. A friend of mine, mixed race, who lives there told a tale of hostility to her white grandmother. Young black boys told her that they hated whites and that all whites should be murdered. That was their reaction to the shooting. Never, in my 30 years of involvement with political activity in the black community, have I heard such vituperative voices of hate coming from ordinary individuals. Even at the most emotional moments, the Lawrences never said such things.

Things and times are changing, and it is particularly important with the approach of the Notting Hill Carnival. I visited my friend Claire Holder, who succeeded me as the carnival's chief organiser. Politically, she is a moderate, and she operates with a minimal infrastructure and with very few funds to organise such a huge festival.

Year after year, all manner and sizes of worms crawl out from the woodwork with the aim of undermining the festival. The local councillors of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea want the carnival off the streets or, if they can't get that, they want something they can manipulate and control. They have made an enemy of a reasonable and moderate leader. Tensions are running high; they are potentially explosive.

For years I have avoided the festival. This year, I shall be there, on the spot in the heat of the moment.

And this government has brought the issue of asylum-seekers to the fore, murderously so. It is war to the knife. There is a pre-1981 feeling around. We shall see.

Darcus Howe's series Slave Nation concludes on Channel 4 on Wednesday 22 August. You can argue online with Darcus on Thursday 23 August at 2pm. Send your questions in early to askdarcus@newstatesman.co.uk

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