On Tuesday morning I woke up and saw news about my neighbourhood. I was hoping it would be positive – about our brilliant community organisations, our fantastic faith groups, our valiant voluntary associations. However, the news was that the shadow justice secretary, Robert Jenrick, had said that my neighbourhood was “as close as I’ve come to a slum in this country” and that he was concerned by “not seeing another white face” (Robert Jenrick accused of fuelling ‘toxic nationalism’ with Birmingham claims, 7 October).

It is a shame that Mr Jenrick fails to see beyond his nose, though I’m sure the real narrative doesn’t suit the social media soundbites he’s chasing after. The UK’s pound-shop JD Vance swans into the neighbourhood, sees some fly‑tipping (yes we know it’s an issue), spots a couple of faces and then makes sweeping statements that would fail the most basic of sense checks.

My grandmother came to Handsworth in the 1960s. Many people arrived before, and many since. Many who made their lives, built businesses, contributed to our community and country. I am committed to Handsworth.

The irony is that the Conservative government of which Jenrick was a key part threw my neighbourhood and city into neglect. Disinvestment, destruction and destitution. And now he has the gall to come back and talk about issues.

All this being said, I would welcome Mr Jenrick back to walk the famous Soho Road, enjoy some food (I’d recommend a samosa chaat, a dosa and a shawarma), and learn some of the positive values about community, which he so obviously lacks.

I’ll see you on Soho Road, Robert – and hopefully you will leave a better man.
Shuranjeet Singh
Birmingham

Being somewhat older than Robert Jenrick, I understand very well the racialised language that he did not invent but so ably employs. When Jenrick says he “didn’t see another white face” in an area of Birmingham and that it was therefore not “properly integrated”, he is saying that non-white people are not really British.

I grew up in rural Lincolnshire, where it was memorably impressed on me in ways both direct and indirect that I did not belong in this country, the only one I had ever known.

Outwardly, the result was that I took the free healthcare and education, did the BA, won a PhD studentship, wrote my thesis and left the country as soon as I could. Inwardly, the impact was that I never had a friend, a home or a vocation in Britain. And now, somehow, the racist prognosis has come true: I am not British.

In so cynically scheming for his own paltry advancement, Robert Jenrick is sowing the seeds for tomorrow’s bumper crop of racial hatred and misery.
Edward Lindon
Taipei, Taiwan

What a delicious irony that Robert Jenrick chose Handsworth for his racist rant about integration. As well as Benjamin Zephaniah (I know the real Handsworth – it’s a far better place than Robert Jenrick’s toxic vision of Britain, 8 October), Handsworth can also claim as one of its own a Jamaican teenager called Bill Morris who arrived there in 1954 and rose to be general secretary of the Transport and General Workers’ Union. He is now of course known as Baron Morris of Handsworth. Just how much more integration does Jenrick expect?
Warwick Hillman
Pinner, London

When I visit the slightly posh village in Essex where I grew up, I rarely see any faces of people of colour. Might Robert Jenrick think it is “one of the worst integrated places I’ve ever been to”? Or is he not concerned about that?
Janet Walmsley
Sheffield

I recently went to Newark, Robert Jenrick’s constituency, and was appalled to find no other Black people there.
Darryl Telles
St Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex