That you think those opinions are incompatiable or in conflict is yet another example of bad faith and selective reading of what I post. You can make such a post only by purposefully choosing your quotes very carefully in order to create the impression you want to make.
Now of course you could have read just a little further down that second thread and quoted me when I wrote
If you think I’m claiming the UK is perfect and free from prejudice of all types then you have sorely misunderstood me. It exists, it is pernicious and is being tackled. The country is in a different place from, say, the days of my childhood. It is getting better and better , certainly less racist and prejudiced than previous decades. Still things to do? of course. Same for every country.
But of course to post a fairer representation of my views would not allow you the luxury of a quick shit-post to an audience you know are pre-disposed to nod along in unthinking agreement. You and they will see what they want to see.
And the strangest thing of all is that you would seek to call into question my awareness of the “pervasiveness of racism in the UK” by linking to a thread in which I (both of us indeed) are referring to studies and articles that explore that very subject. At the very least it shows me reviewing the data seriously, taking the claims seriously, accepting the racism present in the UK and the work still to be done.
What I did in that thread was to challenge an ananecdotal observation with one of my own and in the same breath ask for stats that were alleged to back up the point.
No, actual disagreement whether the UK is or isn’t a particularly racist place isn’t “bad faith” or “selective reading”, and all your appeals to shitty cites that mix up xenophobia with racism isn’t going to change that.
You are incapable of just saying “Yep, it’s a racist place” without producing a whole lot of verbiage to excuse it or minimize it or otherwise discount the lived experiences of minorities.
That’s not you taking claims seriously or accepting the racism present or doing the work. That’s the exact opposite of that. You pay lip service to the idea that racism is a problem, but then you stand in the way. You never argue with the racists here, just the anti-racists. Who does that? Well, we all know who.
Could you please elaborate on why you feel Novelty Bobble’s reference (linked below) mixes up racism with xenophobia? I’ve had a good look through it and, by my reckoning, it indicates that racial attitudes in the UK have significantly improved in the last 20 years.
For instance, one of the findings is:
Similarly, the vast majority (93%, nearly all of them strongly disagreeing at 84%) disagree with the statement that, “to be truly British you have to be White”. In October 2006, 82% disagreed, 55% strongly. The proportion who agree with the statement has fallen from 10% to 3% in the last 14 years.
The other findings seem to me to be in a similar vein. If there’s conflation (deliberate or accidental) between racism and xenophobia in the report I’m not seeing it.
Also, for the record, while I’m not intimately familiar with his posting history, Novelty Bobble has always struck me as being a “good egg”, as they say
That you think those statements are in conflict and the snippets you use to suggest so, that’s the “bad faith” and the “selective reading”. Or maybe it is just a straightforward misunderstanding on your part. I can’t rule that out either.
It is a country with racism in it, that is something that I’ve never denied. If you prefer to state that as “the UK is a racist country” that’s your prerogative. I wouldn’t put it that way, Or I certainly wouldn’t just say that. I might refer to it obliquely when suggesting that actually, when it comes comparisons on a global level the UK is one of the least racist societies.
If you want a single line debate dealing with absolutes then we can do it here.
You - There is racism in the UK
Me - Yes
That’s not even a debate at all. There has to be more substance, nuance ambiguity and complication to discuss.
No I don’t. I just don’t necessarily agree with your full package of diagnosis and cures. I think you are very right in many ways and very wrong in others.
Who’s making the judgement on who is a racist and who isn’t? Who is making the judgement on what is a racist opinion or action?
Obvious racists on this board are thankfully vanishingly rare. Of course If everyone is a racist (as others on here suggest) then I do indeed debate with racists all the time.
As for anti-racists, I consider myself to be anti-racist both in thought and action but then I imagine you would demand that I think and act in exactly the same way as you for such a point to be valid.
I reject that. I push back at people on my side when I think they jump to conclusions, make unwarranted assumptions and engage in broad brush, sloppy thinking. I do it because I think it ultimately harms the shared end goal.
Talk about satirising yourself. You do realise that I never said “what is bait?”
I actually asked Mighty_Mouse
When there were two potential posts of mine in play that could reasonably be thought of in that way, one to you and one to them. If I had any confusion over what was meant by “bait” I’d have asked for clarification when I first came across it.
Seems like you can’t get your facts straight even when it is only a three word fabrication.
I have now concluded that you weren’t actually trying to bait us into calling you a racist in IMHO. You really are so completely deluded as to think your shit doesn’t stink.
I was referring to the later cites used in that thread - one that willy-nilly mixed up racism and Black-on-Black xenophobia. There was also the one that used South Africans saying they had experience with racism to rank how racist South Africa is.
Since that’s what I choose to highlight by my quote choices, it very much is.
No, that’s the disagreement.
Ha, ha, ha. Like I said, just can’t stop yourself…
Here’s nuance - there’s a lot of racism in the UK.
Yes, you do. You’re doing it in that very post.
Me. I’m making the judgment.
Ha, ha, ha…
Funny how often it’s the PoC who need this correcting…
The person responding to me agrees with the point I made. It doesn’t mark either of us as racists or EDL supporters, I am certainly neither.
Defending the right of others to take an action and utter words is not an endorsement of that action, that much should be fairly obvious.
By that logic, anyone who ever uses the word is doing so for your imagined reason yes?
As have I, you did notice that right?
I have a very simple standard that I apply to everyone equally. There are no proscribed words, nothing that cannot, a priori, be said, nothing has meaning except in light of the context and intent and should be judged and assessed accordingly.
Ah! The “Life of Brian” gambit. The reverse Scotsman, The Partridge Conjecture
Denial of guilt = guilt,
Admission of guilt = guilt.
Your need to pop to defend people doing actual racist things because it leads to some imaginary people self censoring from using er problematic language is not fooling anyone.
What you’re missing is that the use/mention distinction is often abused, particularly with the n-word. It’s been noted by black people for a long time that there are tons of white people who seem to seek out ways to get away with saying the word. They will quote songs, discuss the word, and so on. A common way to deal with that is to say you just can’t say it at all.
And it’s not really necessary to actually mention the word. Everyone knows what you mean if you say “the n-word” or similar. So it’s not like such a rule impacts conversation. Thus your claim that it’s a bad rule doesn’t make a lot of sense.
A whole lot of us have decided to simply stop saying that word at all. My wakeup call was when the head of PR got fired from Netflix. The guy got in trouble for singing along with the n-word in songs, and then mentioned the word in at meeting about the topic. And I didn’t see a single black person arguing that it was okay.
And, ultimately, it’s their decision, not mine. Or yours. When the minority in question says that a term hurts them, you have two choices: listen and stop saying, or be thought of as bigoted by an ever expanding group of people.
And this whole thing becomes a lot easier if you just accept this aspect of minority relations. As this thread shows, you often get assumed to be bigoted because of how you talk about things. Yelling at people won’t change that.
Ultimately what I argue against the concept of words having intrinsic meaning outside of their context and intent.
That necessarily means dealing with words that in some contexts can be problematic. It also means that I think we should not ignore or give a free pass to superficially benign words that the person can use in a bigoted way but with a veneer of plausible deniability and weaselly justification.
Those are two sides of the same coin.
