Probably. I think that’s one of the pitfalls of any kind of rulemaking; the more completely you define the rules, the more sharply you outline the exceptions that seem like they need to be addressed
Brit here, and the term is definitely associated with Wales here in the UK. Sheep greatly outnumber people in Wales too.
Just to add my thoughts on the main topic, whether it qualifies as ‘hate speech’ under UK law, I don’t know, but it is most certainly an example of an insult based on assigning a perceived negative trait or behaviour on a large group of people, I think everyone would agree.
Yeah, I think the nuances of what it means within the UK might not be completely clear to folks elsewhere
I’d say it’s at least as bad as some of the English slang/ derogatory terms for the Irish, and maybe worse, because the term itself refers to an act of bestiality.
So as someone moved to England from Wales as a 4-year-old, has a very welsh name, and even lived on a street called “Shepherds Mount”, so was called some variant of Sheep Shagger inumerable times, I can state categorically it is not.
Calling someone offensive names based on the region they come from is not cool, and its not something anyone should be comfortable doing, but its not racism. I mean there were a few people of color in the English village I moved to, and they would be pretty offended if I compared my treatment as a Welsh person, to their treatment as a person of color. Its not remotely the same thing.
The comparison, in the OP, to insulting someone for being from Alabama, based on regional stereotypes, is a pretty apt one.
So is calling someone a goat fucker a racial slur?
When I first encountered it in an online forum, I didnt think goat fucker was any different than sheep shagger. But Ive changed my mind since then. People raise goats all over the place. Im american and there’s multiple farms with goats within 5 miles of me. And if I were to call one of those farmers a goat fucker, I guess it wouldn’t be a slur. But the way people have commonly used the term where Ive encountered it online, its been used in the same way someone might use the term “towel head”, which almost everyone would recognize as a slur.
I’ve only ever heard GF in reference to Middle Eastern men, so I’d say yes. Sheep shagger seems to apply to rural people everywhere (except in England, where it refers to Welshmen?), so more of a classist term, I guess.
It isn’t so clear cut. In some places it is, in others not so much. It is an equal opportunity insult against anyone who is perceived to come from a slightly more rural area than you do. Wales is one such area but there are many others.
Absolutely. Is “raghead” an offensive racial slur? It absolutely is, even if it could theoretically be applied to a white guy with a bandanna tied around his head, it doesn’t have anywhere near the amount of baggage.
That’s the thing, it’s the significance of the term to a group that matters. It’s not something you can easily dissect and objectively analyze. Because these are subjective terms.
I view a comment like “sheep shagger” to be in the same family as “mother f***er”. It isn’t restricted to race. It’s a general, nasty insult that can be applied to whomever has incurred your ire.
Yeah totally, if its referring to an Arab person (which as you say it almost always is). Insulting someone because they are an Arab is definitely 100% racist. Insulting someone because they are Welsh is not.
I get its not 100% cut and dried, there are some grey areas, but ultimately if I as a welsh person (or someone who was considered welsh by my classmates, and called Sheep Shagger numerous times) say “I too have suffered racism” then I will rightly be told to f*ck right off by an Arab person who has suffered actual racism by being called a “goat fucker”
Shouldn’t it depend on where you’re saying it? Oppression, after all, is a matter of geography. In the United States, Europe and Israel, Arabs are the oppressed party, so you absolutely should not insult them for their race. But in the Gulf - as any Filipino or Bangladeshi worker there will tell you - the Arabs are the oppressors. Shouldn’t you be allowed to call them goat-fuckers there?
Personally, I think nobody should call anyone names based on their race or nationality, no matter who they are, just so we don’t have to make calculations like that.
That would be ideal, yes.
The “don’t be an asshole” philosophy does tend to make things better for everyone.
You make some great points here
You’ll have to explain that one. Other than the nationality involved why is one different from the other?
You rise an interesting point.
It’s obvious that it’s quite possible to be racist and bigoted against the privileged majority. But is it hate speech per se? Isn’t the idea that the term hate speech, and thus the consequences of someone using it, in place to protect the minority in a given location/situation?
Is ‘wypipo’ uttered by a Black person from Compton and directed at a white someone from Hollywood Hills hate speech?
There’s a common notion that bigotry and prejudice and stereotype is OK if you’re ‘punching up’ (or believe that’s what you’re doing). It’s understandable why people might feel that way, and the effect of it is probably less severe than ‘punching down’ at a minority, although I suppose it depends on the action, but if it’s just bigotry, it’s probably a genuine case where two wrongs don’t make a right.
Because one is part of a institutional system of oppression based on racial characteristics (and society’s identification of them), one is not.
Again its not hypothetical, there may not have been any Arab people in the English village I grew up in, but there were a few Afro-Carribean, Indian, and Chinese kids, and my experience of having the piss taken out of me for being “Welsh” is not comparable to the racism they received.
Well obviously, slapping someone in the face isn’t nearly as bad as breaking their arm, but why should you go around doing either?
I just don’t understand why people are trying to rationalize bigotry, no matter how minor or inconsequential. Just don’t do it. How hard can it be not to be a jerk?
Is there a sheep lawyer in the house?
I don’t buy that. If you can be identified as “welsh” and discriminated against or oppressed in some way on that identity then that seems worthy of the term “racism” if you are going to use the term at all.