Black Lives Matter

[woolley]

4 minutes ago, HeliX said:

I wasn't suggesting that ethnicity is the only thing that makes changing class hard, I was suggesting you can change class but not ethnicity.

The argument of white privilege isn't that all white people are born into rich families, it's that white people in general will have less obstacles thrown in their way in general life & career.

So the big thing to stress there is "in general". "In general" can be overcome because that is what many of us have done.

[HeliX]

1 minute ago, woolley said:

So the big thing to stress there is "in general". "In general" can be overcome because that is what many of us have done.

But I think the overarching point is that it'd be better if in general minorities didn't have more obstacles to overcome than anyone else.

[Max Power]

6 minutes ago, HeliX said:

I wasn't suggesting that ethnicity is the only thing that makes changing class hard, I was suggesting you can change class but not ethnicity.

The argument of white privilege isn't that all white people are born into rich families, it's that white people in general will have less obstacles thrown in their way in general life & career.

So what is the answer, what is the BLM solution to this? 

[P.K.]

Just now, woolley said:

No good boasting that you can run 20 miles at 10mph if the lion can run 500 yards at 50mph.

All you have to do is run faster than the person with you!

[HeliX]

Just now, Max Power said:

So what is the answer, what is the BLM solution to this? 

Honestly I don't know what the answer is. I don't think it's as simple as there being just an answer, I think it's probably a lot of little things and some bigger ones.

I think a good start in the States at least might be abolishing policing practices that intentionally or otherwise disproportionately target minorities (broken windows policing), defunding the militarised aspect of the police in general and instead funding social programmes.

[woolley]

46 minutes ago, wrighty said:

No, I refer to this in my later contribution, but just because most top sprinters are black, does not imply blacks in general can run better than whites.  I understand that most top sprinters originate from a similar region of Africa.  But the other point I made is that it is in sports that are minimally technical and need the least gear and organisation that black athletes do well, because those events don't rely so much on money/class/family to become good.

Well, I think you have reinforced the point for me that this is innate rather that privilege based. It isn't just any blacks that run better than whites. It is specific blacks from a specific region in Africa that can run better than anyone.

[P.K.]

11 minutes ago, HeliX said:

The argument of white privilege isn't that all white people are born into rich families, it's that white people in general will have less obstacles thrown in their way in general life & career.

Everybody has obstacles thrown in their way, irrespective of what colour they are, it's how you deal with them that makes the difference between success and failure.

[Shake me up Judy]

But hey, if Alf Tupper can make it as a successful runner anyone can... Alf always beat the white privileged, floppy haired toffs from the local public school; usually starting a lap behind and on top of a bag of fish and chips. His dad never picked him up in a Rolls Royce after the race neither. It was always the bus for Alf and he even had to run after that...

 

[HeliX]

3 minutes ago, P.K. said:

Everybody has obstacles thrown in their way, irrespective of what colour they are, it's how you deal with them that makes the difference between success and failure.

Quite, but it would appear that minorities on average have more of them than non-minorities. All I'm suggesting is that we should probably try to address that.

[P.K.]

1 minute ago, HeliX said:

Quite, but it would appear that minorities on average have more of them than non-minorities. All I'm suggesting is that we should probably try to address that.

I'm not sure that's true any more.

[Max Power]

6 minutes ago, HeliX said:

Honestly I don't know what the answer is. I don't think it's as simple as there being just an answer, I think it's probably a lot of little things and some bigger ones.

I think a good start in the States at least might be abolishing policing practices that intentionally or otherwise disproportionately target minorities (broken windows policing), defunding the militarised aspect of the police in general and instead funding social programmes.

Good speech, call in the troops? I agree that there is an over reaction by police to some situations but it would be nice to think that demilitarisation would be met with less hostility. They didn't do that cause much good when the police tried a light touch at the BLM protest. 

Personally, I think the best we can hope for in a predominantly white society is awareness.

[P.K.]

2 minutes ago, Shake me up Judy said:

But hey, if Alf Tupper can make it as a successful runner anyone can... Alf always beat the white privileged, floppy haired toffs from the local public school; usually starting a lap behind and on top of a bag of fish and chips. His dad never picked him up in a Rolls Royce after the race neither. It was always the bus for Alf and he even had to run after that...

Then back to the digs to make briquettes....

What would Alf have made of BLM?

[gettafa]

11 minutes ago, HeliX said:

Honestly I don't know what the answer is. I don't think it's as simple as there being just an answer, I think it's probably a lot of little things and some bigger ones.

I think a good start in the States at least might be abolishing policing practices that intentionally or otherwise disproportionately target minorities (broken windows policing), defunding the militarised aspect of the police in general and instead funding social programmes.

You do know. You just can't bring yourself to say it. And it's not a little thing of course. It is to equalise and level everyone, right across the board. 

[HeliX]

1 minute ago, Max Power said:

Good speech, call in the troops? I agree that there is an over reaction by police to some situations but it would be nice to think that demilitarisation would be met with less hostility. They didn't do that cause much good when the police tried a light touch at the BLM protest. 

Personally, I think the best we can hope for in a predominantly white society is awareness.

Which police tried a light touch at BLM protests? I don't think US police did!

Camden New Jersey tried demilitarising their police locally and it seems to have worked well.

[quilp]

I plagarise...

"Was there ever a time when honest disagreement over contentious issues was deemed permissible? Were we ever truly free to say what we believed, without fear that the Thought Police would come calling? Was it always the case that a rigid conformity of opinion held sway on certain questions, with all dissent destined to be met by a wild hysteria and demands for swift recantation?

It is easy, when surveying the public square today, characterised as it is by such deep-rooted uniformity and a climate in which any form of resistance constitutes a revolutionary act, to conclude that things must have been this way for all time. That the uncompromising group-think that pervades much of our discourse has always existed. That freedom of expression and the 'marketplace of ideas' are obscure concepts peddled only by heretics and those with a kamikaze disregard for their own reputations or careers.

Like a prisoner who, as his sentence grinds on, finds it increasingly difficult to recall a time when he enjoyed liberty, our society risks falling into the trap of believing that the ever-tightening constraints placed on our freedoms have always bound us. It is not so, of course. In fact, we don't have to travel too far back to identify a time when our culture was quite different. If someone said or did something crass or thoughtless - even if the act was committed in the full glare of publicity - society would generally react by curling its lip or tutting or dismissing the culprit for an idiot. And then the world would move on. Nobody had been injured, nobody died, and one person might have been left feeling a bit embarrassed or sheepish. Real opprobrium was reserved for those who truly deserved it.

How the world has changed. It seems unimaginable today that someone - particularly anyone with a public profile - could depart from the orthodoxy on any subject of delicacy or contention, especially one of cultural sensitivity, without inviting the now-customary storms of outrage. These usually begin with a rabid kind of finger-pointing, invariably conducted through social media, and very quickly progress to demands for an apology, appeals to the transgressor's employer that he be fired from his job and, where the individual enjoys any sort of prominence, an insistence he be banished from public life for good. The actual merit of the person's words or actions are irrelevant. All that was necessary for the pitchfork-wielders to do their worst was that 'offence' had been caused. When the storm eventually passes, the person is likely to find himself excommunicated from polite society.

The disturbing thing is that this 'cancel-culture' has taken hold not because it can claim support among the mass of the population, but because a minority of intolerant fanatics has somehow managed to cow everyone else into submission. They have effectively been allowed to set the boundaries of acceptable debate on certain topics, to decide on behalf of us all what constitutes a legitimate opinion, and to determine the sanction to be imposed upon anyone who refuses to comply.

And, faced with this growing threat to our freedoms, our ruling class, including most figures in the fields of politics, business, the media and public services have cravenly folded. Worse, in many cases they have actively sided with the zealots.

Which brings me to Jake Hepple. I have little doubt that Mr. Hepple is a bit of an oaf. I'm not sure what he was trying to achieve when he arranged to have a plane trailing a "White Lives Matter" banner fly over a football stadium in Manchester when a match was taking place. He may've simply wished to make mischief or court publicity. Or perhaps his actions were genuinely intended as a sardonic rebuke to the Black Lives Matter movement and some of its more questionable aims and tactics (which, in spite of what we are led to believe, do not command unanimous support throughout the country).

Whatever his motives, it was a pretty silly thing to do. Of itself, however, the message plainly wasn't offensive. White lives do matter, after all. Taken in isolation, it is a statement with which few would disagree.

The response, then, to this stuoid stunt should have been to shake our heads at its puerility and hope the perpetrator faded into obscurity as quickly as he had come to our attention. But of course, in these days when, "silence is violence", quiet dismissal of Hepple would have been tantamount to endorsement of his actions. So the wheels of the bandwagon started rolling, and everyone duly clambered aboard.

First up was Burnley Football Club, whose players were taking part in the match inside the stadium (while, it should be noted, displaying the slogan, "Black Lives Matter" on their jerseys) and if whom Hepple is a supporter. The banner was "offensive" said the club in a statement, before going on to pledge that those responsible would be issued with a lifetime ban.

Then,so it seemed, anyone and everyone who might in some way be connected, however tenuously, to Hepple or the incident felt obliged to express their own words of condemnation. Blackpool Airport, from where the plane took off, said it stood against "racism of any kind" and promptly vowed to suspend all banner flights. The CEO of the UK Civil Aviation Authority itself, no less, also saw fit to weigh in, resolving to work with the police in any subsequent role. Right on cue, Lancashire police then launched an investigation, only to confirm a day later - entirely predicted - that it would not be pursuing the matter any further because no crime had been committed (thereby leaving us all to conclude that its initial actions were motivated by PR concerns than by any serious belief that the law had been broken).

Football pundits tripped over themselves to express their full-throated fury and indignation - though whether they truly felt such levels of outrage or merely felt compelled to pretend they did because, well, it was expected, is another question.

Most absurdly of all, a Danish Brewer issued a statement disassociating itself from Hepple and assuring us that it did not condone racism in any form after a photo emerged on the Internet showing him holding a can of its beer. I half-expected McDonald's, whose logo could be seen in the same photo, to announce that he was no longer welcome to eat their Big Mac and fries.

Needless to say, after all this outcry, Hepple was sacked by his employer.

On one level, some of this reaction is quite simply absurd and deserving of mockery. On another, however, it is deadly serious. Because, in the end, this isn't just about Jake Hepple. Nor is it about the Black Lives Matter movement. It's about a culture of intolerance and dogmatism that has poisoned our society - a culture that permits only a single and established view on particular questions and unleashes swift retribution upon those who dissent.

A cultural revolution is taking place across our land, and opponents can expect no mercy. It is Mao Zedong meets Joseph Mccarthy. It is unhealthy; it is oppressive; it runs counter to our nation's long-cherished traditions of liberty and free expression; and it leaves millions of ordinary people feeling alienated, dismayed and bewildered.

If we are ever to force a retreat - as we surely must - it will be done through the mainstream majority coming together and saying enough is enough. Until now, too many among those who wield power and influence in our society have demonstrated an abject cowardice as this new tyranny has taken hold. They have kept their heads down and hoped for an easy life. That must change. Because, if we're not careful, it will be too late to do anything about it..."

(By Paul Embury, firefighter, trade union activist, pro-brexit campaigner and 'Blue Labour' thinker)

Edited June 28, 2020 by quilp