Manx footballers racially abused.

[HeliX]

22 minutes ago, Lost Login said:

I was trying to make the point, fairly inelegantly, that whilst we need to stop abuse whether it be racial, sexual etc we also need to stop tagging somebody who unthinkingly in the heat of the moment says something wrong and stupid as racist. homophobic etc when they are anything but. Yes they need to apologise and learn from their actions but there is no need to tar them as a person who has abhorrent views. 

As for your view that "racism for me is when you hurt or stop people progressing because of their race" I think it is more than that. You have people who are overtly racist but I think there are plenty, from an older generation, who would not consider themselves as racist and not act in a way you describe but will try and argue that there is no longer an issue and try to dismiss the arguments of others often by simply refusing to or deliberately miss understanding a point. If you are trying to cling to attitudes of the past with regard to racism and what is acceptable I think that would be covered but lower down the scale. Like most things there are degrees and not all our views will coincide. 

I would like to think that I am not racist and certainly I would not abuse somebody because of there race, dislike them or treat them any differently but, and it is difficult to admit, I certainly do have pre-conceived views about certain races, nationalities etc which ideally I should not have.   

It's entirely possible for a not-racist person to say a racist thing.

[wrighty]

1 hour ago, offshoremanxman said:

I still remember when giving money to the Spastics Society was a thing. 

I won the Spastics Society prize at med school in 1994 (for the highest mark in a research project in a paediatric field). Not long after they changed the name to ‘Scope’. 

[Roger Mexico]

1 hour ago, wrighty said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_about_the_word_niggardly
 

Not an MP, I misremembered (although I’m sure Jacob Rees Mogg has done similar)

That's actually quite a good article and it illustrates that it was entirely a US thing and mostly 10-20 years ago.  It shows just how little and remote most of these 'controversies' actually are - yet they get quoted endlessly by the grievance-mongers of the media as proof that "You can't say anything nowadays".

Of course those saying that you can't say such things, say them endlessly on all media outlets, claiming everywhere that they have been silenced.  But no one is supposed to notice the irony.

[wrighty]

59 minutes ago, Lost Login said:

 I certainly do have pre-conceived views about certain races, nationalities etc which ideally I should not have.   

I think that’s prejudice, often based on past experience, rather than racism per se. We’re programmed to learn from experience. It’s pretty natural. One of the benefits of equality and diversity training is to overcome this innate feeling that someone is likely to be good or bad based on obvious racial/gender/age characteristics etc.  The courses can help you learn to make objective decisions, but ‘gut feeling’ may still persist. 

[HeliX]

1 minute ago, offshoremanxman said:

Ok so it was around 1994 when it changed - which was later than I thought. But spastic was a fairly derogatory term well before that. A lot of this historical stuff just needs to be accepted for what it was. The retrospective witch hunts are terrible. If Facebook had been around in the 80s or 90s would calling someone a “spastic” be haunting some people now if a load of zealots went rummaging through peoples social media profiles looking for dirt? The whole manufactured cancel culture is getting quite dangerous now. 

People are still calling each other spastics all over Facebook. Nobody(*) is losing their jobs over it.

 

* You can probably find an obscure example of somebody, somewhere.

[2112]

2 hours ago, Declan said:

Only if one doesn't know the etymology of "willy-nilly", Wrighty. 

I agree you, however you could go on forever with word/phrase connotations. 

[Roger Mexico]

2 hours ago, Roxanne said:

 I used to use a well known phrase (that I can't damn well remember now but it will come to me) regularly until my boss told me it came from the times of slavery and referred to the line up of women slaves as they waited to board the slave boats.  I was horrified and I've never used it since but I had used it for years before unaware of its roots. ETA - Nitty Gritty.

And your boss was completely wrong.  There's no evidence the phrase existed before the 20th century and ironically it appears to be an African-American coinage.

[hissingsid]

Now for the irony, the cricketer who has exposed the racist way he was treated when he played for Yorkshire is today on the front page of a National apologising for a racist post he had made on the net some years ago. Two different races involved🥴 obviously so ….what !!! another is accused of calling his dog a racist name, Kevin….all the Kevins should take offence, immediately.  A panelist took offence when he was asked for his views on the Yorkshire gate affair, it just goes on.    The Captain of the Australian cricket team has resigned because he was caught sending images of his penis to a lady and I thought cricket was a dull game.

[Andy Onchan]

1 minute ago, Roger Mexico said:

And your boss was completely wrong.  There's no evidence the phrase existed before the 20th century and ironically it appears to be an African-American coinage.

Just read the same. TBH I've never thought or regarded that phrase as coming from the slavery days.

[Andy Onchan]

1 minute ago, hissingsid said:

Now for the irony, the cricketer who has exposed the racist way he was treated when he played for Yorkshire is today on the front page of a National apologising for a racist post he had made on the net some years ago. Two different races involved🥴 obviously so ….what !!! another is accused of calling his dog a racist name, Kevin….all the Kevins should take offence, immediately.  A panelist took offence when he was asked for his views on the Yorkshire gate affair, it just goes on.    The Captain of the Australian cricket team has resigned because he was caught sending images of his penis to a lady and I thought cricket was a dull game.

And those pesky Australian cricketers still insist on calling the English Poms!

[HeliX]

1 minute ago, offshoremanxman said:

The point is that times change. Calling someone a “spastic” in 1981 is very different to calling someone a “spastic” in 2021. The same applies with many words. But there are people actively trawling back through peoples social media feeds just to find things to get outraged about in order to create problems for them. It’s wrong.

Very few people are doing said trawling though, and very few things ever come of it that are unjust. I accept there are examples, though typically it's when the papers wish to discredit someone, which is indeed bad.

Nobody is going to use a post from the early 90s accurately describing the Spastics Society and its aims as a way to discredit someone. They could potentially do it to someone who was calling people spastics after it was changed, but nobody(*) who was doing that was unaware that it was a bad thing.

And that's what it comes down to for me. Most of us call people names sometimes in heated discussions on social media. We all know it's the wrong thing to do when we do it, and it's almost certainly not going to bite any of us on the arse. But really if you want to avoid being pulled up in a few years for calling someone a "daft shitter" on the internet, don't go round calling people daft shitters. Just be nice. If you wouldn't want to say something on tape, don't say it on archivable media of any kind - including social media.

[HeliX]

3 minutes ago, offshoremanxman said:

Oh there are - the newspapers are actively paying people to do it. Just so that they can then write stories about it to take people down. 

I did mention that it was mostly the newspapers trying to discredit people. But blaming that on "cancel culture" rather than "shitty tabloid pricks" seems misdirected!

[The Voice of Reason]

6 hours ago, Numbnuts said:

Recently talking to friends I've been amazed by how many have racial leanings. A couple are clearly openly racist and when even trying to discuss there attitude its clear they are very set in there ways. I might add all are from a older retired generation . Quite sad really . Incidently its those same people that were vigorously in favour of Brexit too and wouldnt listen then either. 

What really makes me cross is the number of contributors on here who attribute, either expressly or by implication, those who voted (or would have voted) for Brexit with racist attitudes or motives.

As one who would have voted for Brexit I find that in itself extremely offensive.

[HeliX]

5 minutes ago, The Voice of Reason said:

What really makes me cross is the number of contributors on here who attribute, either expressly or by implication, those who voted (or would have voted) for Brexit with racist attitudes or motives.

As one who would have voted for Brexit I find that in itself extremely offensive.

Not everyone who voted for Brexit is racist.

But everyone who's racist voted for Brexit.

[hissingsid]

Yes I agree there is absolutely no connection.  I am not racist but I would have voted for Brexit any day of the week.   Remoaners are really sad people get over it.