The FA chairman is a moron

[DarkFruitsRam7]

3 hours ago, Ghost of Clough said:

Grenfell fire - racism? No, just incompetence. How in any way can this be linked to systematic racism. 

I think it goes beyond incompetence, to be honest. For me, there's certainly an element of classism in there.

We could also get into a discussion about whether institutional factors play a part in minorities tending to stay in the 'lower' classes, but that would take up far too much time, and I'm not even sure of my own position on that issue anyway.

[jono]

1 hour ago, SchtivePesley said:

A difficult one for sure, as we all know that casually racist terms exist (and should be unacceptable), so someone has to define them - and that definition has to be created by the target of the term not us. It's certainly not for us to tell people what words they should or shouldn't take offence at.

But yes, where that process fails is when it becomes difficult to navigate for those who have zero intention of offending anyone.

It should be easy - an apology, they learn from it and both sides move on. Society takes another small step towards a better place.

Instead we get a battleground (and I know that is largely driven by extreme factions on the left who are so militant about this stuff that they don't even think apologies should be taken at face value). By then it's too late, and as you say - bigots have a fertile environment in which to operate.

This is where I have a problem with it - if an apology and modified behaviour are not good enough, then what is the point of anyone ever apologising for their mistakes in this area?

I hope we resolve this ridiculous situation in my lifetime

 

 

I think we largely agree. I do struggle with the imperative that only the victim can make the definitions. Certainly theirs should be the leading roll but the suggestion that a neutral joe public member of society has no right to an input, strikes me as adding to differences and disunity. It’s divisive, it makes tribes - the very thing we want to avoid. 
don’t get me wrong .. Someone who has faced and lived with prejudice (or any other sort of bullying ) has a truer perspective of what it is than those who haven’t, but sometimes a dispassionate view can add logic and understanding. 

[jono]

On 11/11/2020 at 15:34, Spanish said:

well done that was good at least for me.

I lived in Bahamas where I was a minority and there were daily references to whitey.  You are right the acceptability is a moving target and possibly more difficult he older you get because what was acceptable then isn't necessarily now.  I like your description of binary phrases and I get that now and of course you are right the BAME falls foul of that.  In a few years people will be offended by the use of it

And people will be offended by it even though the grouping being offended actually created the designation in the first place - and at the time of its designation, if you didn’t use it you were one of the damned 

it’s a toxic system. We need urgently to stop looking at words and start looking at intent. 

[Shipley Ram]

On 11/11/2020 at 15:34, Spanish said:

like your description of binary phrases and I get that now and of course you are right the BAME falls foul of that.  In a few years people will be offended by the use of it

Doesn't time fly https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2020/nov/12/bame-term-offends-those-it-attempts-to-describe-sporting-survey-finds-sporting-equals

[TigerTedd]

18 hours ago, Ghost of Clough said:

11 charts so let's go through them 1 by 1.

1. Stop and search rates
Impossible to make a true judgement on the chart without seeing more details - age, education, family income, clothing, targeted areas of stop and search, etc... will have had an impact.

2/3. Arrests by ethnicity
Similar to the above. Income, education, etc may have a big impact on why blacks are arrested more than others (especially whites)

4/5. Home ownership
It doesn't take much to draw a correlation between education, income and home ownership. Unless people giving out mortgages are so racist they refuse to let blacks get mortgages?

6. Feeling of belonging
I'm struggling to see how this 'proves' systematic racism.

7. Education
Exams are marked without knowing who was answering the questions. A big impact on the disparity will be family income and their local environment.

8. Employment
Linked to education

9. Pay
Linked to education and pay.

10/11. Covid deaths
Culture, numbers living in the same household, closer proximity to people from other households, etc?

 

I'm not saying systematic racism doesn't exist, but I'm struggling to accept some of those points put forwards as evidence

I think you’ve missed the point of what systemic racism actually is. 

it’s not direct discrimination ie you can’t have this job because your black. 

its a build up of circumstances over time, based on undeniable historical direct racism, that mean that people in certain groups have less opportunity to get jobs, an education, or create wealth. 

pretty much every point above says ‘it’s not about race, it’s about education.’ But the fact that disproportionately more black people are under educated, or living in larger communities in flats is due to a historical culture of racism. 

no one said ‘your black, so you have to live in grenfell tower.’ Circumstances simply dictated that black people ended up with little other choice but to live in grenfell tower, and that may not be down to anything that any one person has done in the past 10 or 20 years. There’s not some neo-nazi pulling the strings, it’s down to a series of events that was kicked off hundreds of years ago, that means most (not all) black people are on the back foot from the day they are born. 

this is all far easier to see in America (where direct racism is much bigger problem still). You could easily say, ‘if you don’t want to be in prison, stop breaking the law.’ But it all boils down to having opportunity for a good education, a good job, and good prospects to create wealth for you and your community. If you don’t have those things, it becomes more of a necessity to start down a law breaking path, or a drug abusing path, or all sorts of other shitty paths that result in having even less opportunity to get a good education, a good job, and create wealth. 

it’s a viscous circle, which is why positive action has to be taken put black communities and black people on a level playing field. So everyone gets the chance to start life with the same opportunities. 

[Spanish]

58 minutes ago, TigerTedd said:

I think you’ve missed the point of what systemic racism actually is. 

it’s not direct discrimination ie you can’t have this job because your black. 

its a build up of circumstances over time, based on undeniable historical direct racism, that mean that people in certain groups have less opportunity to get jobs, an education, or create wealth. 

pretty much every point above says ‘it’s not about race, it’s about education.’ But the fact that disproportionately more black people are under educated, or living in larger communities in flats is due to a historical culture of racism. 

no one said ‘your black, so you have to live in grenfell tower.’ Circumstances simply dictated that black people ended up with little other choice but to live in grenfell tower, and that may not be down to anything that any one person has done in the past 10 or 20 years. There’s not some neo-nazi pulling the strings, it’s down to a series of events that was kicked off hundreds of years ago, that means most (not all) black people are on the back foot from the day they are born. 

this is all far easier to see in America (where direct racism is much bigger problem still). You could easily say, ‘if you don’t want to be in prison, stop breaking the law.’ But it all boils down to having opportunity for a good education, a good job, and good prospects to create wealth for you and your community. If you don’t have those things, it becomes more of a necessity to start down a law breaking path, or a drug abusing path, or all sorts of other shitty paths that result in having even less opportunity to get a good education, a good job, and create wealth. 

it’s a viscous circle, which is why positive action has to be taken put black communities and black people on a level playing field. So everyone gets the chance to start life with the same opportunities. 

TT, all very laudable but no person no matter what race creed or colour  gets this and I can never see that will happen.  It certainly isn't just a black thing.   

Better people than me will explain the debatable reasons for this but from my POV I work hard and save money in order to give my daughter the best start in life and the best opportunities I can for the rest of it.  I think it is a basic driver for humans or maybe I'm just a selfish bar steward who wants the best for my family.  Ambition can be a powerful motivator.

I lived in the Bahamas and there was a significant level of open discrimination.  If you were of decent from Dominican Republic and cards were stacked against you.  I was once told by a black Bahamian that he wanted nothing to do with a certain guy from DR because he has 'dirty black skin'.  Just one example which may for all you know represented a unique event because after all I am just some bloke on the internet.

Discrimination is in itself an example of poor education and intellect but it is far from easy to eradicate.  Like you intimate, enough small steps in the right direction will produce bigger improvements 

[Stive Pesley]

13 hours ago, jono said:

it’s a toxic system. We need urgently to stop looking at words and start looking at intent. 

Agree with that first sentence,  but not the second so much

I'd qualify it and say we need to stop JUST looking at words and start to give fair weighting to intent

As an extreme example - if I had a heart attack and a passing black guy administered CPR to save my life. If I then gave him a heartfelt thank you but used the N word to describe him, no one could say that was "just a word" and my intent was good. It would still be unacceptable

 

 

 

[Spanish]

58 minutes ago, SchtivePesley said:

Agree with that first sentence,  but not the second so much

I'd qualify it and say we need to stop JUST looking at words and start to give fair weighting to intent

As an extreme example - if I had a heart attack and a passing black guy administered CPR to save my life. If I then gave him a heartfelt thank you but used the N word to describe him, no one could say that was "just a word" and my intent was good. It would still be unacceptable

 

 

 

SP, that is a bit extreme though, it reads as if in context you are comparing the N word to 'coloured''

just as an aside I'm in my 60's and the use of the N word was so enforced as being unacceptable it was impossible to even pronounce.  I don't think I ever hear it until I lived in Bahamas where it is used in common parlance.  First time I openly heard it in conversation I almost fainted!  Well not quite but I was  completely lost for words

[Stive Pesley]

2 minutes ago, Spanish said:

SP, that is a bit extreme though, it reads as if in context you are comparing the N word to 'coloured''

Not what I intended, I was just trying to illustrate how we need the solution to be based on words AND careful consideration of intent, rather than what Jono suggested as intent being all. Otherwise that implies I could use the worst slur with good intent

Funny you should mention age, as I was laughing with a friend when all that Captain Tom stuff was going on, how he was so old that you wouldn't be surprised if he accidentally used an outdated term - and what the media reaction would have been. Would he have been cancelled?

 

 

[jono]

2 hours ago, SchtivePesley said:

Agree with that first sentence,  but not the second so much

I'd qualify it and say we need to stop JUST looking at words and start to give fair weighting to intent

As an extreme example - if I had a heart attack and a passing black guy administered CPR to save my life. If I then gave him a heartfelt thank you but used the N word to describe him, no one could say that was "just a word" and my intent was good. It would still be unacceptable

 

 

 

Certainly Stiv, Clearly the N word is universally reviled and i think the PK word probably gets close to joining it,  but it's when we get in to the maze of normal descriptive words and their their ever changing acceptability . .. Black, Colour, coloured, of colour, asian, south asian, ethnic, whitey or even honkey. That's before you even get to the who is allowed to use a word .. because you can have a whole set of "rules" based around those too, some can use it some can't. It can verge on farce and its damaging to clear speech.

Right now we are discussing race, but there is then another set for different genders and orientations. 

Its curious, I saw a sociology A level text asking students to analyse some data .. they distiguished different communities with abbreviations, I was surprised to see Pak-Bang as the abbreviated nomenclature of one group. Accurate, and for me ok, simply because its linguistically correct, but I could see someone ready to claim it was derogatory. What's your view on that, I'd genuinely be interested

I just wish we could all just get on, and as i think i said way back .. I long for the time when a persons ethnicity and skin colour are simply physical descriptions, like tall, short, big, small, fat, thin and no one is remotely bothered because they are like definitions in a dictionary ... but then "fat" might get me in trouble. !

I am on a bit of a roll, exploring this with you so I am rambling as thoughts cross my mind ..

Surely its ok to be moderatly insulting in the rough and tumble of life ? We do it at every game for a start. ..Of course  Insults shouldn't be racist because of the huge historical context and deep hurt - no doubt on that score at all - but if in some future time when no one has a racist thought in their mind would it then be ok to call someone a "lazy (insert physical characteristic here) barsteward ? 

 

 

[Stive Pesley]

2 hours ago, jono said:

I was surprised to see Pak-Bang as the abbreviated nomenclature of one group. Accurate, and for me ok, simply because its linguistically correct, but I could see someone ready to claim it was derogatory. What's your view on that, I'd genuinely be interested

The P word is a strange one for sure, as it's a straight abbreviation of a person's nationality. I suspect the reason it became so offensive was because it was used almost exclusively as a perjorative term (and often at anyone with brown skin regardless of whether they were actually from Pakistan).

Which I guess is where the intent comes in - even if you were to refer to someone as Pakistani in a conversation, it could be considered polite if the intent was pure, but casually racist if the sentence didn't require you to specify their nationality

As for having Pak-Bang as a data classification - you'd be hard pushed to see any perjorative intent there, assuming there is a reason to separate India from Pakistan/Bangladesh and a reason to lump Pakistan/Bangladesh into a single category (given that they are about 2000 miles apart!) That would seem a little odd without further info

But if someone genuinely took offence at it then I'd be interested to know their reasoning

[jono]

18 minutes ago, SchtivePesley said:

The P word is a strange one for sure, as it's a straight abbreviation of a person's nationality. I suspect the reason it became so offensive was because it was used almost exclusively as a perjorative term (and often at anyone with brown skin regardless of whether they were actually from Pakistan).

Which I guess is where the intent comes in - even if you were to refer to someone as Pakistani in a conversation, it could be considered polite if the intent was pure, but casually racist if the sentence didn't require you to specify their nationality

As for having Pak-Bang as a data classification - you'd be hard pushed to see any perjorative intent there, assuming there is a reason to separate India from Pakistan/Bangladesh and a reason to lump Pakistan/Bangladesh into a single category (given that they are about 2000 miles apart!) That would seem a little odd without further info

But if someone genuinely took offence at it then I'd be interested to know their reasoning

It is interesting, and you’re right about it’s use pejoratively. That is what gives it a slightly distasteful feel. Yet in a literal sense it should be no different from a Taffy, a Brit or a Joch. 

[RamNut]

I’ve never understood what’s offensive about saying coloured instead of black.

at one time it was offensive to say black.

 

[Van der MoodHoover]

On 12/11/2020 at 13:36, Ghost of Clough said:

The 4 main issues identified in this article...

Windrush Scandal - yeah, that's bad.
Grenfell fire - racism? No, just incompetence. How in any way can this be linked to systematic racism. 
Racial wage gap - see education, family income, etc...
Patel - the argument where a points based immigration policy discriminates against 'non-whites', when if anything, it probably discriminates against 'Eastern' European whites more than anyone else. Also the Colston statue bit where she crisscrossed the vandalism. Apparently she's racist?

I think it would be more accurate to say she's pig ignorant, thick as mince and plug ugly.

[SSD]

I agree with posters that the witch hunt was well over the top, it was a poor mistake but he shouldn't be blasted to the high hills for a mistake. Trevor Sinclair was going on a rant during a talk sport show. The same man who called a police officer a white c**t. What a hypocrite.

The FA keep sending the message of equality before games and want to raise awareness. Yet the chairman of the FA doesn't know the correct terminology of how to describe the BAME community. A very poor standard for representing our biggest sport association. 

I hope in the next 10 years we stop referring to people as a colour. Isnt the point we are all meant to be treated fairly regardless? 

[G STAR RAM]

I see John Barnes is doing his bit to improve race relations in sport.

No doubt his comments will just be brushed off.

[GboroRam]

[BIllyD]

On 14/11/2020 at 14:39, G STAR RAM said:

I see John Barnes is doing his bit to improve race relations in sport.

No doubt his comments will just be brushed off.

Interesting view point, this is a topic close to my heart, being impacted by it. Although I'm new to the forum, I notice you tend to be active in these types of topics, not being judgemental in any way, however would like to understand what you meant by this ?

[AndyinLiverpool]

On 14/11/2020 at 14:39, G STAR RAM said:

I see John Barnes is doing his bit to improve race relations in sport.

No doubt his comments will just be brushed off.

What did he say?

[Sith Happens]

10 minutes ago, AndyinLiverpool said:

What did he say?

something about a master plan ?