What if they were being brutalised by a majority white police force? What if it was christians killing muslims or vice versa? What if it was men beating women? What if it was women beating men? The latter probably happens more than is recorded. Tutsi's killing Hutu's. We could go on forever. Did you march for gay equality? Did you march for students in Hong Kong? I'm guessing not. This is the current "what can i be offended for on anothers behalf" moment. George Floyds own family said that they didn't agree with the protests.
You have no idea as to my beliefs so don't even pretend you do. You don't even have any idea of my race. I'll leave it at that.
I have marched for injustice before and I'd do it again, not based on skin colour. I gave a relevant example. You're twisting it. I'm cherry picking posts because I'm on my phone and have 7+ notifications at all times, so I tend to reply to whatever is latest.
So when I was 10 years old, you wanted me to march about Rwanda? Gotcha. I've marched for plenty, including the rights of predominantly white working class people in the north east with regularity. Does it matter? No, I've already explained why this matters to me, but you lads seem insistent on saying this is 'faux offence'. You're desperate to portray this as hypocrisy for some reason, but I'm ok with that because at every turn I stand up for the little guy and I'm comfortable that I've been consistent with my views. I have a job, so no, I don't attend every cause I believe it's demonstrations. That's a fairly unreasonable standard to ask of anyone, so anyone suggesting I should just to have a viewpoint on this is... unreasonable.
I don't care what your race is. You have said things here that give me plenty of understanding of your views, I made my point why I'm not entering into something that requires a baseline of good faith to have any value with someone who believes black people are at fault for being disproportionately killed by police in the USA.
Wrong. You have chosen to interpret what i have said to fit your own views. Lets just agree that we have similar views on some of the issues but different views on others.
You're saying you'd be the first to march against black police officers but you're not marching against white ones. I think you might need to step back, ignore the notifications, and think about how racist that looks.
Mother Teresa was a dreadful woman in many ways yet her name is used as a term of praise ... ... much as the phrase 'Churchillian spirit' is used. People are getting so carried away they're systematically taking their own argument to pieces.
There's an attitude, among some people, that any refusal to go along 100% with the protest/riots/criminal damage makes you some kind of racist ... ... I've seen black spokesman, on Andrew Marr, Breakfast News, etc, scared to condemn the BLM rioters who put innocent police officers in hospital. It's a bad attitude and cowardly from people who should be better than that.
I think however clever you think this argument is, that's how utterly ****ing dumb it is. You haven't caught anyone out here, you haven't exposed anything except your willingness to plumb the depths of being disingenuous to support whatever argument it is that you're making now. The only reason I wasn't at monument yesterday was because I have a close family member shielding, by the way. Happy to help.
I can't speak for everyone, but I'd imagine that there are plenty that feel similarly to how I do. Causes such as this are always hijacked by anti-establishment types who are determined to attack the various symbols of the nation and portray them as evil. In this case, the attitudes to statues of Churchill, Baden Powell, and now the statue of Henry Havelock in Mowbray Park (statues of slavers are a different matter). This attitude turns average, moderate people who are appalled by racism away from the cause because it creates an "if you're not with us, you're against us" scenario. This is bad for the movement and these very vehement just don't seem to see that. The same moderate people are equally appalled by the appropriation of such symbols by the far right but because the two view points are so polarised people feel that they cannot express their joy in their own heritage for fear of being called a racist. It is possible to admire Churchill, Baden Powell, Havelock, and others like them but also to understand that there are aspects of their lives and careers that should not be celebrated. And that, like treating everyone that you meet, regardless of their ethnicity, is true equality.
I've said pretty much the exact same thing earlier, so I see all this as very reasonable. As I said, I wouldn't personally like to see a statue of Churchill pulled down, but a statue of a slave trader should be in the drink. As for the rest, I think it's just what people choose to see when it suits. The 'debates' I've had here this morning should leave little doubt that there are a lot of people who focus on rioters until the riots stop, at which point they decide that something else about the protests is invalid. Smug doesn't think racism is an issue in the met police, even though the IPCC and the government do. He knows more than them. So that's why people believe in standing up and challenging those views. Because 'not seeing race' is no defence if it also involves not seeing racism, or implying that it's the wrong kind of racism to get upset about because it's better than it was 40 years ago.
Yes of course ... ... no doubt you'll be out there protesting soon enough. I'm not trying to catch you out, I haven't needed to. You keep doing what you're accusing other people of, you've made more assumptions and sweeping generalisations than anyone that you're arguing with. You've literally just said that you would be the first to march if the skin colours were reversed and, rather than explain that, you trot out any ad hominem nonsense you can think of. Why not explain instead of just attacking me.
It's also been documented that tribal disputes in Southern states were involved in cannibalism at the time Africa was carved up by Europeans and in general -certainly, certain parts of Africa were indeed a deep and dark place at the time.Yes the monarchs of Buganda are also reported as being extremely cruel. Yet they were functioning organised societies, King Menelik of Ethiopia had a well-maintained feudal system. It wasn't a continent of east-west, north-south pandemonia of chaos of brutality and if you were to stumble upon people then or even now, you would find the majority quietly getting on with their lives. Most of Africa is not starving, most of the African people are not living in abject poverty.and most do not live in fear of tyranny. At any time in history and by the testimony of many ex-pats who have lived and worked there, many parts of Africa can be a very nice place to live. What bothers me is people say 'Africa' as if it is one place, yet no one calls out Europe under a homogeneous banner making sweeping claims, exclusively negative, about this physically and culturally diverse continent. I don't disagree with this at all, neither do I think that these organised communities of former African nations were excessively brutal for the inhabitants -nor were they a panacea. Above all please do not use the word Africa to suggest everywhere in Africa is full of lawlessness, famine, disease, pestilence and full of lots of people being habitually cruel to one another.
All this Googled irrelevant ad hominem stuff about Africa because you saw racism in my post, where there was none ... ... apologising would've been quicker than this history lesson. I guess that you'd rather do anything rather than simply admit that you were mistaken.
"Smug doesn't think racism is an issue in the met police" ... ... another ludicrous assumption and, sorry to say, lie. Back up what you've just claimed and I'll apologise, close my account and never post on here again. I never once mentioned the Met police, not once. However, I did say there was racism in the police force which I'm totally against, therefore it's an issue. I don't need lectures on racism from anyone yet you seem to believe you're educating people. That's where people like you and Shameless go wrong, you believe you know it all despite most of your 'info' being cut&paste Wiki or Google clips. As I've said I don't need to accept that racism is wrong, I was brought up to believe that as a church going Methodist which I still am ... ... but I won't be bullied into believing some of the nonsense that you've posted.
I agree with what you say, particularly about the diversity of Africa. I have, for example, an Egyptian uncle by marriage, and entirely coincidentally another uncle who lives in Egypt. They both think it is a fantastic place and, obviously, it is very different from other parts of Africa. The reason I felt that it was important to highlight that warfare, and its associated cruelties, existed in Africa before the colonial era is that it's not possible to give an objective view of the impact of colonialism if you don't understand what the continent was like before that.
Exactly, there's a lot more to these issues that the black & white some people try to paint it. Mention the words 'concentration camp' and some Jewish people, including some I know, automatically think 'Jews'. That excludes the thousands of other people who were affected. Mention slavery and it's, more often than not, the likes of Colston. The fact is that, at the time black slave's arrived in Bristol, there were many times more oppressed and brutalised while people kept in a permanent state of penury. And, in parts of Africa, black slave traders were exploiting a system they'd operated for years. Perhaps that's where the British got the idea ... ... just as they did with coffee and potatoes.
