Are we talking about a black girl with ginger hair or a white girl with black nipples here...? We need clarification
You appear, like many others, to have missed the satirical core of that show. The point was that the black family were urbane, sophisticated and tolerant. Smethurst's character was a bigot who was invariably made to look a fool.
I've 'missed' nothing, but thanks for misplaced attempt at a patronising put down The satirical intent of the writer doesn't alter the fact that in 2012, that would never been deemed accpetable in any context, due to the language used (which is what I was referring to)
I'm sure you can get some tablets for that. Anyway, I've got something more important to do for a few hours-have fun.
That heartfelt rant merely demonstrates the complexity of the situation and the likelihood that ANY action taken to resolve/overcome problems is likely to have unforeseen consequences. We don't have a clearly defined and agreed idea of what does and does not constitute racsim. The law does not do it fully and the 'man in the street's' interpritation of the concept is heavily influenced by cultural considerations. Somebody earlier stated that Britain was a multi-cultural country. But who say's that it is or that it should be so? There is a strong argument to suggest that the whole multicultural stance had done more harm than good in that it has downgraded the standing of the 'host culture' ( I hate that term) thereby making consensus nigh-on impossible. From my standpoint, I enslaved nobody and therefore have no need to apologise to anybody for it. Those that feel aggrieved by history appear to be using 21st century morals to view 16/17th century actions and that is immoral. Until such times as a consensus upon the breadth and scope of racism can be agreed by the population of the UK then all actions in public to deal with it are bound to be flawed.
**** is that what we're for ? I thought it was to track all yer facebooks and look at yer wives/girlfriends
some good stuff, I pretty much believe you cannot encompass racism in a word or words. It has been attempted with ****** amongst other words. Even if I use this word, to offend a black person, it is not racist, it is provoking and insensitive but unless I truly have beliefs that tell me black people are less or inferior, if I believe this guy is no different from me other than skin colour and I still call him say blacky.. how on fking earth does that make one racist? Is it that the vast majority in the UK do not understand what racism actually is, I barely believe the stupidity I read daily
Lord Ouseley having a pop at the morals(or lack of them)in football http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/20675873 The old goat should take stock of the lack of morals within the Lords and Parliament with the fraudulent expenses claims before having a go at football.
Statements like his (as they're reported to us, that is) do nothing to help the situation. What does he want-blood? As you say, if the hypocritical old sod wants to look for a "moral vacuum" he needs look no further than his own patch.
He loves that the Suarez&Terry cases brought racism to the forefront because it put the old twat on the political map, but he like the black lawyers society doesn't know when it's time to move on to pastures new instead of regurgitating cases that have been done and dusted.
That's the irony of it, they wan't to pontificate to johnny foreigner about doing things the 'English' way, yet they bend their rules so an English player can represent his country in a major tournament and then give him a lesser punishment than a foreign player for breaking the same FA rule.
SeeDave! This is all good! I think the issue became complex as soon as "multi-culturalism" became a doctrine or goal that the great & the good (usually with tendencies to the centre left) have tried over the last two decades to shoehorn us into rather than just being a word that describes the evolution of these islands' population over the last ten thousand years. The "host culture" argument is disingenuous as it ceased to exist (if it ever did in the modern age) long long before the doctrine of multiculturalism was attempted as an experiment. these islands may have been predominantly white & Christian for hundreds of years but that's a tiny part of the timeline and doesn't begin to unravel the cultural influences & conflicts even in the creation & duration of that brief period. For the vast majority of our existence we have been an island of the invaded & continuous cultural integration & yes even cultural absorption along the way. Our error is to manufacture this process rather than let it take its natural course. A cynical historian would suggest a successful society integrates all that is useful from each culture it meets and destroys that which is not or is subverted itself in the long run. The history of Britain up until the last 3 decades could fit that description. In fact I'd go as far to argue that multiculturalism was a liberal attempt to create an identifiable alternative to racialism after the horrors of empire that led to WW1 & the crystallisation of the idea of racial superiority of WW2 Germany that in fact existed in all Empire states up until that time. The Nazi's merely made it a pseudo science (we weren't far behind in some quarters and are arguably the fathers of racialism). It stemmed from liberal guilt that our country at one point in history exploited other countries & their populations & justified it with racialist ideas that continued long after the abolition of Slavery. That exploitation in a slightly different way continued right through the Cold War & led to the destabilisation of many third world countries, which we promptly abandoned & betrayed as the political wind shifted. On this point Dave you are right we personally never enslaved anyone: but we voted for subsequent governments that played games in our name that led to the deaths of many in those same countries, that led to dictators & genocide. We continue to allow western companies to subvert those countries natural resources & stunt their chance at societal development that we had & coupled with the political destabilisation above helped cause thousands more deaths through starvation & disease through lack of infrastructure. But yes how this effects a 3rd generation English footballer being called names is beyond me. Possibly as a reminder that we aren't treating all 'black & brown' people with equality, just these within our borders but then as a white man I've never understood this global unity of colour: I don't empathise with a badly treated Russian simply because he is the same colour as me.he is Russian first white second, even if his grand daddy was originally Irish. I believe the error was to attempt to create a coffee coloured society with a homogenic culture rather than allowing cultures within a geographic location the freedom to mix or stay separate to the degree that they wish both as individual citizens & as cultural groupings and accepting there will always be conflict from time to time. The law IMO should merely prevent any particular section of society as a whole from disadvantaging another section merely based on the differences between them. It should not however attempt to redress a balance or feel more should be done where a sub culture has made a choice to disadvantage themselves. Equality of opportunity should be the maximum effort a society strives for, not an insistence that the opportunity is taken. The idea of starting with sport, our attempt to replace our tribalistic violent urges that use to be expressed by raping & pillaging the village next door with representations on little green squares would be funny if people weren't dead pan serious about it.
