Women playing football? Nuns that are builders? The world's gone mad!
Political Correctness & the FA
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Whatever next!? They'll be giving women the vote next.
Why does a person on the receiving end have to put up with it or suck it up? There is always the option to correct the other person face to face or report it or litigate the matter if you feel strongly enough. There's some pretty effective legislation in place now so there's no excuse.
When you said:
Then essentially what you're advocating is a get-out clause for the person saying the offensive thing to claim "But I didn't mean anything by it" - and regardless of whether what they said was offensive or not, that should be an effective excuse.
As an example from my own experience - I've had people say stuff like "I went out and got a Chinky" without intending it to be racist. I've not lost my shit at them, because I know that there's no intent, but I have pointed out to them that it is the recognised racial slur for a Chinese person, equivalent to calling an Asian a paki, or a black man a nigger. They were shocked and apologetic as they didn't realise. All's fair.
However, I've also had arguments with people who, even after being told this, insisted that - as they didn't mean anything by it, and in fact were using it in an 'affectionate' way (because they like the food!) - that they were totally within their rights to use that term and not expect to be called racist for doing so.
Going by your strategy, they're right. The lack of intent takes precedence over the offence caused. The person on the receiving end should suck it up and stop being so precious about it, because their lifetime of being abused carries less weight than the other person's objection to being called a racist for saying racist things.
And whilst there may be laws in place to prevent incitement, or racially/sexually/gender/sexuality aggravated assault, or discrimination in the workplace, or discrimination against a consumer, there isn't a law against racism/sexism/whateverism - free speech ensures we can actually say what we want, as long as it doesn't constitute an offence in those respects.
That's why I think you're on dodgy ground
If you take offence the fault lies with you.I'm not here to fit in around your years of conditioning and *education*
We're all on dodgy ground, that's the very point. People from all different cultures use racial epithets, perhaps a Chinese person might use gweilo. Am I to take offence or do I 'suck it up'?
I suspect I'd give intent some consideration. If I thought there was no intent I wouldn't think to tell them they're being racist. It has nothing to do with any possible objection they might have to being called out and everything to do with understanding and reacting proportionately.
Well, the Chinese are an *incredibly* racist society; gwei lo, despite it's almost laughably innocuous translation (foreign devil) is bandied about with alarming regularity, even amongst polite society.
I'd imagine if you were actually called that it'd probably be fairly easy to shrug off, devoid of any real context or history. Had you grown up in China or Hong Kong, where you'd experienced a lifetime of insults and sleights, with that at the forefront, I reckon it'd be a little trickier.
The problem is, when you've had a lifetime of it, the intent becomes a secondary issue. Sure, maybe the person meant nothing by it, but that is treating it as an isolated incident when the reality is it's a perpetuation of a whole lifetime of abuse. It's about choosing whose perspective you're going to see it from - do you side with the person on the receiving end, or the person delivering it?
I'd imagine if you were actually called that it'd probably be fairly easy to shrug off, devoid of any real context or history. Had you grown up in China or Hong Kong, where you'd experienced a lifetime of insults and sleights, with that at the forefront, I reckon it'd be a little trickier.
The problem is, when you've had a lifetime of it, the intent becomes a secondary issue. Sure, maybe the person meant nothing by it, but that is treating it as an isolated incident when the reality is it's a perpetuation of a whole lifetime of abuse. It's about choosing whose perspective you're going to see it from - do you side with the person on the receiving end, or the person delivering it?
That's an oversimplification though. Another crucial variable is that not everyone affected by such things chooses to react to them in the same way (BTW, mightn't an assumption that they would do so be at least potentially racist in its own right?). I'm half-Jewish and, certainly at school (not so much since, I'm glad to say), sometimes shipped anti-Semitic remarks, but - with one exception where the kid in question was unwise enough to mention my mother specifically - never saw the point of doing anything other than ignore them. I chose that course partly because I'm not naturally aggressive but partly also because it was and remains my conviction that treating such things as the empty irrelevances they are, and freezing the life out of them that way, was the most effective strategy anyway. And so it proved during my school years, with anyone silly enough to shoot their mouths off along those lines pretty much shamed into silence.
I think it is a simplification, but then when you look to apply principles in general, it kinda comes with the territory.
I think simplifying it down to a binary choice between whose side are you going to take can be revealing.
For instance, let's say we were playing Tottenham and some bloke was giving it all the hissing and all that - you might take offence to it, you might not. I think it's entirely your prerogative whether to do so. You may well have a very personal connection to what happened, you may have lost people, I don't know. But let's say you took the chap to task over it - is it your fault for being sensitive? Or is it his fault for being offensive?
My gut instinct is to side with the person on the receiving end. If they choose not to be offended - fine, their call. If they are offended, same. What I don't think is a good idea is siding with the other guy. I think racism without the accoutrements of institutionalised discrimination and entrenched power structures simply doesn't have the same impact; for instance I'm sure that there's probably huge amounts of racism towards white Americans amongst the Native American population, but the white folk don't give a fuck, cos it don't affect them. So if you take the side of the person who is empowered and supported by those structures, then it's a de facto acceptance of the status quo
I think simplifying it down to a binary choice between whose side are you going to take can be revealing.
For instance, let's say we were playing Tottenham and some bloke was giving it all the hissing and all that - you might take offence to it, you might not. I think it's entirely your prerogative whether to do so. You may well have a very personal connection to what happened, you may have lost people, I don't know. But let's say you took the chap to task over it - is it your fault for being sensitive? Or is it his fault for being offensive?
My gut instinct is to side with the person on the receiving end. If they choose not to be offended - fine, their call. If they are offended, same. What I don't think is a good idea is siding with the other guy. I think racism without the accoutrements of institutionalised discrimination and entrenched power structures simply doesn't have the same impact; for instance I'm sure that there's probably huge amounts of racism towards white Americans amongst the Native American population, but the white folk don't give a fuck, cos it don't affect them. So if you take the side of the person who is empowered and supported by those structures, then it's a de facto acceptance of the status quo
I get the feeling that the goalposts are going to be continually moved here as to who has most right to be offended and when, and that some groups have suffered more abuse over time than some other group.
Like I said intent is the least messy arbiter and that's very much a judgment call by the individual, as is how they react or otherwise.
In the case of the tweet it's easy to see that it's intent wasn't sexist in my opinion.
Like I said intent is the least messy arbiter and that's very much a judgment call by the individual, as is how they react or otherwise.
In the case of the tweet it's easy to see that it's intent wasn't sexist in my opinion.
This is my point though; it's giving precedence to the wrong person
Depends if you think there is a wrong person or whether it's a misunderstanding or misreading. Easy to see that the tweet was misunderstood and misread. No 'wrong' person in that example.
The only thing I said about that tweet was that it should never have been written because it was cringey as fuck
Cringeist?
Yeah, I'm deffo a cringephobe.
Watching something like The Inbetweeners is like being stabbed in the eye with a fork for me
Watching something like The Inbetweeners is like being stabbed in the eye with a fork for me
You have to consider context as well as intent.
If a comedian tells a joke, it's probably just a joke and je doesn't mean it.
And this wanna tagline for an article praising the England's women's team.
I'd be willing to bet very few who took offence on behalf of others bothered to read it
So out of a bunch of people who were not being racist or offensive, you only managed to turn some of them into racists?
This thread is the exact epitome of PC gone mad.
This is what happens when everyone has got too much free time on their hands.
This is what happens when everyone has got too much free time on their hands.
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