There's a very interesting thread on my West Ham Blog on a post headed "The Evils of Racism". I wrote it yesterday in response to the West Bromwich Albion fan forum The Stirrer, Bob Piper and Ministry of Truth who had written more about the Radio 4 interview and my remarks concerning Adrian Chiles. I had said of the Carol Thatcher incident that he had probably heard far worse every Saturday afternoon at the Hawthorns. By which I meant that football grounds are places where aggressive banter takes place. I hadn't meant to imply that Baggies fans were a bunch of racists, especially bearing in mind the fact that their team were trailblazers in picking black players (Lawrie Cunnigham, Cyrille Regis etc). Anyway, at the end of the post, I wrote this...
The reason I want to clarify my remarks regarding WBA is that I recognise how horrible it is not just to be accused of racism, but for it even to be hinted at. [cf the three posts on LabourList accusing me of condoning racism]
Indeed, on two occasions at West Ham I have intervened when I heard a racial comment being directed at a player (on the first occasion it was aimed at one of our own players, Matthew Rush) and asked the idiot to button it. I can’t pretend I wasn’t nervous about doing it, but everyone around me backed me up (luckily!) on each occasion. I would like to think I would do it again but I am glad to say it hasn’t happened since 2001.
A couple of months ago, someone a couple of rows behind me shouted out to an opposing player something which many would regard as homophobic. I couldn’t decide whether it was banter or really was homophobic. By the time I had decided that yes, it was homophobic, the moment had kind of passed and I did nothing. I’d like to think if it happens again I’d have the guts to turn around and say “that’s me you are talking about. You got a problem?” If it does happen, no doubt you’ll read about it here.
The comments on the thread are very illuminating, and if anything, the debate has been far more informed an polite than it has been on this blog. I wonder what that says! I want to pick out this comment from a West Ham fan, Darren, which illustrates perfectly the dilemmas of this whole argument...
What a remarkable morning’s posting, and funny with it. But here’s the thing. I’m a gay West Ham boxholder (see, we’re everywhere, but mainly near a bar) and to my similarly hard-drinking footie mates that’s about as interesting as whether I’m left or right-handed. But isn’t all of this about context? My black (straight) mate is forever keen to reinforce the stereotype about the size of what’s in his underwear, a Jewish acquaintance is a Spurs supporter and loaded (and gets ribbed for it), I’m always complaining that West Ham players are universally ugly (though things are improving a bit of late). They are only words, it’s malice or intent that matters. By all accounts Carol Thatcher meant nothing by what she said (anyone who has ever seen or heard her would be aware she’s hardly the sharpest knife in the drawer). So consider this: it’s the last ten minutes v Hull, everyone’s up for a corner and in goes Cole, Boa Morte, Ilunga and Faubert, a bit of melee and the ball goes out of play. Bloody hell, I said, no idea what happened there it was just a forest of black, shaven heads. I know said my mate, it’s like looking down on a box of matches from here. Now I think that’s funny, and NOT racist. But dissect it on Radio 4 for a couple of hours and see where it ends up. Bored already.
Discuss.
50 comments:
"They are only words, it’s malice or intent that matters"
Spot on. My oldest mate is South Asian, and in my extreme (<8) youth he was known to me when bantering as "Darkez", a mild play on his name. Did I mean this intending malice? Absolutely bloody well not, but it would be an idiot that pretended a non-white skin was a common sight in Southwest Surrey in the eary 70s. I myself was known on occasion as "Benson and Hedgehead", in homage to the Leo Sayer haircut I sported at the time. Both my pal's skin and my wild locks were indeed vaguely noteworthy, as all teasing between friends is (jug-ears, etc.). We remain friends to this day. I do wish these statefunded rabblerousers would just leave it for people to sort out amongst themselves.
Is West Ham anything to do with West Hampstead? I get confused by these London things.
I think you overdo the attempts to look like a regular London boy with all this football guff Iain. It's fine at your age to just admit that you are a political nerd with no outside interests, or indeed, knowledge.
Absolutely - it IS all about context - no doubt. Consider this:
The way in which black people quite readily refer to each other using the 'N' word - and yet it's considered offensive if used by a 'white' person in the same way.
The ways in which I, who happen to stand on the same side of the ballroom as Iain, can quite happily be referred to by others of the opposite persuassion as 'a rug-muncher' and other equally hillarious terminology. (Incidentally I don't 'acutally' munch rugs, for those who were wondering!)
I do find it hilarious . . .because as you so rightly said, it's malice or intent that counts, and I absolutely don't think there was any malice in Carol Thatcher's comments the other day.
What depresses me is the thought that there are so many complete tossers around who wish to impose their so called 'values' on others.
I've always believed that if you hold an opinion you should be prepared to argue a logical case - i.e. put up or shut up. And, if the other side prove their point, you should be prepared to change your views.
There's simply too much emotional and ill-considered bollocks being spouted by these monsters who feel they know better than everyone else - and who actually know precious little.
Shut the *&^% up Despairing Liberal.
Pot. Kettle. Black. The. Calling?
This is were it all goes wrong when you inhibit free speech, or restrict anything it goes underground and the humour stops any utterence is defined as abhorrent.
Carol Thatcher probably got the 'stunned silence' from the crowd she was with, what is truly disturbing is that somebody decided to 'report' the matter. Are we heading to informers in every office, every shop floor, so that repoorting will be rewarded with a step up the ladder ?
I do not want to be defined that I am overweight skinny balding Hetro/Gay left wing right wing white/black/green, I just want to be able to speak my mind, if I get a stunned silence fair enough, what I do not want is being 'reported'
This will be Labour's endury legacy
PS why is Alistair Campbell's new blog so crap, comments do not work- has he been taking lessons from Draper
iain - you seem to be being taken to task on labourlist by draper,day and newton over allegations of racisism. do you know these people - is it something you said ?
Benson and Hedeghead? Leaving aside the merits of the Thatcher argument, it really doesn't wash to compare a racially based nickname or remark with one about your hairstyle or someone being called fatty.
Maybe if there'd been centuries of history of an unequal power relationship between people with big hair and people with neat hair, or between the skinny and the chubby. But there hasn't been.
Plus having long hair or a big belly is a choice.
I think there should be constraints in the work place. It's the laziness of language that winds me up - if it's not meant to be funny or to be offensive then why use certain words?
As Tuscan Tony says, it's culture not colour where the issues lie.
Can anybody point out a black person who has been offended by the use of the word Golliwog by CT?
All I can find is a load of white Righteous on Labourlist and some Asian at the Times.
In the meantime, can anybody claim to be offended by THIS?
Tony Poppins, the whole offensivenes of "nigger" is bound up in the fact that it's historically been a word used by whites to blacks for the purpose of demeaning or controlling them.
And, in my experience, the only blacks I've ever heard call each other "nigger" haven't exactly been pleasant people.
Why exactly are you so keen to have the freedom to use the word yourself?
And how can bunch of black heads resemble a box of matches? A box of struck matches maybe.
Old Holborn - there were a number of interviews with "offended" black people in all the main broadcast media during the last few days. Try listening to the radio or watching TV.
I don't know if you've noticed, but for all the not-so-hidden racists operating here, can I remind you that Iain's stated objection was lack of even-handedness by the BBC, not the implication of racist language itself. This is a subtlety many of you seem to struggle with.
Iain, have you thought of moving your blog to a more liberal-minded location, you are being pursued by a load of sub-BNP headbangers in this locale.
@ Old Holborn
Offended? No
Terrified? Yes indeed - a totally trousers-filling experience.
The daftest thing about all of this is that those labels on the jars (back in those days) — and the badges one could obtain — were of what were called Golliwogs.
There was, and is, no other name for them. They were just a character like Teletubbies, Clangers and Smurfs. Just because they looked (very) vaguely like anyone was of no concern to those of us who remember them well.
Therefore, what else was Carol Thatcher (or anyone else) supposed to say in order to refer to (in this case) a specific hairstyle?
If I said: "That fellow over there has a tum like a Teletubby" would that be a problem?
The whole thing is clearly politically motivated, and it was always at least partly for the kind of purpose we have seen applied in this case that "cultural Marxism" (as it is called) has been introduced in order to control our language and constrain and warp our thinking.
It is evil, as is all that comes from that political direction. In a sensible world we would be concerned with "sticks and stones", but not with mere words that aren't intended to incite.
Darren makes an excellent point about intent.
Carol was unwise to make such a remark, but the way the BBC has gone about sacking her has put itself in a terrible pickle. Why for instance did Chris Moyles get away with making comments to Halle Berry which she considered racist, and why wasn’t Jonathon Ross sacked over his notorious comments to Andrew Sachs?
The One Show still has no problem employing Jo Brand, who is well known for her crude, sexist vulgar misandry views. She’s currently under investigation for threatening to send shit to people in the post for the ..er.. temerity of being a member of a legal political party.
And this would be the same One Show, who have regularly featured guests who make jokes about Carol’s mum’s dementia and wishing that she was dead where they would all have a party to celebrate.
So according to the BBC; Carol non racist intent gollywog comment - decision sack her and hang her out to dry, but guests wishing an elderly lady with dementia dead and planning a party for it – decision fair game.
Zeddy 11:37am "Plus having long hair or a big belly is a choice.
"
So in your world, calling someone a lanky git, a wing nut or a ging-a is likely to land a person in the slammer? What a charming place that would be to live.
@ Zeddy
Are you some sort of fattist? You clearly don't understand how rolly-pollies have suffered over the centuries. Even Shakespeare didn't get it.
Notwithstanding, the use of this word in that context was racist. Reportedly, everybody who heard it at the time seems to have thought so. Quelle surprise.
Followed by the non-apology apology, and Thatcher’s position at the show became untenable. People understandably no longer wanted to work with her. You can complain they were too sensitive, but notwithstanding they were repelled, disgusted and horrified. One has no idea whether her comment was meant to be malicious or was (as seems slightly more likely) ignorant. But if the latter, it was tin-eared and very ignorant
As I have said elsewhere, it all (her clanger) sounded like something meant to be satirical in the old Private Eye “Dear Bill” column - coming out of her father’s mouth.
Do footballers wear boxes? I thought that was cricket!
Zeddy,I lived with Jamaicans for years as one of the family,the n word was used daily in lots of contexts from cruel to banter.Its naive,patronising people like you being offended on someone elses behalf that encourages racism.
Speaking as a British Indian, known affectionately by his friends as "Paki" I'd like to say that context is everything.
***So in your world, calling someone a lanky git, a wing nut or a ging-a is likely to land a person in the slammer? What a charming place that would be to live.***
Tuscan Tony, sweetheart, I didn't suggest anywhere that calling anyone anything should land them in prison nor lose them their job. I was saying that being derogatory about someone for something that they didn't choose is nastier than for something they did choose.
And, as I've pointed out elsewhere, it's not the insult itself that's pertinent but the wealth of history on which it's built.
If you don't get that making a "joke" about someone's skin colour is opening a much larger can of worms than making a joke about someone's ears, then there's no hope.
What SHOULD lose the ghastly Thatcher her job is her criminal stupidity in not realising that certain things in society are thought to be, if not definitivley offensive, then at least sufficiently dodgy that they're best left alone.
Let's not forget in the rush to crown the ghastly Carol as a champion of free speech that she wasn't skating on the thin ice of racial offence in order to argue a point about the dangers of immigration or the futility of aid to Africa or the drug culture among young blacks...she was making what I suspect she imagined to be a trademark aren't-I-outrageous-Mummy remark about someone's hairstyle.
Exactly what would have been lost to posterity or to her own self-respect had she either refrained from making the remark or phrased it as "hasn't he got big hair?"?
***Its naive,patronising people like you being offended on someone elses behalf that encourages racism.***
DMC, would you care to tell me what colour my skin is?
Simon,whatever any Thatcher did would be evil in your eyes.
This is a mountain out of a molehill,I only hope it damages the bbc as much as possible.Time to get rid of state indoctrination.
I think we need to relate the Thatcher issue back to normal office politics and not get hung-up on it happening at the BBC.
The term golliwog when used as a comparison to a black person is offensive - this is part of common manners and i can't see any reason to resurrect the word from it's current pariah status.
The BBC green-room is an office environment (not a private dwelling). The comment was said in front of a co-worker Adrian Chiles and a guest Jo Brand.
In a normal office environment, the comment would probably be met with a stunned silence (as mentioned in another comment). It probably wouldn't be reported unless aimed at someone within the office, or said in front of an outside guest/client/supplier and likely to leave a poor impression of the business.
Unfortunately, in this instance this is exactly what happened. An employee of a BBC show mentioned an offensive term in front of a guest on the show. Her co-worker reported her because it risks giving the wrong impression of the business and the One Show team to an outside guest.
Whether Thatcher deserved the sack or not is a completely different issue. I think her apology for offense and promise not to use the term again was enough. However the BBC took issue with her insistence that she hadn't used it as anything other than a jokey term - which is exceptionally harsh.
It is being reported that Carol Thatcher's "gollowog" tennis player's mother is offended.
I hear also that Thatcher's "golliwog" tennis player's mother's cleaning lady is offended and that the cleaning lady's friend is considering the matter too.
This whole issue, the Clarkson issue, the Thatcher issue and all the rest are about one thing and one thing only:
Nobody matters in this world, not really. We have all been subsumed into a shit society that in reality not only favours numero-unos and greedy egotistical bastards but worships them.
It's about feeling left out and disenfranchised.
Sadly, whenever a minority is given a scintilla of status now, the shits in that minority milk it for all its worth and become little despots.
There is a pyramid of hegemony, a pecking order society where political correctness is used as a lever of power.
Idon't know the the colour of your skin zeddy,and I don't care but,if you were black,and they use that word all the time too,then you would know how often word n was used.
The sooner the BBC is broken up, the better. All public services (except the army!) have had carte blanche to grow exponentially under Labour and have achieved diminishing performance.
You can't really blame managers - it helps in power politics to have more staff but this has distorted all reference to core functions - they focus on the easy stuff because the difficult or complex takes too much time and energy. Screw 'em - game over.
Zeddy "I didn't suggest anywhere that calling anyone anything should land them in prison nor lose them their job"
It doesn't matter what you suggest; the law as it stands is couched in a way that the offendee decides whether or not there has been "offence"; and the punishment for that an include a prison term. This is ripe for the application of the law of unintended consequences (terrorism acts vs. Iceland, anyone?) and is therefore the failing of authoritarian systems of the left and right everywhere.
DespairingLiberal: "..the not-so-hidden racists operating here...sub-BNP headbangers in this locale."
I can see why you are 'despairing', if you have to assume that the people who aren't swallowing your crap are therefore 'racists' and 'sub-BNP headbangers'. God forbid they turn out to be people who just don't agree with you.
You've really lost the argument, haven't you?
Well, speaking as a lanky Duracell honky, I'm not bothered at all.
From the excellent Leg Iron:
Now, nobody on Earth needs a gollywog. It's a stuffed toy. Babies like stuffed toys but they don't much care what colour or shape it is. A purple dinosaur works as well as a brown teddy bear, as long as it's soft and comforting. So nobody actually needs any specific kind of soft toy, much less one that might soon get you arrested for possession if the Righteous get their way.
Some people like them. Those people like them because they remember having one has a child. They didn't wave it at immigrants and chant racist slogans, they took it to bed and cuddled it. They cried when it was lost and were overjoyed when it was found. Those people have fond memories of that particular toy. For the record, I didn't have one and I'm a little old for any kind of cuddly toy now.
I remember when they were just one among many toys and were not regarded as offensive at all. I don't think they're offensive now. The Righteous will seize on that, as they did when Iain Dale made a similar statement, and decry me as a closet racist. That will offend me, but only if I choose to find it offensive to be called a racist.
You know what? Being offended doesn't actually hurt. There is no pain. There is no bleeding. No bones are broken. Nobody has ever been offended to death although I've tried, oh I've tried. Nobody has called in sick with a case of offendedness. Being offended is a matter of choice and that choice is not with the one who 'caused' the offence but with the one who it was aimed at. If you call me racist, whatever your intent, it is up to me to choose whether to be offended or not. You have no control. If I choose not to be offended by being called any particular name, then I will not be offended. Repeat it, embellish it, it will have no effect. You can only offend me if I choose to allow it.
If anyone chooses to be offended on my part, then I am very, very offended by that. It is nobody's choice but mine and taking that choice away will make me angry. It is deciding how I think and how I react without reference to me and that is the most offensive thing anyone can do. It is patronising and controlling behaviour of the worst kind. It is made worse if I am not present when the remark was made and would have continued with my life, blithely unaware of it, without that Righteous offended-by-proxy nonsense that blows every little comment out of proportion, twists its context and spreads the story far further than it should ever have gone.
"Notwithstanding, the use of this word in that context was racist. "
We don't know what that context actually was, though, do we? No-one has relayed the full conversation.
Not that facts matter to you, of course...
Yes of course I have JuliaM. It's so totally obvious that none of you are in any way racist, and that this is a totally objective discussion about the balance of the BBC. Er. Not.
Dick the Prick said... “The sooner the BBC is broken up, the better...”
The BBC is our foremost cultural institution - far more important than any government.
It is also (and I have seen many others) the best news operation on the planet by a long way. Its breadth and depth (including a vast world network of correspondents and producers) far outshines anyone else’s. In many places it is the sole or most important ambassador for Britain.
Just look at the pathetic attempts by the major US networks to cover the world. Even CNN runs a poor second to the BBC. And then there’s the World Service too.
Domestically, the BBC’s TV, radio and net operations are streets ahead of the competition (though Sky News is good for home stuff and fireman foreign news).
I am, however, content that Cameron isn’t as short-sighted or stupid as many respondents on this blog would wish him to be.
Simon - not sure about the best on the planet but i'm sure I remember it being loads better.
Mainly it's the obligatory and disproportionate tax system that's used. In this day and age - people should have the choice.
I don't think they know what they're doing. As you mentioned its coverage of the world is exemplary but if you don't listen to the world service - you wouldn't know.
I threw the towel in with the Olympics and the Obamafest when there were more staff than Team GB and any other news org respectively. That was disgusting. Plus, why don't we get expense acct details for the hacks? It's the unique way they're funded fnarr fnarr.
Dick the Prick said... “Simon - not sure about the best on the planet but i'm sure I remember it being loads better.”
Things were ever thus.
It’s the best on the planet.
“Mainly it's the obligatory and disproportionate tax system that's used.”
The BBC wouldn’t be what it is without it. And boy are we grateful for a refuge from the hated adverts.
“...if you don't listen to the world service - you wouldn't know.”
Let’s not forget BBC World which is heard a lot elsewhere (though Murdoch stopped it being available in China). There’s even BBC World Arabic and I believe a Persian TV channel might have started (must check). [I’ve got a dish on satellite position 13°E inter alia so I can get BBC World when I want.]
It still beggars belief that the BBC can get away (because of adverts supposedly) with denying its UK audience easy access to BBC World - at least via satellite [28.2°E].
@ Simon Gardner
"Reportedly, everybody who heard it at the time seems to have thought so."
Evidence? Who are these people who have gone on record as 'seeming' to have 'thought so'? Do you now want to name them for us all to consider? Or is this all a special secret between you and these people?
Then you say
"People understandably no longer wanted to work with her. You can complain they were too sensitive, but notwithstanding they were repelled, disgusted and horrified. One has no idea whether her comment was meant to be malicious or was (as seems slightly more likely) ignorant. But if the latter, it was tin-eared and very ignorant"
Which people did not want to work with her - did they say so, if so to whom? Who said they were 'repelled' etc? And if you 'have no idea' there's an end to it, but no, you persist in your wild conjectures.
You actually 'have no idea' whatsoever of the 'context' - or were you physically present during this incident? Are you just making this all up? I think you probably are.
'Reportedly' you're a clown. Put up or shut up.
There is no such thing as free speech in Britain today.
Get used to it.
The BBC is our foremost cultural institution - far more important than any government.
Errr no, it is De Facto run by the Government since Alistair Campbell gave it what for
JPT said... “There is no such thing as free speech in Britain today.”
Not in the way (say) the US constitution would understand it.
I repeat that if I were to write (as I frequently do) that all ******s, *********s, ***s are a bunch of **d-bothering, fat-headed, deluded fools, then I would get censored here. Though I’m cheered to note that such a remark would have sailed through on the Indie discussion area as witnessed by the recent stuff on a J Harri comment piece.
I certainly wouldn’t be allowed to say such stuff on Iain’s blog. (I’ve already had one mild post censored some time ago.)
Guthrum said... “...it [the BBC] is De Facto run by the Government...”
That makes the sexing up of the Iraq dossier stuff seem a bit strange then. Presumably, you are anyway happily looking forward to a Cameron government taking it over, then?
Actually, the BBC has always been unduly respectful and deferential to the government of the day (it was with Thatcher) - which should be deprecated. It’s the establishment thing.
Black people who think the term golliwog is malicious should grow up. I'm white and I've never been offended when someone's called me a er, um...well, I can't actually recall any racial slurs I've endured personally, but I'm sure if I had I'd probably just have found them coquettish.
I'd still love to break the BBC - maybe for ten years and then invest in the skeleton.
Very nice selection of Gollies and Golliwogs on Ebay currently. I bought a rather elegant Robertson's Golly by Fattorini and shall wear it on my coat lapel from henceforth - just as a small personal symbol, of course.
Wouldn't want to start a trend, although I guess there'll be a slight revival of interest.
What's all the fuss. Up here they beat women up for having English accents. Racism? More like "Look at me-ism"
"I hadn't meant to imply that Baggies fans were a bunch of racists, especially bearing in mind the fact that their team were trailblazers in picking black players (Lawrie Cunnigham, Cyrille Regis etc)"
There's a liberal myth propagated by Chiles, Skinner and Adrian Goldberg that the Hawthorns terraces in the 70s and 80s were some kind of multicult love-in. As a regular in those days I can tell you it weren't so.
When I lived in London I used to watch the mighty Dons, and when they played WBA in the Cup at Plough Lane in 1989 the Albion fans made monkey noises at at John Fashanu and Carlton Fairweather for the whole 90 minutes.
Am not sure why I feel so compelled to post; I never normally do this.
Surely, the thing is indeed to look at intention.
What was the 'humorous' point of Carol Thatcher's comment?
Seemingly, the joke was: a mixed race man was running around.
This was not affectionate banter. She finds a mixed race person worthy of a joke because of his colour.
Okay, so, she isn't being wildly malicious. It reveals more a lazy, casual racism. A ingrained belief that to be white-skinned is correct, right, normal, unamusing and not comment worthy, whereas to be non-white is to immediately qualify as an oddity.
It's the type of casual racism that my gran displays.
But, it is racism. I don't see how a state-funded broadcaster can retain someone who thinks it a absolutely fine to lightly mock someone because of the colour of their skin.
As it happens, I am middle-class, white, uni-educated, liberal but I don't believe that I am displaying the corny righteous anger mentioned in other posts. I don't feel angry. I just believe that the comment was racist and that she deserved to lose her job. I also believe that Carol Thatcher was genuinely surprised to discover that she is a racist; we need to have our behaviour reflected back to us in order to understand it most times. No doubt responses to this comment will highlight my assumptions and prejudices, of which I am probably only imperfectly aware.
Michael said... “What was the 'humorous' point of Carol Thatcher's comment? Seemingly, the joke was: a mixed race man was running around. This was not affectionate banter. She finds a mixed race person worthy of a joke because of his colour.” etc.
Well said indeed. This piece by Hannah Pool bears reading. And Thatcher appears to have been a multiple offender.
visiting you here...
I think it's funny
Post a Comment