George Floyd Death - Derek Chauvin Guilty of Murder

[Stan]

I know this was before Floyd but feels like the right place to put it anyway 

 

[Michael]

On 24/06/2020 at 18:14, Stan said:

Personally, none directly recently. I'd say it was more prevalent around university and the years leading up to it. A lot of it on a football pitch (Sunday League) and in school matches or nights out. Usual taunts of 'you're a paki', 'go back to where you came from', 'go back to your own country' etc, presumption of being Muslim (which is wrong in itself) and racial comments about them, or curry-related jibes - all of which I'm sure if you questioned the person saying it, they'd say it was only 'banter' or 'I was only joking, he can take it'. The biggest yet worst cop-out there is, when they say that. They mean it unless they get caught up on it. Much like those celebs who are only sorry they get caught...

The worrying thing was that if you complained to the ref they'd straight away say they didn't hear it or just ignore you. 

My parents suffered more before I was born (racism was so much more prevalent and in your face then by their account, especially in school; nowadays social media gives rise to keyboard warriors and a voice to those who would say fuck all in person). 

As for people my age being less racist. It's hard to tell. On social media I see so many people (usually those accompanied by Union Jack/England flags in their usernames) or severely bad spelling, and you look in to their profiles a bit and they're parents or family people, much older or much younger (I'm 29). The current climate since referendum has brought a lot of scum out of the woodwork though when you see their rants or statuses on Facebook or comments on Twitter. They're hastily de-friended/unfollowed - even if you do try to reason with them. Thankfully they are in the minority. 

I have to completely agree with you, in regards to the referendum bringing the scum out of the woodwork. It's as if certain scumbags saw the Brexit vote as the green light that allowed them to be overtly racist and xenophobic.

I remember I was back visiting England in 2017, on my way to stay with family. I got on a bus and sat near the back. About 10 minutes into my journey, a couple of yobs in their 50's started telling a Bulgarian sounding woman to speak English. She was speaking in what sounded like Bulgarian to her mum and these two yobs kept hassling her. After noticing that no person on the bus was saying anything against their actions, I decided to approach the two yobs and politely but firmly tell them to leave her alone. The big fat one, said stay out of it mate. I once again told them to leave her alone. She was clearly distressed but proceeded to give them a piece of her mind as well(in very good English I may add). She then got off at the next stop and I then said to the pair of them that they were both an embarrassment. They were saying some ignorant stuff to me as I walked back to my seat, but this incident was a bit of an eye opener. 

Your recollection of your university days reminded me of very similar incidents of when I was at university. I had a friend at university called Ilyas whose father was Pakistani and his mother was English. But he was very westernised and a big part of our group of friends. Most of us played football but not all in the same team. I remember a couple of other friends and I went to watch Ilyas play football. I was shocked while hearing him receive racial abuse several times during the game. He played at right back and we stood on the side of the pitch where he was playing, so we heard a lot of what was going on. Clearly other people, besides us, heard it as well, yet surprisingly nothing was said. Ilyas never reacted to the abuse on the field, neither did he talk about it after the game, although we did discuss it with him a few days later. But I felt a lot of empathy for him that day.

I think that it's a very sad state of affairs that there is still quite a lot of overt racism that still goes on in this day and age. One would think that in these big, multicultural university cities, there would be more tolerance. But unfortunately, on many occasions that's not quite the case.

Having said that, I do believe that the UK has become much less racist than it was back in the past. I do think that there are much fewer racists than there were before, as education and awareness on such matters, has improved. However, I believe the issue is that those who are racist today, are much more vocal with their racist sentiments. As you mentioned, some of the stuff one reads online is appalling, with the 'P' word and the 'N' word frequently being used, among other disgusting racial slurs. I often wonder how many of these online hate crimes are reported and subsequently dealt with in the appropriate manner.

I'm sorry about the abuse you have received in the past, but at the end of the day, we all know that these people are just ignorant fools. Increased education on such matters will hopefully reduce the bigoted opinions that some people hold.

 

[Machado]

Around 1300 people in a protest in Lisbon claiming "Portugal is not racist". Eheh. The casual Nazi salute proves their point.

 

[Stan]

7 hours ago, Michael said:

I have to completely agree with you, in regards to the referendum bringing the scum out of the woodwork. It's as if certain scumbags saw the Brexit vote as the green light that allowed them to be overtly racist and xenophobic.

I remember I was back visiting England in 2017, on my way to stay with family. I got on a bus and sat near the back. About 10 minutes into my journey, a couple of yobs in their 50's started telling a Bulgarian sounding woman to speak English. She was speaking in what sounded like Bulgarian to her mum and these two yobs kept hassling her. After noticing that no person on the bus was saying anything against their actions, I decided to approach the two yobs and politely but firmly tell them to leave her alone. The big fat one, said stay out of it mate. I once again told them to leave her alone. She was clearly distressed but proceeded to give them a piece of her mind as well(in very good English I may add). She then got off at the next stop and I then said to the pair of them that they were both an embarrassment. They were saying some ignorant stuff to me as I walked back to my seat, but this incident was a bit of an eye opener. 

Your recollection of your university days reminded me of very similar incidents of when I was at university. I had a friend at university called Ilyas whose father was Pakistani and his mother was English. But he was very westernised and a big part of our group of friends. Most of us played football but not all in the same team. I remember a couple of other friends and I went to watch Ilyas play football. I was shocked while hearing him receive racial abuse several times during the game. He played at right back and we stood on the side of the pitch where he was playing, so we heard a lot of what was going on. Clearly other people, besides us, heard it as well, yet surprisingly nothing was said. Ilyas never reacted to the abuse on the field, neither did he talk about it after the game, although we did discuss it with him a few days later. But I felt a lot of empathy for him that day.

I think that it's a very sad state of affairs that there is still quite a lot of overt racism that still goes on in this day and age. One would think that in these big, multicultural university cities, there would be more tolerance. But unfortunately, on many occasions that's not quite the case.

Having said that, I do believe that the UK has become much less racist than it was back in the past. I do think that there are much fewer racists than there were before, as education and awareness on such matters, has improved. However, I believe the issue is that those who are racist today, are much more vocal with their racist sentiments. As you mentioned, some of the stuff one reads online is appalling, with the 'P' word and the 'N' word frequently being used, among other disgusting racial slurs. I often wonder how many of these online hate crimes are reported and subsequently dealt with in the appropriate manner.

I'm sorry about the abuse you have received in the past, but at the end of the day, we all know that these people are just ignorant fools. Increased education on such matters will hopefully reduce the bigoted opinions that some people hold.

 

Mate, thank you for your apology but it's not you who should be doing so . I appreciate the sentiment, of course  

You're totally right about education. I'd have far more respect for someone who educates themselves and changes their ways as opposed to just stays in denial and is stubborn as fuck like we saw with the Chelsea fan. I feel sorry for their kids who have to live and be 'educated' as they watch that behaviour. I hope they realise the right thing to do before it becomes too ingrained in their ways. 

As for your friend Ilyas, not only with myself but anyone else I saw suffer the same kind of jibes/abuse, but barely anyone would speak up or say anything. Maybe it's fear of repercussion from the 'abuser' and I can appreciate that especially if it's not just one person you could be up against.

I commend those who stand up to them like yourself with the guys on the bus. In this day and age you never know what could happen or what someone could be hiding i.e. knives especially these days in bigger cities like Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, London etc... I'm not surprised people are afraid to speak up directly cos you never know what might set someone off and before you know it there's a big knife pulled out on you. Thankfully in this country, in most of those big cities, there are ways to report it (definitely in London with their TfL service there's easy ways to report things, even discretely. How much that service gets used I do not know but in most stations in London there's heavy police/security presence to report things to in person if need be.

[Machado]

Cringe.

 

[MUFC]

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/06/26/motorsport/bernie-ecclestone-formula-one-motorsport-lewis-hamilton-spt-intl/index.html

[Michael]

16 hours ago, Stan said:

Mate, thank you for your apology but it's not you who should be doing so . I appreciate the sentiment, of course  

You're totally right about education. I'd have far more respect for someone who educates themselves and changes their ways as opposed to just stays in denial and is stubborn as fuck like we saw with the Chelsea fan. I feel sorry for their kids who have to live and be 'educated' as they watch that behaviour. I hope they realise the right thing to do before it becomes too ingrained in their ways. 

As for your friend Ilyas, not only with myself but anyone else I saw suffer the same kind of jibes/abuse, but barely anyone would speak up or say anything. Maybe it's fear of repercussion from the 'abuser' and I can appreciate that especially if it's not just one person you could be up against.

I commend those who stand up to them like yourself with the guys on the bus. In this day and age you never know what could happen or what someone could be hiding i.e. knives especially these days in bigger cities like Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, London etc... I'm not surprised people are afraid to speak up directly cos you never know what might set someone off and before you know it there's a big knife pulled out on you. Thankfully in this country, in most of those big cities, there are ways to report it (definitely in London with their TfL service there's easy ways to report things, even discretely. How much that service gets used I do not know but in most stations in London there's heavy police/security presence to report things to in person if need be.

Yes, the parents are a big part of the problem. They feed their children their racist views from a young age and normalise racism in the household. I have seen several examples of such people and they are usually the unsuccessful working class type, who will blame everything on people they deem to be foreign. There's nothing wrong with the working classes by the way, they are the backbone of this country. However, I am talking about a specific segment of the working class who seem to have these bigoted opinions. You will meet many of these kinds of people in countries like Spain or Cyprus, where they continuously complain about the UK, claiming that the foreigners or non white English people are the problem. Ironically, it's these same people who themselves do not integrate into Spanish or Greek society, instead preferring to form their own communities overseas.

I definitely believe that not speaking up is a huge issue, when it comes to racism, xenophobia or bullying. I didn't speak up, despite being shocked when my Uni mate Ilyas was receiving racist abuse, mainly because I was still very naive and young at 19. I was brought up in the sticks you see and when I went to University, it was the first time I had lived in a cosmopolitan city. That's no excuse though and I should have said something, despite the fact that no one else stuck up for him. Many people keep quite because they want to avoid conflict themselves, but that is the wrong attitude to have if you are a person with strong principles. As a society, I believe that we should all be encouraged to stand up for what is right,

The incident on the bus was only a few years ago and I felt compelled to say something. If the situation is quite hostile, then I wouldn't expect women or older people to speak up, because there could be repercussions. But an able bodied male should always speak up and defend the victim, unless he realises that there is a great danger in him doing so. 

But yeah, I think that education is the way forward in tackling such debased behaviours such as racism and a zero tolerance for it is essential for our society to prosper.

 

[Michael]

On 24/06/2020 at 18:35, nudge said:

I worked for two companies where we dealt with British customers directly (over the phone/email), some of the unprovoked "racial" and xenophobic abuse me and my colleagues experienced on a daily basis was just vile, so I can only imagine how bad it can be for people of different ethnicity living there. I say "racial" in quotation marks because none of us were actually of different race, but that didn't stop the stupid ignorant pricks from hurling all possible insults our way, just because they were able to notice the accent, but were too dumb to figure out what it was. Funny thing, our CEO was actually English, and some customers still managed to call him a "fucking Indian" on some occasions, so go figure...  

 

I know the type you are talking about, my mum used to always say that those kinds of people make her feel ashamed to be English. I think these specific types of people are actually unhappy with their lives deep down and perhaps have a low self esteem. They cling on to the only thing they see which gives them value and that is the fact that they are English. Those arseholes who gave you grief were obviously losers and they were clearly taking out their frustrations from their sad lives out on you. Sorry you had to put up with that crap, they are not a representation of real Englishmen.

[Bluebird Hewitt]

On 24/06/2020 at 14:11, Cicero said:

Bunch of BLM protesters last night removed, destroyed, and vandalised a statue at a state capital in Wisconsin. Stating the statue didn't represent progression. Failing to realise the individual the statue was representing was an anti-slavery activist & abolitionist.

On top of their oversight, they  also attacked a democratic senator. 

See, this sort of thing doesn't help matters at all really. 

I'd be curious to know how many black people think the BLM group help or hinder them in trying to make a difference for black people. 

On 24/06/2020 at 16:14, Stan said:

Personally, none directly recently. I'd say it was more prevalent around university and the years leading up to it. A lot of it on a football pitch (Sunday League) and in school matches or nights out. Usual taunts of 'you're a paki', 'go back to where you came from', 'go back to your own country' etc, presumption of being Muslim (which is wrong in itself) and racial comments about them, or curry-related jibes - all of which I'm sure if you questioned the person saying it, they'd say it was only 'banter' or 'I was only joking, he can take it'. The biggest yet worst cop-out there is, when they say that. They mean it unless they get caught up on it. Much like those celebs who are only sorry they get caught...

The worrying thing was that if you complained to the ref they'd straight away say they didn't hear it or just ignore you. 

My parents suffered more before I was born (racism was so much more prevalent and in your face then by their account, especially in school; nowadays social media gives rise to keyboard warriors and a voice to those who would say fuck all in person). 

As for people my age being less racist. It's hard to tell. On social media I see so many people (usually those accompanied by Union Jack/England flags in their usernames) or severely bad spelling, and you look in to their profiles a bit and they're parents or family people, much older or much younger (I'm 29). The current climate since referendum has brought a lot of scum out of the woodwork though when you see their rants or statuses on Facebook or comments on Twitter. They're hastily de-friended/unfollowed - even if you do try to reason with them. Thankfully they are in the minority. 

Shame to hear about that. I really do hate us for things like this.

It'd be interesting to know if your folks believe that racism (against them at least) has increased or decreased over the years in the UK. Nothing more than curiosity really. 

On 24/06/2020 at 16:35, nudge said:

I worked for two companies where we dealt with British customers directly (over the phone/email), some of the unprovoked "racial" and xenophobic abuse me and my colleagues experienced on a daily basis was just vile, so I can only imagine how bad it can be for people of different ethnicity living there. I say "racial" in quotation marks because none of us were actually of different race, but that didn't stop the stupid ignorant pricks from hurling all possible insults our way, just because they were able to notice the accent, but were too dumb to figure out what it was. Funny thing, our CEO was actually English, and some customers still managed to call him a "fucking Indian" on some occasions, so go figure...  

As mentioned above with Stan in hating us for things like this. I really do. 

On 24/06/2020 at 18:55, Dr. Gonzo said:

Wow, that's fucked up.

From my experience being a pretty white looking guy that's half Middle Eastern, I've not really experienced much direct racism towards me. Although my mum's experienced some of that shite after leaving Iran, especially while she was at uni. My uncle got the shit kicked out of him a few times for being brown in the 80s, so there's that too. And what I've personally experienced in the UK is people saying some pretty bigoted shit about Muslims and people from the Middle East right to my face, not knowing where my mum is from and not expecting me to take offense to the shite they said.

It's weird, because I think most people in the UK aren't racist... but those who are racist are pretty shamelessly open about their racism.

Like with Stan, it'd be interesting to know whether racism has increased or decreased in the UK with your mum and uncle. Again, nothing more than curiousity.

[Stan]

3 minutes ago, Bluebird Hewitt said:

Shame to hear about that. I really do hate us for things like this.

It'd be interesting to know if your folks believe that racism (against them at least) has increased or decreased over the years in the UK. Nothing more than curiosity really. 

I'd say it's decreased. Because of how prevalent it was in the 70s/80s - how vocal people were about it, the sheer volume they (and other Asians) would experience - people in general are more receptive to other cultures nowadays and more accepting. Especially for their generation as well. So many people talk about 'integration', especially one member on here, but even when Asians try to integrate, they're not always reciprocated with the same respect. I totally understand that if you come to this country you should learn the language, learn the culture and respect the laws and rules here and not impose your own to the point where you disrespect the country you're in. That's where it rightly becomes a problem. But my parents did that. My grandparents did that. They all integrated (in Leicester at the time). They all worked. They all paid their way and worked ridiculously hard to give myself, my brother and extended family of similar age to me the life we can live now. Were they met with respect? Nah. Not in the slightest. Either by their peers in school or as they grew up. But hey, they're all happy to eat our Asian food and happy to use our 'Paki' cornershops and taxi services, right? They had to fight (not physically) their way up to well-paid jobs and work so much harder to succeed. 

In terms of similarity to my own experience, direct racism towards them has decreased, for sure. They've never come home after going out to town or restaurants or shops etc and said an incident happened. What they're of course not blind to is how Asian people are treated in some parts of the country. Maybe it's because we live in a very diverse town (Bedford) - there are a lot different cultures to experience. Aside from the airheaded cunts on the local FB groups/other social media who think it should only be a white country, for the most part it's very accepting of different cultures, races and religions. We all love where we live. Not to say racist incidents haven't happened here (I'm dealing with a racial hate crime case for work now), but when it comes to my parents/family, definitely decreased since they were younger.   

[Bluebird Hewitt]

That's good to hear @Stan. I only mentioned your folks more than yourself as they would have experienced more of a difference (good or bad) due to the generational difference (basically comparing the 70's and 80's to the present as you mentioned). 

[Stan]

14 minutes ago, Bluebird Hewitt said:

That's good to hear @Stan. I only mentioned your folks more than yourself as they would have experienced more of a difference (good or bad) due to the generational difference (basically comparing the 70's and 80's to the present as you mentioned). 

Yeah no worries. My experience anyway barely scratches the surface of theirs or what my extended family would have suffered. I dread to think what it'd be like going to school or growing up in such an environment would have been like. 

[Dr. Gonzo]

2 hours ago, Bluebird Hewitt said:

Like with Stan, it'd be interesting to know whether racism has increased or decreased in the UK with your mum and uncle. Again, nothing more than curiousity.

I think overall they’d say the racism/Islamaphobia they’ve experienced has decreased. They came to the UK around the Iranian revolution - so there are a few incidents that sort of shaped how racists viewed them, I think. First, the revolution, then the two hostage crises - one in Tehran in the US embassy & one in London in Iran’s embassy to Tehran. And you know... having a different colour skin in the 80s.

My mum mostly just faced verbal abuse for being from a different country and culture at school and at uni. And she says it was mostly early on in her time at the UK, when she was extra shit at speaking English.

My uncle definitely experienced the racism more, I’d say, with people beating him up over being brown and from a different place. As far as I know, my mum’s abuse was only verbal and never physical.

I do know the amount of racism they experienced eventually “got better” in terms of it outwardly having to deal with racist abuse constantly. But I know they still put up with some of that shit some of the time, because I’ve been to M&S with my mum when some random racist idiot has made some comments. I wouldn’t say that’s common and I think a lot of that is just people seeing a Middle Easterner and just thinking “OMG TERRRORIST”. Which I feel like is actually probably the same reason my uncle would get the shit kicked out of him.

So I’d say for them, racism’s gotten better by a lot in the UK since the 80s. But it’s not something they never have to deal with, really. And I think whenever there’s an incident where our media starts pushing Islamaphobia pretty hard, is probably around when they’re most likely to hear outward racial comments about them in public.

Imo, most bigots aren’t vocal about their bigotry unless they feel empowered to openly be bigots. So for Middle Eastern immigrants to the UK, I feel they mostly feel the brunt of bigotry towards them when the media goes mental about “Muslims” and “immigrants” and lumps in everybody from these really diverse groups together to make it seem as though all Muslims in the UK have some sort of hive mind to take over the UK.

[Mpache]

Seems a Latina soldier was killed by higher authorities (I think). 

I'm definitely not one of those "they should protest for us like they did with BLM" people, but I can say that I've been racially discriminated before for being Latino. Obviously nowhere near as bad as this, but I have been discriminated, is all I'm saying. 

 

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Mpache said:

Seems a Latina soldier was killed by higher authorities (I think). 

I'm definitely not one of those "they should protest for us like they did with BLM" people, but I can say that I've been racially discriminated before for being Latino. Obviously nowhere near as bad as this, but I have been discriminated, is all I'm saying. 

 

In Britain we don't really hear about latino discrimination  because we don't have many over here.  I know it is an issue though in north and south America. Seems trump American supporters like to blame Latinos and black people for everything bad.

[Guest]

So this guy basically says he doesn't like the BLM protests because it is spreading coronavirus but then admits he is going on a march the next day to protect the statues. 

[Harry]

Honestly I do think the protests should be blamed (in a proportionate way, based on actual evidence) for their contribution for spreading coronavirus. 

That is definitely an issue that is hard to discuss in a proper way, and should be kept in context. I totally support the cause, particularly in America, but we've got suburbs going back into lockdown due to a second wave, and that fucks livelihoods, and there will be a degree of that linked to those protests. It will be hard to get a picture of the extent to which the protests did contribute, as one side will be aiming to blame them entirely, and the other side will be inclined to downplay their involvement.

[Guest]

8 hours ago, Harry said:

Honestly I do think the protests should be blamed (in a proportionate way, based on actual evidence) for their contribution for spreading coronavirus. 

That is definitely an issue that is hard to discuss in a proper way, and should be kept in context. I totally support the cause, particularly in America, but we've got suburbs going back into lockdown due to a second wave, and that fucks livelihoods, and there will be a degree of that linked to those protests. It will be hard to get a picture of the extent to which the protests did contribute, as one side will be aiming to blame them entirely, and the other side will be inclined to downplay their involvement.

I think it is used by racist people as a justification to spread hate though. I mean look at the video I posted. The guy said it was wrong because of the virus but then said he was going to an anti protest.

[Guest]

On 23/06/2020 at 20:49, nudge said:

Are those people Americans, by any chance? They seem to label anyone who thinks differently or who wants a societal change a communist, it's like kryptonite for them  

Going back to this. When Martin Luther king was alive and trying to end segregation people said the same thing.  Ending  segregation was communism, Marxism etc. Just seems to be history repeating itself.

[Bluewolf]

I was going to put this in the Snowflakes thread but as it's come off the back of this I will put it in here.... I was reading and article this week where they are saying that Sky Sports are no longer allowed to use the words 'Nitty Gritty' because someone has claimed ( although unproven ) that this is somehow linked to slavery ( maybe, but they are not sure ) from 1740 or some time way back when @CaaC (John) was a nipper... Just waiting for them to tell us that the word 'cotton' is no longer allowed to be uttered or the phrase " wait a cotton picking minute" 

[RandoEFC+]

Again, I know nobody in this thread is doing so but anyone who is remotely arsed whether or not Sky Sports commentators use the term nitty gritty and calls other people snowflakes might need to take a look in the mirror.

[Stan]

12 minutes ago, RandoEFC said:

Again, I know nobody in this thread is doing so but anyone who is remotely arsed whether or not Sky Sports commentators use the term nitty gritty and calls other people snowflakes might need to take a look in the mirror.

Yeah I cba with that

 

[nudge]

I would argue that most of those people are not "remotely arsed" about commentators using specific phrases though, but rather about what they perceive as an increasing censorship of things with no valid reason (whether it's speech, public communication, music, books, tv shows, movies or anything else). Big difference, imo.

[Guest]

51 minutes ago, RandoEFC said:

Again, I know nobody in this thread is doing so but anyone who is remotely arsed whether or not Sky Sports commentators use the term nitty gritty and calls other people snowflakes might need to take a look in the mirror.

There is a bit of a generation  issue. I don't mean to sound like I'm discriminating against the older generation. However in my experience there is an issue with older people not knowing why something is considered racist and assuming it is people being over sensitive. I think this is quite reasonable though and most of us will be the same in 40 years. So I think we have to be patient and understanding 

[Guest]

12 minutes ago, nudge said:

I would argue that most of those people are not "remotely arsed" about commentators using specific phrases though, but rather about what they perceive as an increasing censorship of things with no valid reason (whether it's speech, public communication, music, books, tv shows, movies or anything else). Big difference, imo.

I think part if the problem is that some people are concentrating on casual and unintentual  racism  that many black or ethnic minority are not offended by. I do wonder whether this is causing some issues because some people feel they are being called racist when that is not there attention. This means that they are being put in the same category as people who are very intentionally racist. However I do also believe that it isn't someone like me,s(a white British male) place to tell someone who is black or ethnic minority that something isn't offensive. I think the main priority has to be stopping racism. Is concentrating on smaller issues maybe causing more problems at the moment and making things worse? 

@Stan as someone who is part of an ethnic minority. What are your thoughts?