Racist - The Bear and Badger

LivDiv

Got to admit Lammy's tweet made me laugh when it really shouldn't
"What next #knifefree watermelons"

GooberTheHat

Please tell me if I'm being a moran here, because it's quite possible I am, but is it really so bad?

If we disregard the actual campaign (I've no idea if that type of messaging will have any effect) but focus on the reasons why they've chosen that particular platform (takeaway chicken boxes) why is it such a bad idea.

I have to make some assumptions here, so that might be my first mistake, but if we assume that:

a) someone involved in the campaign had access to some statistical data and analysed it correctly.
b) that statistical data showed that the demographic factors that indicate that someone is more likely than average to be involved in knife crime, have significant overlap with the demographic factors of customers of fast food chicken restaurants.

If that's the case then isn't it a sensible strategy to target those locations?

acemuzzy

I'm not sure the home office deserve the benefit of the doubt these days, particular when the same decision would have been made via a conversation along the lines of
"Who does all the stabbings?"
"Black people"
"Where do they all go where we can coming advertise to them?"
"Fried chicken shops"
"Ok, do it."

GooberTheHat

If it was just based on a hunch or gut feeling, without any rigor in it's conception then fair enough to call it out. But I'm not so jaded yet that I assume that to be the case.

dynamiteReady

I wonder if this is a misguided application of 'nudge' theory.
Truth is, there are probably a whole range of other approaches that would cost less.

For example, I bet the 'chicken shop demographic' overlays with Premier league fans perfectly. As an advertising target, it has a larger reach, and the clubs would happily subsidise the advertising spend.

Not that I think that would be an effective approach either.
The approach trialled in Glasgow works.

Think of it this way, if you want a rational counterpoint.
If you want to reduce cybercrime, would you launch an ad campaign on 4Chan, or even Reddit, pleading with people to stop?

How much success will you think that will have?

And again, it's perpetuating a stereotype and alienating the very people who are trying to help.

Moot_Geeza

I don't see the problem if the end game is 'please stop stabbing each other, kids', even if the supposed undertone is 'please stop stabbing each other, black kids'. Teenagers eat a lot of fried chicken and an unfortunate number of teenagers choose to carry knives. Not running a campaign that hopes to save lives just in case it's construed as only trying to save black lives would be a sorry state of affairs, surely? A 15 year old was fatally stabbed in the neck with a machete outside my local chicken shop fairly recently. I'd imagine his parents would give this campaign their blessing.

acemuzzy

Dyno's final paragraph is the risk, for me, however well intentiones

dynamiteReady

Domestic violence mitigation messages on Stella Artois and Foster cans then, it is.

Wonder why that 'Kick it out of Football' campaign appears to have coincided with a rise with racist incidents around the game over time?

Probably because adverts asking criminals to politely stop committing crime, don't work. Much worse also, when they're reinforcing bigoted ideas.

dynamiteReady

Because I know I'll be asked for a source.
From the horse's mouth.

Moot_Geeza

dynamiteReady wrote:

Think of it this way, if you want a rational counterpoint. If you want to reduce cybercrime, would you launch an ad campaign on 4Chan, or even Reddit, pleading with people to stop? How much success will you think that will have? And again, it's perpetuating a stereotype and alienating the very people who are trying to help.

Very little success, as ever with any of these things, but 'very little success' equating to 'a few dozen less passwords being pinched per year' is a different kettle of fish to even, potentially, one or two less fatal stabbings. It's worth a crack imo, and it sounds like they may be encouraging a public health angle with the positive stories and footage on screens. I dunno, it honestly just strikes me as worth a shot and I'd like to think many of the people involved in organising it give a shit quite deeply.

Paul the sparky

dynamiteReady wrote:

Because I know I'll be asked for a source.
From the horse's mouth.

The reports have risen, which is actually a good thing as we're seeing incidents of racism in football acted upon. Contrast that with the 80s and we're heading in the right direction, Shirley?

hunk

GooberTheHat wrote:

Please tell me if I'm being a moran here, because it's quite possible I am, but is it really so bad?

If we disregard the actual campaign (I've no idea if that type of messaging will have any effect) but focus on the reasons why they've chosen that particular platform (takeaway chicken boxes) why is it such a bad idea.

I have to make some assumptions here, so that might be my first mistake, but if we assume that:

a) someone involved in the campaign had access to some statistical data and analysed it correctly.
b) that statistical data showed that the demographic factors that indicate that someone is more likely than average to be involved in knife crime, have significant overlap with the demographic factors of customers of fast food chicken restaurants.

If that's the case then isn't it a sensible strategy to target those locations?

It simplifies a complex problem (stabbing and youth gang violence) due to poverty/social inequality into a racist joke: please stop stabbing each other kidz, we know you blacks peeps like kfc, corn cobs and watermelons and thus are reading this message! Please stop!

It is a shit method (preaching to desperate youth) and doesn't do anything to solve the true problem at the heart of the matter. It's something 4/8chan could and would come up with and post on their message boards for lulz. But then again the mainstream right of today is slowly creeping up to and rubbing shoulders with the alt- and far right. I can easily see some Tory doofus approving such a campaign thinking (nay, believing) it is the right thing to do.

Moot_Geeza

hunk wrote:

It's something 4/8chan could and would come up with and post on their message boards for lulz.

Despite not thinking the campaign is a bad idea overall, this does sound about right.

Facewon

Moot_Geeza wrote:

I don't see the problem if the end game is 'please stop stabbing each other, kids', even if the supposed undertone is 'please stop stabbing each other, black kids'. Teenagers eat a lot of fried chicken and an unfortunate number of teenagers choose to carry knives. Not running a campaign that hopes to save lives just in case it's construed as only trying to save black lives would be a sorry state of affairs, surely? A 15 year old was fatally stabbed in the neck with a machete outside my local chicken shop fairly recently. I'd imagine his parents would give this campaign their blessing.

Yeah, I'm not sure you got the angle quite right there. It'll be construed as saying that black kids do the knifing, not saving black kids.

davyK

Not sure if racism is involved here - I always thought the fried chicken and black folk thing was a US cultural thing. I have to confess to not make that connection for several seconds on reading that article.

What is involved is a total lack of joined up thinking. It seems to have been a wizard wheeze dreamt up on the spot instead of part of an education/communications plan which itself would be part of an overall strategy for dealing with knife crime (or an even a wider strategy about youth development / opportunities etc)

nick_md

Whether it's intentionally racist or accidentally racist or whatever, it's a fucking massive error of judgement.

Yossarian

davyK wrote:

Not sure if racism is involved here - I always though the fried chicken and black folk thing was a US cultural thing.

It’s also a Caribbean thing, and an awful lot of the black people in the U.K. have Caribbean heritage.

davyK

Ah...yeah. My Irish view creeping in there.

Jesus yeah. What a bunch of morons.

Actually it does make one wonder if it is subconscious racism which is hard to deal with.

b0r1s

I do think this is misjudged. Not by its targeting but by the thought that this would positively impact the black community. It is trying to stick a thin plaster on a deep cut (no knife pun intended).

I do believe that ethnic communities have a responsibility to try to fix the specific social issues that affect their cultural origins and they are best placed to understand what those issues are. However, I believe these people exist. They are just not consulted or considered when government comes up with these stupid schemes.

Roujin

Imagine if instead of printing messages begging kids to stop stabbing each other, the government actually bothered to put stone money into making the world these kids live in a lot less desperate and shitty and devoid of opportunities to try and make a better life for themselves?

This is as stupid as the radio adverts where Kevin used to be in a gang but then he got a job delivering stuff, or went to college, so pls just go knife free kids and make your life better somehow, even though we took most of your access to things that would improve your lives away over the last 10 years.

b0r1s

Yep and that is how the money should be spent but within the communities. It will have buy in if it comes from people who are trusted. Government twats just aren’t.

Moot_Geeza

Facewon wrote:

I don't see the problem if the end game is 'please stop stabbing each other, kids', even if the supposed undertone is 'please stop stabbing each other, black kids'. Teenagers eat a lot of fried chicken and an unfortunate number of teenagers choose to carry knives. Not running a campaign that hopes to save lives just in case it's construed as only trying to save black lives would be a sorry state of affairs, surely? A 15 year old was fatally stabbed in the neck with a machete outside my local chicken shop fairly recently. I'd imagine his parents would give this campaign their blessing.

Yeah, I'm not sure you got the angle quite right there. It'll be construed as saying that black kids do the knifing, not saving black kids.

I worded that bit bizarrely, yup. What I meant was that if you highlight the racial stereotyping angle, which I'm aware is hiding in plain sight, you'd have to acknowledge the accompanying good intentions/potential (if fanciful) positive results for the groups you feel it's denigrating. It's ham fisted and there would be better ways to spend the money but I think it'd be better to have it exist than not.

hunk

It's a 4chan prank.
It's ineffective, it's a waste of money.

dynamiteReady

Paul the sparky wrote:

Because I know I'll be asked for a source. From the horse's mouth.

The reports have risen, which is actually a good thing as we're seeing incidents of racism in football acted upon. Contrast that with the 80s and we're heading in the right direction, Shirley?

A bit of a distraction but, yes. Things have changed in the UK at least.

The change since the 80s can probably be attributed to the introduction of black players to the professional game, and the success that meritocratic decision brought to the teams.

Not just that, but as more money poured into the game, the state had spent more on resources to prevent the likes of rioting, pitch invasions, crowd control and the like. And racist behaviour was often closely linked to that (i.e. Milwall).

I'd wager that the kick it out campaign itself has had the most marginal effect on racism in the game. But how would you quantify that?

Further to that, for all we know right now, the 'wholesale' drop in crime at football matches in the UK (racism and hooliganism included), generally, more likely coincided with the introduction all-seating stadiums than anything else...

Tbh, I've not looked at this in any detail, but I bet that sounds more plausible than the effect of a few patronising adverts that I'm sure very few people will ever recall.

b0r1s

I’m not sure it is better for it to exist.

It actually creates more tension than having done nothing. You get the white right then saying what’s all the fuss about, or even worse reading the news and even more associating knife crime with the black community and it spirals down.

Meanwhile the young black kids are seeing just lip service again and their lives aren’t better. They just get to read some shitty story while eating dinner.

hunk

This week's long read in the Graun is quite interesting. How far right ideas infiltrated main stream politics.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/16/the-myth-of-eurabia-how-a-far-right-conspiracy-theory-went-mainstream

Also, Bannon (2016) happened.

Yossarian

There’s more than one per week, I was just reading one from yesterday on the evolution of language which was also interesting if not relevant to this thread. I may post it elsewhere.

dynamiteReady

Here's another take on this chicken shop idea, that suggests that this stupid campaign might actually cause an increase in knife crime:

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/chicken-shops-home-office-knife-crime_uk_5d5538f5e4b0eb875f1fd8ea

The basic idea is based on a study that effectively suggests that not all publicity is good publicity... Sometimes, publicity will merely normalise behaviour by implying prevalence.

Moot_Geeza

Interesting take. Perhaps I need to have a word with myself but I still don't quite get the level of hate for the campaign. Part of the problem seems to be that 'chicken shop' makes many people think 'black people' (and only black people), whereas in my experience they're easily the most multiracial take-away outlets if we're focusing on teenagers (which this campaign is). Chicken shop = young people, ergo an anti knife crime scheme could do a lot worse than starting off there.

hunk

Roujin wrote:

Imagine if instead of printing messages begging kids to stop stabbing each other, the government actually bothered to put stone money into making the world these kids live in a lot less desperate and shitty and devoid of opportunities to try and make a better life for themselves? This is as stupid as the radio adverts where Kevin used to be in a gang but then he got a job delivering stuff, or went to college, so pls just go knife free kids and make your life better somehow, even though we took most of your access to things that would improve your lives away over the last 10 years.

@Moot
It's not just the racist thing, it's the whole dumb 'it's not austerity' preaching angle. 'We can't help it you don't have any outlook on life'.

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