@Gonz... from earlier ITT..

b0r1s wrote:

I was last directly racially abused openly about 10 years ago when I got called a “fucking p**i” by a couple of drunk women. More recently I was not targeted personally but people I knew openly made comments that I found offensive about mixed race people. When I pulled the guy on it and said you do know I am mixed race and that my dad is black he couldn’t climb down quick enough. Stuttering fuck tried to say it wasn’t what he meant. Later discovered he thought I was Greek or someone Mediterranean so he figures I’ll be fine with it. There’s two levels of racism. The stuff you read about and the insidious shit that your white middle classes love to spout when they think they are safe.

And thinking back, when I was young (7 to 10) I got into a lot of fights with white lads, I had a particularly nice mini-fro (thanks mom) going on. I lived on a council estate where I am sure Bernard Manning would have been the typical comedy. I regularly got verbal abuse, so I would hit them and then get the cane. I then moved to a more mixed area and hung around with a mix of races.

I've had racism at work, at different levels, and some intentional, some they don't realise what they are saying. Had a boss once drop "N****er in a woodpile" in a meeting once, some people looked at me shocked. I'd never even heard the phrase before (why would I?). I just laughed it off. What could I do he was my boss who owned the company and he genuinely was great to me throughout my three years working with him. He apologised in the most uncomfortable way.

I also once managed a team of factory workers and got the odd comments. I guess the worst was when I came in once day and they had The Sun open left on my desk with my name scrawled across the picture of a gorilla. Have to say, I much preferred working with the night shift who were a much more multicultural mix and we all got on great.

I also, during the head shaved years, got called a Nazi by two black girls getting off a bus. I just laughed because of the irony.

I've had casual cultural racism from I guess the black side of my family too... the too white comments, which is odd seeing as half of them are married to white people, but I'm sure they just see it as ribbing and banter. It always made me feel excluded a bit.

Worst of both worlds. I'm sure there's more but those are the bits that stand out.

DrewMerson wrote:

The causes are also complex and layered.

It all started as a gold rush my friend.

And after several hundred years, we're now claiming it's something else.

But now, in bickering, I would feel bad about undoing the excellent work Gonz has done here.

Not something I write often :}

DrewMerson wrote:

At the risk of derailing, when do you think racism started?

Dude what chance does anyone have of answering that question.

Actually Drew, you're demanding answers to my questions, but have ignored mine. Our currently line of discussion will have to cease untill you go back and attempt to answer the questions I left for you.

I think that's fair.

DrewMerson wrote:

*snip*

Appreciated, Drew.

I also owe you an answer to your question, and I will even endeavour to answer it, without lamenting the spirit in which it was asked.

But first, if only for myself, I want to recap on a few points, starting with the one that was probably seen as the most contentious.

The effectiveness of 'Cultural Awareness' in the fight against racism:

I think the point that most people have taken exception to, is best illustrated by the replies I made to these posts:

dynamiteReady wrote:

When you get to the point of saying that people who are trying to treat everyone equally and not be racist are being subconsciously racist, then to my mind it starts to get a bit silly.

Absolutely. It's not that complicated. But perhaps that's just me exhibiting a lack of sophistication.

I would think, looking back, this is the most contentious part:

dynamiteReady wrote:

Call me an extremist, but I think the best thing to do, is punish obvious transgressions in a way that people can't even play with the idea that:  

its important to acknowledge that gap between treating somebody as equal and recognising that society or parts of society don't, so they are effectively not equal.

  

The way your post reads, is that you think that missing a penalty comes down to a question of race, character and not plain bad luck: 

Every bit of pressure on Kane and Maguire was the same and more on the other three players simply because they aren't white.

Can you see, from the above, why I'd prefer people to step back from this cultural awareness thing? I'm sure your post was coming from a decent place, but look what I did with it.  A can of worms, right there. The only real answer, is to punish people piecemeal for racism. 

If the transgressors are truly a 'minority', then a clampdown won't cost much, I'm sure.

You know, picking out Liv was the only misgiving I had. Having met some of you guys in person, outside of the Mordor mans, Liv was one of the guys I've enjoyed drinking with the most. I can still remember the time when he came out with a group of us when some of us met Tempy for the first time, and went out for drinks around Tower Bridge (Chicken Cottage ;}).

If he is racist, he hides it extremely fucking well.
When I said I felt "insensitive, maybe." (remember that?), this was honestly the only thing I meant. It's still all love, Liv. So I'm sorry if I did hurt your feelings on it. But I was, and still am, very still keen on making that point.

In fact, you weren't the first person I tried to pull up on this 'cultural awareness' thing. I've been trying to make this point for a month:
http://thebearandbadger.co.uk/discussion/comment/1962451#Comment_1962451

I think the mistake I made, was in hoping that people would see I was trying to make an honest point, drawn from heartfelt experience.
Pathos, if you will. I was wrong. So where I can, I'll try to use the supporting view of an expert to support the points I try to make on here in the future. 
But I think it's unfair for people to always expect that, in an argument about a subject as emotive as racism.

Anyway, to support this specific point, I offered the following link:
https://www.luther.edu/ideas-creations-blog/?story_id=621790

To which Drew replied:

DrewMerson wrote:

That's how I feel. Here's the source - https://www.luther.edu/ideas-creations-blog/?story_id=621790

Like a good boy, I’ve gone to the source and, yes, I would somewhat disagree with her. The ‘cultural competence’ that she describes is having a knowledge of the exact practices of other cultures. It’s knowing what Eid is, or how modern Christians observe Lent, or knowing the process of washing your hands and clapping at a Japanese Shinto temple. To a degree, she is right: that won’t stop an existing racist being racist, and may even provide ammo to some.

In 'the interest of sport', here's the entirety of your reply:
http://thebearandbadger.co.uk/discussion/comment/1981133#Comment_1981133

In your reply, you raised questions about the expert's alternative to 'cultural awareness' programs, and we've established the fact that we agree about that.

There is admittedly more here to discuss, always will be. And you might not believe it to be a fair summary. 
But so far, lets be honest. I've demonstrated the fact that I have read your posts, and I am not making personal remarks (yet).

Lets move on.

Racism is simple:

Actually, at first, I'll admit, I was extremely surprised by your response and Funk's (when taken objectively, without name calling).
I thought it was the one thing that (active) victims of racism and progressive political thinkers agree on. And I do like to think of all of you guys as progressives. I like to think I share many of your views on most subjects, even if I tend not to sit comfortably in most of the bubbles that inflate here.

Anyway, we all know how this one started...

Funkstain wrote:

No you’re just reducing racism from complex sociopolitical contexts and human interplay and divisive political leaders and structural historical ingrained issues to its most simple symptom: dehumanising a group of humans by demonising and othering and insulting some of its members. A straightforward obvious statement like “people shouldn’t be racist to each other” which is what you’ve said there doesn’t add much to the conversation, nor does it provide any solutions, clear of otherwise, to prevent that kind of behaviour other than its bad and let’s sign a petition But sure let’s reduce human thought and discussion into “duh it’s so obvious” and tell anyone who thinks there’s more to it that there’s nasty lecturing and condescension going on great work

An addendum. That petition...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p09pnkgt

I did not know who they were until I signed that petition. It genuinely warmed my heart to see it was three young Muslim women, who put the work into drafting a petition to protect three young black men. I digress.

If I appeared to be condescending, sorry. 
But to be honest Funk, I think this is a case of the pot... Actually... wait.

Why do I believe racism is simple? There are many, very straightforward definitions of racism, and I will throw an extended version of the classic one up later.

I did want to run off to Wikipedia to copy some notes, but when active victims of racism aim to to define it, we think of something very particular. And that particular notion was succinctly expressed, almost exactly as I think of it, by Davy, who's roots are probably more self evidently 'white European' than anyone here:

davyK wrote:

Britain doesn't care about us. We were invaded, had our land grabbed. Had food exported while we starved. Had people living on land sold as part of it. Then when they eventually left they fucked it up by splitting the place asunder, keeping the industrial North for themselves. And this is the legacy, a population poisoned and set against each other. Shame on them.

You can almost take that quote, insert race/country in place of the fifth word, offer it to anyone in the world who is not white, and ask them to sign that.
You would encounter very little friction if you were to try that in an honest manner. In fact, actually try that. And also mention it was written by a Northern Irishman.

If, as a progressive, you've ever wondered 'how do I talk to my * mate about this BLM shit?'. Don't over qualify it. Show them this, and you might well open up one of the most honest conversations you'll have about the subject. 

And it's only 70 words too, give or take. You can read it out, ad-verbatim, in less than a minute and a half.

But taking some of your points about the complexity of racism into account, I hope you think this is agreeable. In fact, Drew kind of suggests it is:

I wrote:

I see the symptoms as being remarkably complicated. 
The basic idea of racism, though? 

The terrorism and degradation? No. It's very simple from my side. Shame we disagree.

...

DrewMerson wrote:

If the symptoms are remarkably complicated, so is the cure. It’s that which your source was over-simplifying.

The cure bit is the only concession I will make. I was skipping over that to sell the petition, tbh.
And then it got lost in the midst of the personal attacks. But amongst those, even if you don't share the opinion, I think this has been a very useful conversation so far. 

So I'm taking the rough with the smooth.
Indeed Cocko raised a very good point. Turbulence is very much expected in a discussion about racism.

Racism in sport:

Actually, I think I've admitted that I'm not able to conceive of a decent answer for this right now.
This was my first attempt:

http://thebearandbadger.co.uk/discussion/comment/1980701#Comment_1980701

I did actually make a mistake here, and invited this question onto myself with this:

I wrote:

Racism in sport is very simple. Why the fuck are we talking about virtue signalling?

But what I can try to do, is offer this list:

- Jesse Owens
- Muhammad Ali
- Ron Atkinson (infamously)
- John Barnes (of course)
- John Terry
- Marcus Rashford
- Colin Kapernick

These names are synonymous with race related political issues. Those names are even occasionally used directly as symbols for very large political ideas. Jesse especially, is probably as important to civil rights and freedoms in the occidental world, as Martin Luther King.

Racism in sport is definitely unique in a way. I wish I could do a better job of explaining why.
I did look online for an expert opinion to help explain my feelings about this, but the right words eluded me. 

So that's fine.

My guess, again, is because I think many of us share the belief in sport as an objective measure of some kind.
So success in sport is seen as unadulterated, in which case, achievements in sports maintain a form of 'purity' that is hard to find in other areas of our lives.

But for some of you guys this is Betty Swollocks to you without a source.

So fuck it.

The History of 'Racism':

You know, I think this section is going to be as short as fuck.

But I did find an expert who's written an essay on the subject that covers the suggestion that I think prompted Drew's question:

dynamiteReady wrote:

It all started as a gold rush my friend. And after several hundred years, we're now claiming it's something else.

DrewMerson wrote:

At the risk of derailing, when do you think racism started?

mistercrayon wrote:

Dude what chance does anyone have of answering that question.

Actually, I never asked Drew to qualify that question, but as I'd mentioned earlier, I'm going to imagine it was asked in good faith, and offer my thoughts (well, the thoughts I've seen offered by an expert, with the view most concordant to my own):

No one with any sense is saying that white people are the only humans that can be prejudiced.  Everyone can be prejudiced.  Nevertheless, saying that white people can be the victims of racism misrepresents the word.  It may be linguistically correct to say that white people can be the victims of racism if you follow the definition of the term in the dictionary, but it is factually incorrect because in our reality white people are not the victims of the historical force known as racism.  Hypothetically, could they be?  Yes.  But are they?  No, that’s not what happened.  Words matter and I think that the dictionary definition of racism creates a false perception of what it is.  Racism has always been something that white Europeans did to the rest of the world.  If someone discriminates against you because you’re white then you have the right to be upset about it and to seek justice.  If you want to describe it as racism that’s your business, but hopefully you understand why others feel that you don’t really have the right to claim that word.

...

Racism is a specific historical force and type of prejudice that emerged through a belief in racial hierarchies which were developed by white Europeans from the Early Modern era into modernity.  Although, proto-forms of racism did emerge in the Middle-Ages.  I am not saying that inter-group prejudice was invented by white people towards the end of the 1400s – humans have always grouped together, discriminated against or warred with other groups and the phenomenon we now describe as genocide is as old as history itself – but in the 1400s white Europeans did invent the printing press and navigate the Atlantic to land in the Americas.  The combination of the two is significant because at the moment in history when Europeans first began to interact with indigenous peoples on a global scale, they also invented the means to widely spread images and stereotypes about them.  The ideology of race and the effects of racism rapidly began to spread at that moment in history.

...

Understandings of race, or raza in Spanish and Portuguese – the first European colonisers and inventors of the modern use of the term – rapidly changed from the late 1400s onwards as Europeans began to conquer, enslave, and otherwise dominate or exploit different populations around the world, all the while writing about the experience and representing it in much of the art that we see in museums across Europe today.  Pseudo scientist taxonomists also wrote flawed descriptions of the differences between these groups and developed various racial hierarchies over the centuries in which the whites were invariably at the top and Black Africans at the bottom.  These hierarchies and the literary or artistic representations of them created stereotypes that were propagated around Europe and the world by art and the ever-expanding print media.  This is why white British people in the 1700-mid-1900s for instance generally had strong perceptions of Indian and African peoples regardless of whether or not they had actually met anyone from those groups.  By the end of the nineteenth century, Europeans dominated the world financially and politically, and the European populace generally believed that their rule over people from far off lands was justified because they were inherently superior in a biological sense.

Bechamel - https://www.hud.ac.uk/news/2020/june/george-floyd-murder-and-the-history-of-racism/

When we commonly talk about racism in the context of the occidental world, this is what is generally under discussion.
I offer the above as a slightly more detailed definition of racism as we know it, and a very, very brief history of racism as we know it.

There are countless experts who echo both this definition and history.
It's 'technological' culmination is generally believed to have peaked in the idea of eugenics, and the existence of the Nazi party. But that, and more is in the essay.

...

This is a long post, and you already know my propensity for granndma and spelin mistakes, so if you've read all of this in with an open mind, or even a closed one, I thank you sincerely.

I especially thank Gonz for using his considerable skills to refine this discussion, and help me clarify my position.

In the same spirit Andy, your skills of logical enquiry are admirable, and while I think you'd sullied some very good work with personal barbs, and I have questions about your intent, I at least thank you for the clarity of your questions, and the information they have forced me to retrieve.

I can't be sure if any of this is to your complete satisfaction, but we have obviously found some common ground. And I think that is incredibly important. 

That's why I've taken my time in this thread, and have bitten my tongue, in the hope we all gain something outside of ourselves. 

Even if it's just a fraction.

But if you'll allow me just one personal dig...

DrewMerson wrote:

@Gonzo: The closest I’ve ever come is one time in my early twenties, walking along a street in London holding hands with a black girl I’d snogged earlier...

Snogged!!? 

Too funny.

We in the 80s motherfucker?

Jokes aside, sorry to hear about your experience.
All mixed race relationships are beautiful. x

And quelle surprise:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/sportsnews/article-9801151/Lewis-Hamilton-receives-racist-absue-online-winning-British-Grand-Prix.html

@Drew - Why are issues surrounding racism so much more visible in sport?

I mean win or lose, condemnation comes so easily, the higher the profile of the athlete/sportsman.

You are welcome to keep her Face. We really don't want her back.

tyvm

g.man

Let's split the difference and punt her out of the plane halfway back

dynamiteReady wrote:

Why are issues surrounding racism so much more visible in sport?

I’d guess that it was down to sport being an area of life with huge mainstream appeal, with a lot of leading figures who aren’t white, but who, crucially, have and maintain a social media presence, which helps make the abuse visible. There may also be something in there about the meritocratic nature of sport making individuals less concerned about speaking out against the abuse they receive.

I don’t think it’s because there is any real difference between racist abuse in sport and elsewhere.

There seems to be a point at which the West industrialised. While the East / South didn't.

The Chinese had their tech, the Arab world the mathematics et al.

The West seems to have implemented it and introduced partial automation. It's an interesting time in history and I don't know what sparked it. I presume the challenges of living in the West with its colder climate and relatively high population density? Perhaps its roots are in the Renaissance in Europe?

Another earlier force was the creation of naval forces to a level of sophistication for warfare which seems to have facilitated colonisation.

I believe (no proof) that it is where the superiority complex over other peoples/races comes from.

I find it hard to think about someone landing in Africa, seeing people living in a non-industrial society and thinking - "I could sell these people to others". It's an enormous leap. What was going on in those peoples' heads?

Yeah - I obfuscated my own thinking by bringing slavery in there. The Arabs traded in slaves taken from East Africa at one time too.

But I think an element of racism is that West whites consider themselves superior because of industrialisation and our ability to at least look like we can form our environment with buildings and roads etc. So setting slavery aside which has been happening forever, I'm trying to get to the bottom of how "we" think we are better?

It's an amusing side note to think that going back to nature may be the wise thing to do.