Some brilliant insightful posts by you on this thread.
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[Football] 12 year old boy arrested for racist abuse of Wilf
- Thread starter Me and my Monkey
- Start date
Some brilliant insightful posts by you on this thread.
As Thunder Bolt has pointed out the age of criminal responsibility is 10. The law must therefore take its course. I do have the impression that the Youth Offending Team is far from successful in turning around youngsters who have embarked on a career of criminality but i could be wrong.
nicko31
Well-known member
Agree, I have a 12 YO, they are pretty immature and for most it would ruin their life
I have to ask what is a 12 YO doing on twitter in the first place?
You are right of course. Some were fighting racism in the 60s and even earlier. But the reality was that low level background (almost thoughtless) racism was much more common in the 60s and 70s than it is now. It is the extreme hateful violent racism that was rare and is more common now (by more common I mean more common than it was back then - it is still yet much less common than the low level background racism was back then).
I remember seeing Pater Hain, then a liberal, leading the anti apartheid marches. But he was portrayed as an eccentric at best and a disruptive menace at worst. Remember, Hain et al were campaigning against a country that gave no rights to black people and had locked up, tortured and murdered activists there. As a cause it was a no brainer, and people had sympathy with it, but sympathy was not mainstream. Nobody in my white househld ever said 'isn't it terrible what's happening in South Africa'. I suspect they may have tutted when Hain was seen being arrested again. And later, Peter Tatchell was derided. In the 60s and 70s British entertainers happily went to South Africa (remember Sun City?) to perform. It was only in the late 70s that anti racism really took off, with RAR etc. but by then a minority of more obsessive racists were turning nasty, recruiting among skin heads.
But none of this is reflective of societal attitudes in general. In the 60s there was 'if you want a n***** for a neighbour, vote labour'. I mention this because the person using this slogan got away with it because it played on a general fear. I remember London cabbies doing some sort of strike in their cabs as a protest agains immigration.
I am not going to preface what I'm going to say next with 'my family were not racist, but....'....my family never mentioned race. We did watch TV, though. As a confirmed anti racist in my early 20s I came across one of my old notebooks where I wrote out song lyrics (I was in a band in my teens) notes and comments. I thought of myself, age 14 or 15, as an aspiring 'modern' alternative (it was long hair then). Grammar school boy. My notebook had a manifesto in it. A lot of hippy crap about the environment. And 'repatriate all immigrants'. Seriously. When I read that age 21 I was aghast. Where did that come from?
It came from the low level racism that existed, even in me. We never discussed the 'inferiority' of black people because there were none in Portslade in the 60s and 70s. I never spoke to one till I was 17. There was nobody and nothing to challenge casual idle racist thoughts. I wrote that in my book and promptly forgot all about it becused it was of no more interest to me then than the manufacture of cheese.
I was not actively racists in that I did not pursue a racist agenda. I never thought about it. I didn't listen to 'black music' as I thought it irrelevant to me at the time (maybe the stupidity of that, soon fixed in my late teens, has prompted me in later life to go the other way, actively seeking out unfamiliar music). No. I was a 14-15 year old boy, living in a world that was not interested in racism, nor interested in black people.
It was a world where it was taken as read that you cannot be English and black. The idea was absurd. Indeed you couldn't be British and black. If you were black you were an immigrant, some sort of 'other'. 'No offence meant', of course. But the idea of thinking about blacks (I forget what we called them back then - probably never mentioned them) or Indians (I remember very well what we called them back then - P***s) as equals was absurd. I don't ever remember having a conversation with friends about this at the time, but a weak, benign unspoken racism was the norm. I don't ever remember anyone speaking out against apartheid. None of the music I listened to made any reference to human rights and the evils of empire (unless it was the empire of the wizzard or somesuch bollocks).
And yet, for black people living in the UK in the 60s and 70s......well we have seen some of the testamony and it is shameful (to me as a white Englishman).
We have come a long, long way.
As I said before that low level racism that was so widespread has been replaced as if almost all of it has been taken from the millions and condensed into a few thousand, where it mixes with their general madness to create, in the worst cases, threats of murder or murder itself. I'm not saying low level thoughtless racism has vanished. 'I'm not racist but....' still exists. But to be properly racist now is almost a lifestyle choice, and you have to cross a rubicon to embrace it.
I haven't heard casual racism for almost 20 years; it was in a pub, by a bloke who was pissed, whose racist joke was laughed at by nobody. I have seen a bit of it on NSC, by blokes age over 50 who probably don't think of themselves as racist. People dig you out for it now, even if you let slip the c word ('coloured').
So, back on topic, for a 12 year old to do what this one has done seems bizarre to me. I can only assume there is plenty of this filth online that is easily accessible. I won't be doing a search. I remember when we first got the internet at work in the late 90s, one of my colleagues called me into his office: "This is unbelievable - I just had a look to see what came up if you typed ***** and I got this' (an extremely pornographic photo). I suspect it wouldn't take much for a 12 year old muppet to arm himself with racist filth, probably being easily groomed by nasty older men who run the bad sites.
Anyway....enough of the purpetrator. What about the victim? He should be supported by everyone. No 'but's.
And yet....did anyone on here snigger when they first heard the story?
Greg Bobkin
Silver Seagull
- May 22, 2012
- 16,036
Yeah, I mean what harm could kids of 'that age' do? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-46209074
lost in london
Well-known member
What the hell?
Grombleton
Surrounded by <div>s
- Dec 31, 2011
- 7,356
This is the part that's most frustrating (well, apart from the obvious racism, naturally) - the minimum age for a profile on many social media accounts is 13, so there is a failure by the parents to monitor what sites/applications their kids are using. Yes I know that they can't stop them all the time, but there can be education on how to correctly use social media and the impact that abusing the platform, in whatever way can have.
Justice
Dangerous Idiot
Why just London?
But we are no longer in the 1950s
50’s Harry ....pissoff.
Early 70’s you cheeky chapster. We didn’t moved far in that 20 years mate...I’m glad my 3 children very rarely talk about all this stuff.Pickaninnies is ok because the PM uses that phrase for babies born to Afro- Caribbean parents.
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WilburySeagull
New member
Classic whataboutery. Not in anyway mutually exclusive as I doubt West Midlands police deal with London crime. Last time I looked you needed evidence to arrest someone. In this case they clearly had plenty.
Racism is a cancer in society. I do agree that a 12 year old needs educating rather than punishment.
Remember when I was a child, Rupert the bear books depicted (Bame) races as fuzzy wuzzies wearing loin cloths with always a bone through their noses!!! This for the children of the day 50/60s, hard to believe now how disgustingly rascist this was. So glad that things have moved on a bit but needs to move much further.
I look back in shame about what we used to say when I was at primary school (small Devon village, early 70s) to the one black kid we had there (he was at a local children's home and probably vulnerable as a result too). There are loads of 'jokes', memes, videos etc circulating on line that are overtly racist - I have an acquaintance that does exactly this, and he is usually only sharing stuff he's received from elsewhere - he genuinely thinks it is OK to make a joke out of race - so there is no difficulty in seeing how the kid has been exposed to it. Maybe his old man laughs at the same kind of thing, I dunno. He needs educating, not criminalising - but if he lives in an environment where that kind of language/action is acceptable then doing so is going to be incredibly difficult
As I have mentioned on here before, my parents fostered 3 Asian kids in the 60s . We lived in a small Sussex village, and believe me, racism was the norm, not the odd one or two. My little sister was called a P—-, by a schoolteacher, my Mum, when out shopping in Brighton with my little sister and I was called a n——r lover’ and spat at, by another woman with two kids about the same age as us.
It seems it was much more acceptable then, I can’t remember my family ever being that shocked at the numerous incidences of bigotry, many minor, but some that would be hate crime now.
I think things have improved since then, my kids can’t believe some of the stuff I have told them that went on, and they know of no one their age that has those views. Obviously, there are still people with quite extreme racist views and they do recently appear to have been emboldened by certain politicians and political commentators.
I do believe this lads parents need investigating, children aren’t born racist, it is educated into them.
It seems it was much more acceptable then, I can’t remember my family ever being that shocked at the numerous incidences of bigotry, many minor, but some that would be hate crime now.
I think things have improved since then, my kids can’t believe some of the stuff I have told them that went on, and they know of no one their age that has those views. Obviously, there are still people with quite extreme racist views and they do recently appear to have been emboldened by certain politicians and political commentators.
I do believe this lads parents need investigating, children aren’t born racist, it is educated into them.
Would you have the saying the same about a young Moslem lad, posting ISIS propaganda to Lee Rigbys relatives? Or the young aAsian girl who ran off to a Syria after being groomed on line by ISIS?
Uh_huh_him
Well-known member
- Sep 28, 2011
- 12,121
I suspect that most of the punishment for this crime will be enforced education on racism, rather than a custodial sentence or fine.
I would hope that is also extended to his parents/guardians.
Plus having his name forever linked to this incident on the internet.
What’s his name HT?
I’m not going to reproduce it on here. But if you really want to know, you can find it on the internet, along with other info about him, quite easily.
The point I’m making is his name shouldn’t be released because of his age , the top 5 articles don’t show his name.
So are we talking dark web or dodgy social media spec?
Mr Putdown
Well-known member
He’s named on Gary Lineker’s twitter thing.