[Politics] Is it OK to say racist things if you're not racist?

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

I think there’s a simple answer to that H (at least as far as the Abbott incident ic) - if I say Rishi Sunak is a hateful sh*t, I want to dunk him in an enormous vat of vindaloo chicken and bury his head in it for ever and in fact, when I see Sunak on the TV it makes me want to hate all Indian looking men too ….. I think we can safely say that would be targeting my animosity towards a class of people purely on the ground of race/ethnicity/colour of skin. Whether Hester directly discriminated against Abbott on the grounds of her colour is a little more blurry - the fact that he felt the need to preempt his remarks against her with saying ‘I’m not trying to be racist’ suggests he certainly has racist attitudes (as testified by ex-members of his staff) - he also was misogynistic and advocated killing her - legally that in itself is something.

’Discrimination’ has an element of intent to cause harm or likely to cause harm - using ’black’ as an adjective to describe someone who self-identifies as a black person, is neither in itself intending to cause harm nor likely to but Hester did not use ‘black’ in this context.

Sinak doesn’t really need several days to verify the Dianne Abbott comments imo - it was printed in a reputable MSN that would have verified and fact checked with at least two or even three independent sources before printing it ( or they would risk being sued for libel) including giving Hester the right to respond (which his lawyers did via X (see above).

Simple, you say?

 

[studio150]

Time for us all to move on from this thread, as clearly we are not the type of voters The Tories are looking to keep at the ballot box.

Anyway they can't refund the sizable donation, as they need it to bribe those horrible boat people to go to Rwanda on a voluntary basis.

 

[nicko31]

He can't be racist because he does business with people in Jamaica.
Probably calls curry house waiters "Gunga Din" for bantz.

Can't be racist, spent a week at a Sandals resort in St Lucia

 

[Bodian]

Like with all issues in conversations, take the time to avoid acting on assumptions. With respect to 'colour', why call someone anything?

I can imagine a situation where you are chatting with a black person about Ian Wright, and they haven't heard of Ian Wright, and you then might start worrying whether you should say 'you know, the black ex footballer on the telly' or 'the coloured (etc.)

I think this might already be here. I was present relatively recently where someone was trying to describe someone else in our organisation. They mentioned eye-colour, height, hairstyle and so on and so on to try and illustrate who it was they were talking about.

Eventually someone else in the room piped up with 'for goodness sake - just say he's the black lad'. And to be honest, seeing as he was the only person of colour we have working for us - it was indeed the easiest way to identify him. But the person giving the description was so worried about using his colour as an identifier because they felt they would be singling him out purely because of this.

 

[chip]

Maybe if he had said black haired women there wouldn't have been a problem. If you listen to R4 Womens Hour, they often refer to black women or women of colour, usually to say how they have to work twice as hard. A silly thing to say but not really an incitement, didn't we have a song about shooting Palace scum? We all have prejudices - some are more fashionable than others.

 

[Zeberdi]

Simple, you say?

Ha, I only meant the first part of my post with the Sunak parallel to distinguish between ‘black’ as an acceptable adjective and ‘black’ in the context of discriminatory remarks.

- the rest, not so much

People are missing two essential points here - Hester did discriminate against black women in general because he said his feelings about Abbott made him hate all black women - clearly associating the colour of her skin with his hatred of her. Secondly, he advocated killing her ffs - given the security risk to MPs and their very public profile, the CPS could potentially see that as an incitement and therefore a threat especially as details of the meeting became public.

 

[A1X]

I'd love to know what level of racism would be bad enough for it not to be worth the £10m

 

[Weststander]

Massive OG by Sunak imho in this case.

 

[hans kraay fan club]

I'd love to know what level of racism would be bad enough for it not to be worth the £10m

I reckon if he was discovered to literally have a couple of black slaves, in manacles, working in his gardens, they might have considered repaying half of it.

 

[beorhthelm]

Racism (and other isms) are self-defining. Calling someone a black **** is racist. Calling them a coloured **** is racists. Calling them a tinted **** is racist. And so on.

thats exactly the point. being racist is racist, like the chap triggering this debate. i was highlighting the rabbit hole of being accused of that for simply using the wrong/out of date terminology. i do care about those self-appointed groups when they are from the community affected.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

The problem is here he has apologised for being rude.

To even begin any path to redemption, he would have to say that he's sorry for being racist on this occasion and all other occasions

Good point. I'd missed this important detail.

 

[Ding Dong !]

Racism is in everyone at some level. Anyone denying it is deluded or just lying i'm afraid.

 

[mejonaNO12 aka riskit]

Maybe if he had said black haired women there wouldn't have been a problem. If you listen to R4 Womens Hour, they often refer to black women or women of colour, usually to say how they have to work twice as hard. A silly thing to say but not really an incitement, didn't we have a song about shooting Palace scum? We all have prejudices - some are more fashionable than others.

Blimey. I don't even know where to start with this one.

 

[Jim in the West]

Is it possible to make racist statements, yet not be a racist? It seems pretty clear to me that Hester is a racist - his statement was clearly based on prejudice. But maybe I'm being too literal? Hester seems to revel in being extremely obnoxious to non-white people....at what point do a string of racist statements end up defining someone as a racist?

 

[Nobby Cybergoat]

This is more of a political question.

But is part of the problem here that they don't have £10m to just give back. I mean, I know they have rich donors and they punch above their weight here.

But how many organisations can just find £10m? Unexpectedly at short notice? That's not how it works it is? An organisation gets money, spends it, then tries to get some more. It might keep a bit aside for a rainy day, but ideally it doesn't want all this wiped out and more by one person making terrible comments.

And it's the timing. They've got an election to fight. MP's will be scrabbling around for every available penny from Tory HQ in a vain attempt to save their worthless political careers by putting their non existent achievements on a glossy leaflet.

Not a chance that gets paid back. Not a chance

 

[mejonaNO12 aka riskit]

I personally don't care too much about paying back the money.

However, to continue saying "he has apologised" is just a slap in the face. He has apologised for "being rude". It's unbelievable.

Keep your scum money. So what. But don't gaslight us all and pretend something was said when it clearly wasn't.

 

[rippleman]

In this world it is too easy to be politically incorrect, whether that is racism, sexism, antisemitism, whatever. I don’t like what Israel is doing - does that make me antisemitic? I have many Jewish friends. I don’t know.
I agree your concerns as to how Afro/Caribbean/African people should be referred to - keeping up with terminology is difficult and the older I get I find it harder to adjust to what is acceptable. I don’t consider myself to be racist, sexist etc but accept that if I say a wrong word I might cause someone, somewhere, some kind of offence. I don’t mean too.

No! Of course it doesn't. Many of the problems we have in this country is because people equate the extreme right-wing State of Israel with the Jewish faith and people. Nobody should be targetting, criticising, attacking Jewish people. EVERYBODY should be targetting, criticising and attacking the State of Israel. I am absolutely desperate that everybody should understand this.

Many of the Jewish faith march on pro-Palestinian rallies. The vast majority of Jews will never have ever set foot in Israel and many do not agree with Israel's continued slaughter of the Palestinian people.

 

[Nobby Cybergoat]

Racism is in everyone at some level. Anyone denying it is deluded or just lying i'm afraid.

You're right.

We've evolved to make a myriad of judgements whenever we first see someone and one of those is about race. We are all constructs of our upbringing and our environment and so it would be incredible if any of us could truly ignore race when making a judgement on someone.

What matters, I think, is that we admit to ourselves about these biases that our subconscious forces on us and consciously make an effort to account for them and consider their effects on us in our decision making.

 

[chip]

Blimey. I don't even know where to start with this one.

I think the bigger question here is how political parties are funded and what influence that gives. Did anyone know how much this man was giving the conservatives before this or had heard of him? He's a silly man who said a silly thing about a silly woman. If he hadn't said this would anyone have cared about his £10M? What he said has become a distraction from a bigger problem which is opaque in most political parties.

 

[cheshunt seagull]

He can't be racist because he does business with people in Jamaica.
Probably calls curry house waiters "Gunga Din" for bantz.

Edward Colston did a lot of business with Africans so presumably he can't have been a racist.