Race
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That old chestnut
Posted on Nov 26 2007 | Tagged as: Politics, The Stupid, Race, Free-speech fundamentalism
Via Tim, Antonia Bance on Griffin and Irving’s appearance at the Oxford Union:
“And even if they were to, is it not breathtakingly arrogant that Oxford undergraduates believe that in a five minute debating speech they could somehow defeat either, when it took a Cambridge Professor of Modern History weeks on the stand to rebut Irving’s assertions?”
It took a Cambridge Professor of Modern History weeks on the stand to rebut Irving’s assertions to the standard required in a court of law. Hardly the same, is it?
Personally I’d love to see the cream of the UK’s students rubbishing BNP plans to spend a fortune to encourage every last non-white person to leave the country.
UPDATE:
Reality TV? It just isn’t
Posted on Jun 10 2007 | Tagged as: TV, Race, Free-speech fundamentalism
Watching Doctor Who last night reminded me of a bit in last week’s episode in which Martha, temporarily living in 1913, was told that it was ridiculous for a woman to study to be a (medical) doctor, and “particularly one of [her] colour”.
Or, if you like, a racist remark.
So if it’s okay for the BBC to screen a scripted racially loaded comment, why isn’t it okay for Channel 4 to broadcast an arguably racist incident?
If “reality” telly is supposed to show us what the real world is like — without it having been filtered through a team of scriptwriters, but within the constraints of showing a dozen brainless fools on a sofa — then unless they’re gong to show it red in tooth and claw then what’s the point?
Oddly, I wasn’t here 200 years ago
Posted on Oct 13 2006 | Tagged as: The Stupid, Media, Race
The current issue of Catalyst, the Commission for Racial Equality’s magazine, has an interesting article by Nick Wyke on the plans to mark the bicentenary of the abolition of slavery in the UK next year.
Discussing the cities that have apologised for their past involvment in the slave trade, he quotes the London Baptist Association’s minister for racial justice, Rev Kumar Rajagopalan, as saying “Too many people believe they are not responsible for what happened in the past.”
Well, we’re clearly not responsible for what happened in the past - unless we’re Doctor Who - so how do any of us owe anyone an apology for something our ancestors may have done?
Unless Rajagopalan is holding us equally to blame for something we had no part in just because we share genetic material. I’ve heard of that kind of thinking before somewhere…
