What did Alastair Stewart do?

[StuckBetweenDarknessAndLight]

Apparently he's resigned because of an error of judgement in his social media use. What did he do/say?

@hambleton, I agree that saying ‘no offence meant’ can be a lazy excuse for casual racism or casual sexism. However, I don’t think it’s logical or reasonable to say that anyone can decide that anything they hear is racist or sexist even if it’s been used by the author to describe people both black and white and both men and women.

He is racist

Hmm I'm wondering if there's more to the sacking than we all know.
I think AS has displayed a massive lack of judgement at best.

But if something does cause offence then why wouldn't you apologise and try to make amends in some way?

Because some accusations are just stupid and shouldn't be given in to.

Why would you want to carry on defending the remark?

Because it wasn't racist.

hambledon of course the recipient can decide they feel offended by any given remark. Everyone is entitled to their own feelings. Lots of things offend me. But I don't think people's employment status should be determined by feelings, only by facts.
There isn't universal agreement that his tweets were racist, it isn't incontrovertible fact, it's only opinion.
In short feelings don't override the right to free speech.

Looks like there was more going on than just that tweet according to the Guardian.

The Guardian is every bit as ideological as the Daily Mail. Most of its writers are columnists, not journalists. Having seen how it reports on the sector I work in, I don’t give credence to anything that it publishes now.

The person on the receiving end gets to decide if they are offended or not, not the person who said it.

"Offence" is subjective. Of course the person on the 'receiving end' (who that is isn't clear in this case as the 'offending' tweet was part of a larger discussion) is perfectly free to decide if they are offended. Equally though, the person who made the allegedly offensive comment is free to decide if they did indeed intend offence or not.

I don't want to live in a country where people's livelihood are decided by others' 'feelling', do you?

Looks like there was more going on than just that tweet according to the Guardian.

This has already been discussed in posts above. The Guardian has the same info as everyone else, no more or less. All they're doing is linking to a tweet where some person 'recalls' something vague from deleted tweets.

There are plenty of words which are offensive to black people that I'm sure have no meaning if said to a white person and ape is one of them. This is because of Victorians classifying black people as apes. You don't call a black person a monkey or ape as it was an argument that was used to justify slavery.

You don't call a black person a monkey or ape

Except nobody called anybody an ape.

I wonder what AS makes of all those who are siding with him and think that what he has tweeted isn’t an issues or an error in anyway and can’t see what the fuss is about

Because he has stated that it was an error

The 'error' was in giving the wokerati an opportunity to indulge in their favourite passtime - faux outrage.

Ok some don’t agree that it was a misjudgement that he regrets

He stated it was a misjudgment

I guess some can read more into his statement

I guess some can read more into his statement

The whole problem is the professionally offended reading way too much into everything.

I used language like this just last week in the school where I work. I was talking about a little girl in Reception who had kicked another pupil and refused to apologise. I said to another member of staff "She can be a cheeky monkey". The little girl is black. I thought as I said it, that it could be construed the wrong way and that I would not like to have a conversation with her parents about why I had used that word. I would have used the same phrase to describe any child in the class. I didn't mean to cause offence BUT my words could have caused offence. I think that a lot of people who don't consider themselves to be racist do use inadvertadly use racist language on a regular basis. I think there needs to be a big conversation about this to educate people. And no, I won't ever use that phrase about any child again.

Well when AS makes another statement supporting your view that you can claim he agrees with you

As yet he hasn’t

Well when AS makes another statement supporting your view that you can claim he agrees with you

I'm not on standby for any 'statements' about this storm in a tea cup.

@Plastictattoo, no, that language in itself is not racist. Please don’t confuse racist language with language used by racists.

I thought plastictattoo made a refreshingly honest and good point actually. Discussion not presumption.

@hotlava, the point about not using the language because the person, or in this case parents of person, doesn’t know whether you are being racist or not is a totally valid point. However, I disagree that calling a child a cheeky monkey is using racist language. Like Plastictattoo I’d avoid it in all circumstances to remove the possibility of offending someone but that doesn’t mean I agree with the assertion that it’s racist language.

But then I’m well aware that it’s acceptable to use the word Aussie and not the word, Paki even though the etymology of the word is the same. One is quite clearly a hideous racist slur and the other a friendly term of endearment. So maybe I’m contradicting myself. Nobody sane condones racism or wants to be seen as a racist so I do think context and intent matter especially when using the word ape the way Shakespeare intended. AS was calling the man stupid/ill educated etc the way Shakespeare intended in MfM. I think I’m this case, context matters.

That is your opinion.
It's wrong but you do you boo.

I'm sure AS will get a job at sky TV anyway.

Censoring Shakespeare now world gone made. One person complains and a person loses their job, insane.

Well yes, and I stand by it. Likewise, it’s your opinion that I’m wrong. 🤷‍♀️ This is not science.