to think that men should not be referred to as 'Asian' when they are not in fact Asian

[PatPig]

Examples (disturbing content warning):

www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/may/14/oxford-child-sex-ring-police-investigation
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2324621/Girl-12-branded-hairpin-raped-sold-sex-600-hour.html

According to this:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-22164676

The leaders of the gang are:

'thought to originate from Eritrea, in East Africa, but he grew up in his parents' house on the Cowley Road.'

Since when was Eritrea in Asia?

The Telegraph goes with:

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/10057543/Asian-grooming-gang-convicted-of-appalling-acts-of-depravity-on-children.html

"Asian grooming gang convicted of appalling acts of depravity on children"

yet in the article concedes:

"Seven men of Asian or North African origin were found guilty of grooming"

It seems like inaccurate and prejudicial language to me, especially when Asia contains 2/3 of the population of the world yet 'Asians' are obviously an ethnic minority in the UK.

I also grew up in one of the most predominantly muslim areas of the UK (in the 1970's and still is to this day), and many muslim men would spend their evenings drinking and gambling in the local pubs. All the biggest drug dealers were muslims too. They certainly do not practice what they preach. I am sure some do, but plenty dont, and mostly those of the british born generation.

The above is not a racist opinion, it is a fact.

Clearly there are abusive, exploitative paedophiles and rapists of all ethnic backgrounds. But there is a race element to this particular kind of crime - street grooming and organised prostitution of vulnerable kids, many of them looked-after children (and how hollow that phrase is...). One of the issues to do with race is that the police, social services and other authorities have until very recently refused to investigate and prosecute for fear of being seen to be racist or for fear of damaging community harmony.

Another factor is that anyone who tried to raise the alarm about this particular type of street-grooming-organised-prostitution-of-vulnerable-children was told to shut up and accused of being racist. Former MP Anne Cryer tried for years to draw attention to these hideous crimes, and was howled down.

"I know he was Muslim because the police told me his name"...ah, that handy old device for identifying a bad 'un. My old ma told me to watch out for Catholics back in the 60s - if he was called Pat O'Hagan, just walk away. I thought we'd moved on.

If we continue to describe criminals by their ethnic/religious origin, we're going to tear communities apart - we'll look at every person who fits that "other" descripion and feel fear. But that suits our lords and masters - nothing like a good old scapegoat to divide us and make us more manageable.

Someone up-thread mentioned that there was Islamic scripture which appeared to condone rape and violence to women. I suggest you start reading the Old Testament - I'll be surprised if you don't find some disturbing stuff.

I assume that next time JS's vile crimes are mentioned in the press, he'll be described as a white Catholic and I'll be back to avoiding folk with Irish names.

This thread was never going to end well was it? I think that the OP is BU. How can the term "a group of Asian men/women/children" be offensive.

The ethnic group "Asian" is accepted in the UK (apologies OP only if you live outside of the UK). If this offends anyone then they can use "other" when filling out official documentation.

pigsmummy, you're completely missing the OP's point. Of course it isn't offensive to call someone Asian, if they are Asian. But it's misleading to describe this group as an Asian when some of them were actually North African.

Either the specific ethnicity doesn't matter, in which case it shouldn't be emphasised in the headlines. Or it does matter, in which case the papers should get it right.

"I assume that next time JS's vile crimes are mentioned in the press, he'll be described as a white Catholic and I'll be back to avoiding folk with Irish names."

The thing is that modern European culture is basically almost entirely secular. This is not true of many non-white cultures in Britain.

The point is made here in comic form: www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=i-M9TD9vS5g#t=80s

Also the thing with Jimmy Savile et al is that many of these cases happened decades ago. If you look at the Britain of this time, watch videos like this:

www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=yi-XGVc9wy4#t=61s

It's just ridiculous to compare it with the Britain of today. It's not the same country we live in today. Attitudes are completely different.

Let's face it, five of this gang were Asian. Two were North African. The press were actually being politely PC calling them "Asian" when a more accurate way of describing all of them would have been "Muslim", but in this country people aren't generally described by their religion.

As another poster above pointed out, we do not generally hear of Atheist, Anglican, Catholic, Muslim, Sikh, Hindu, Buddhist, Jehovah's Witness criminals. We sometimes hear of Catholics or Protestants or Islamists when religion is a relevant issue in their crimes.

If the papers had described them as "A gang of five Asians and two North Africans" that would have been technically correct, yes - but so bloody what?

Do you seriously think that if the men were described as "A criminal gang, from Cowley, grooming young vulnerable girls" people somehow would have remained in ignorance of their racial and cultural origins?

Here they all are.

I'm afraid headlines cannot obscure the truth about these particular perpetrators, or the perpetrators of similar crimes, or their methods.

And it's pretty absurd to be using JS as an example to prove... well what I don't know.

Everyone knew who Jimmy Savile was. An arrogant, creepy, ugly white chancer from Leeds who had a tendency to display his disturbingly ropey old legs in very short shorts on fun runs. His religion? Who gives a shit.

Let's face it, five of this gang were Asian. Two were North African. The press were actually being politely PC calling them "Asian" when a more accurate way of describing all of them would have been "Muslim", but in this country people aren't generally described by their religion.

But "Asian" is not a "polite PC" way of saying "Muslim". Not all Muslims are Asian, and not all Asians are Muslim. It's just bloody ignorant and inaccurate.

If the Muslim faith of the perpetrators was relevant (and I'm not at all convinced that it was) then they should have described them as Muslim. If the ethnicity of the perpetrators was the relevant factor, then they should have described this accurately. If neither religion nor ethnicity were aggravating factors, then there was no need to refer to either.

I'm willing to bet that they wouldn't have been described as an "Asian gang" if two members of the gang had been White British rather than North African. But because they are all foreigners with darker skin, it's somehow ok to just lump them all together.

I just can't get why people don't see that this is an issue. Yes, of course what happened in Oxford was horrendous. These men are vile, and I don't care what anyone says about them as individuals. However, the media does have a responsibility to the wider community, and should not be promoting inaccurate stereotypes of entire ethnic groups. Like it or not, innocent Asian men will have to deal with the fallout from this kind of reporting.

Babyboomersrock, are you trying to discredit my account of my experience growing up in this way. I was a good catholic girl, trying to mind my own business. I was always envious of my friends who lived in a safer area where they could go out unhindered by these men.

My Dad was a very strict Northern Irish catholic (he died when I was 15) and so I do know the terrible prejudice in the 70's he faced, eg, he was a bus driver and used to get abuse and even spat upon. By the way, I didn't come across any abuse from my church community.

Are you one of those people who have never encountered real life in the inner city?

I am a little confused. As i understand it, these gangs were charged with 43 or 45 different types of offences. Was racism ( in legal terms)- charge bought against them that the court found them guilty of?

As some of you are saying that race and religion played a part, can you state as to what part exactly race and religion played before you make such sweeping statements?

Kansas
There are gangs of white men who prey on children, look at the care homes abuse scandal, the Torbay case to name but a few.

I'll repeat a question I asked earlier
There has been a huge abuse scandal in the Catholic Church across a number of countries (N.B. I am a baptised and confirmed if somewhat lapsed catholic). Is there something intrinsic to Catholism that leads to a tendency to abuse?

There are over 1.5bn muslims in the world and so people saying muslims think this is ridiculous. Statements like most muslim men think white women are... really. What do you mean by most 400m men, 500m?

I am married to a muslim man who doesn't have issues with me being a white woman, nor do his friends or family in North Africa. Funny that? . You do know that in terms of skin colour DH is classed as white (no option for Arab etc) as are his parents, sisters, cousins, friends.
And no, I haven't converted to Islam either.

Yes I think people just fall over themselves to avoid categorising a group of criminals as muslims, even though there is clearly a muslim subculture involved. In this effort to tiptoe around the issue various other groups, large or small, get smeared.

So we have "asians", "plumbers", "indian doctors" and now "Oxford men (Good God not Balliol I hope!).

So Jinsei, what should they have been called?

Would it make you feel any better if their race and religion had not been mentioned at all in the news reports?

What difference would that have made once their pictures were published?

I am confident that from now on, the press will be falling over themselves to refer to any white British grooming/trafficking gang as exactly that, to distinguish them from this recent "Asian grooming gang" phenomenon.

Eritrea and Kenya, amongst a few other African countries, have a long history of Asian inward immigration and settlement. I shared a flat at uni with an Indian girl whose family had lived in Kenya for several generations, who told me this.

The phenotype of the Eritreans pictured certainly doesn't look typically African, but they do look Asian. Is it possible this is what the press are eluding to?

Is there something intrinsic to Catholism that leads to a tendency to abuse?

There has been plenty of debate about Catholicism and celibacy, and its potential role in abuse in the Catholic Church.

I am perfectly prepared to believe that these individual rapists were racist. I think the level of thoughtfulness needed to treat people as individuals, all deserving of human rights and respect, is probably not an attitude found among many rapists! Humans find it difficult not to make up beliefs which just happen to co-incidentally justify what they want to do, and that goes doubly so for humans that commit rape. "She wanted it", "she was asking for it". In this case, it's "she's white"...

If it is true that non-caucasian men haven't been pursued for their crimes up to now, then that is fucking awful. All rapists should face prosecution.

However, what worries me, is that we will go from ignoring "asian" men, to a public opinion that rapists are primarily asian. And then that the prosecution focus will be on only "asian" men. Rapists come in all skin hues, and victims of rape deserve support, compassion, and justice, whatever the skin hues and religion of their attacker(s).

I don't want us to swing from one extreme to another.

I also don't want to see people lulled into a false sense of security because particular individuals aren't "asian".

TheBigJessie
Good post.

Its the generalisations that are bothering me. These individuals may well have been misogynistic racists. That misogyny and racism may or may not have been informed by coming from patriachal background or a misinterpretation of their religion.

To extrapolate from that to "most Asian men..." or "most Muslim men..."
is madness. There are probably between 700-900m Muslim men in the world and rather more Asian ones, can any of us claim to know what most of them think?

Olgaga - that article implies celibacy is the problem, it doesn't appear to be labelling all the adherents of a religion as potential abusers because of the actions of a few.

did anyone miss the first guy was married to a white girl? i think?