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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To think it is ridiculous that Katie Hopkins is being investigated by police for her tweets.

246 replies

Megatronmum · 31/03/2015 20:13

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3017708/Katie-Hopkins-reported-police-inciting-racial-hatred-tweets-linking-Pakistani-men-Rochdale-child-sex-abuse.html

I'm no fan of Katie but if I'm honest I don't think she should be investigated by police.

OP posts:
MrsTerryPratchett · 31/03/2015 21:32

And, it's odd Orlando because as far as I remember the IRA were 'the IRA' or 'Republican terrorists', not 'Catholic terrorists'.

OrlandoWoolf · 31/03/2015 21:34

megatron

Like I said, if you can't see it, you probably have the privilege of not being in a group that gets targetted.

Megatronmum · 31/03/2015 21:35

I disagree Orlando its a classification black, gay, Muslim etc

OP posts:
OrlandoWoolf · 31/03/2015 21:38

I wonder if you did a Google search and looked at the commonest words to follow:

Romanian
Black
Gay
Muslim
Pakistani

I wonder if it would be a positive or negative association?

OrlandoWoolf · 31/03/2015 21:39

Or even the article:

Single Mum
Benefit mum

etc etc

MrsTerryPratchett · 31/03/2015 21:47

It's not just a classification, is it? They all had dark hair, every one of them. Significant? Of course not. So there's something about most of them being Pakistani that you and Katie thinks is relevant to their abuse of young women.

They are all male as well. As are the vast majority of people who abuse. The power dynamic is massively more relevant and interesting there but no one wants to have that conversation. Most abusers, Police officers, politicians are male. And abuse and rape are massively under-prosecuted.

PuttingouthefirewithGasoline · 31/03/2015 21:56

The fact is, FORTY SEVEN girls were raped beaten, drugged and abused by men of Pakistani heritage in this town, its all still VERY RAW, families have been torn apart and are still grieving. The authorities let them all down, every agency from SS to the police, the council and so on, its a national scandal.

Its a little in sensitive to the put the flag up at this time, not wrong but in sensitive.

OrlandoWoolf · 31/03/2015 21:58

ts a little in sensitive to the put the flag up at this time, not wrong but in sensitive

Yes - it is.

But that does not make her comments ok though.

PlummyBrummy · 31/03/2015 23:50

Well said MrsTP and thanks for saying it too. The reports I've read highlit some strong racial tension in the lack of official action but by far the largest demotivator was the complete lack of belief that anyone had in these girls. They were young, vulnerable and some had troubled backgrounds so they were utterly disregarded and, frankly, victim-blamed whenever they did pluck up the courage to say something. That's the real issue here and an issue that is replicated across the UK, whether the abusers are Pakistani, white or whatever. Stop concentrating on race, it's a total red herring.

TheNewStatesman · 01/04/2015 00:30

"Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake, as the saying goes."

This.

KH is a complete bell end, but providing she is not actually threatening violence against anyone, you can't take away her right to free speech.

Plbrookes · 01/04/2015 03:31

TheNewStatesman - I agree with your last sentence except that I think that 'can't' should be replaced by 'shouldn't'.

Having agreed that KH is, or at least appears to be, a bell-end - it occurs to me that the timing of Danczuk's complaint to the police might almost be thought to be convenient in deflecting attention from his role in perpetuating the typically misogynist and abusive porn industry, to which he has been forced to admit this week. But then he is a 'man of the world' so any criticism would obviously be misplaced.

Inkanta · 01/04/2015 07:15

Basically she said that the Muslim perpetrators were Muslim. Nothing racist. She really challenged that Rochdale MP though - and hurt his pride I think, hence him vindictively reporting her

sashh · 01/04/2015 07:24

But if 8 out of 9 sentences are Pakistani it is a fact that the child abuse in that town was done by Pakistanis.

I thought they weere British of Pakistani descent. But even if they were Pakistani immigrants, the fact is 100% of the abuse was by men.

Do we label all men as abusers?

And nationally it is white men who are by far the biggest group of abusers.

Inkanta · 01/04/2015 07:24

In Rochdale it would have been in poor taste to raise the Pakistani at this time in view of what happened. She was right about that.

Inkanta · 01/04/2015 07:27

Sash - we're talking about what happened in Rochdale - the gang of abusers were of Pakistani/Muslim origin.

SoupDreggon · 01/04/2015 07:34

Are you Katie, OP?

FeelTheNoise · 01/04/2015 07:53

Someone needs an asbo Angry

fairyfuckwings · 01/04/2015 08:07

Rochdale is a ukip target seat. They came very close in the October by election. Raising a pakistani flag is absolutely insane given the current feeling in Rochdale. SD is a misogynistic pervert and on this particular issue KH is correct. I DO think he's using her to deflect from his own seedy life.

Icimoi · 01/04/2015 08:40

Inkanta, she didn't say that the perpetrators were Muslim, she said they were Pakistani. Clearly racist. Why are you trying to deny that?

MissyMistress402 · 01/04/2015 08:48

She deserves it. YABU

whitecandles · 01/04/2015 08:52

Just read that article. Everything she said was vile, but the comment about Ed Miliband Shock . Unbelievable.

OrlandoWoolf · 01/04/2015 09:11

She likes labelling whole groups of people. Not individuals but whole groups. Making them "other". That's one of her problems. I don't think she understands the effect it has on groups and how they are perceived and treated when negative labels are constantly attached to them.

You just can't generalise about whole groups of people in a negative way and then expect not to be accused of an "ism". She does that frequently.

Inkanta · 01/04/2015 09:14

Icimo - but the gang were of Pakistani origin. How is that racist to say so?

The victims by the way were of non-Pakistani origin. So that could be classed a racist attack on the victims would you agree.

Albiebee · 01/04/2015 09:16

Plummy has it right.
Surely the real issue is that these girls were treated abominably by almost everyone around them. They were abused and then the abuse was ignored because they were viewed as having CHOSEN their abuse by social services and the police. This is what is truly abhorrent, and is classist and above all misogynist. The race or otherwise of the abusers is a side issue, and is inflammatory and unhelpful to concentrate on.

What it really shows is an attitude prevalent in many areas of society, in government and the press, to a perceived underclass of the poor and undereducated as trash who partly deserve all they get because they are poor and undereducated.

popalot · 01/04/2015 09:21

I actually felt tearful when I read her tweet about Ed Milliband's wife and the gas oven. It sounded very much like an anti-semitic jibe at the absolute horrors of the holocaust, which she hasn't denied. I saw her on big brother in her own words 'persecuting' a gay man. It was horrific. And now all Pakistani people in Rochdale are peadophiles. Again, horrific. Does she think what happened in Auswitch was a joke? Does she think what happened to the girls in Rochdale is just political fodder? I am seriously worried about her mental state.