Laurence Fox on Question Time

[SuckingDieselFella]

It isn't ok to try and shut anyone up with remarks about their skin colour. It doesn't matter if that skin colour is white, black or green with purple spots.

His fellow actors have been told to "denounce" him. It looks like he can wave goodbye to his career. What lovely tolerant people the ultra woke are.
www.thestage.co.uk/news/2020/laurence-fox-labelled-a-disgrace-to-industry-following-question-time-race-row/

Fox's privilege shows most clearly when he declares in world-weary tones that racism is 'boring' now. He is part of a group that doesn't have to think about it every time they go out of their front door. That is the very definition of privilege.

He came across as crass and dismissive and his sense of entitlement clearly extends to talking over others. I expect his career will proceed unhindered and he will have gained popularity with some elements. I wouldn't want him pilloried but he has revealed himself as typical of his caste.

I would have thought the ability to empathise would have been part and parcel of a successful acting career but evidently he manages well without it.

One thing I don't understand is why white people are so against admitting that racism is a thing and that it is still everywhere . What bad thing happens to you if you accept it is a thing?? It genuinely baffles me.

I believe racism does still exist in this country, and that this can and does manifest itself in sub-conscious bias that we all need to be careful of in ourselves. However, it’s the “woke” agenda which ironically undermines all this by stretching the definition and application of racism to breaking point.

The backlash is against those who see racism in any reference to someone of colour that is not reverential, or who automatically impute the worst possible racist motives when someone makes any comment that references race in a way that does fall into the incredibly tight boundaries set by the woke, liberal cheerleaders.

For instance, refer to a “coloured person” rather than a “person of colour” and chances are your choice of phrase won’t just be considered awkwardly anachronistic, but “racist”.

Or write a story (as a tabloid did) about MM’s background being less privileged than Harry’s, rather than it being regarded as a typical example of sensationalist tabloid journalist style used throughout every story in the paper, it is “racist”.

And should someone question the basis for such accusations of “racism”, rather than being engaged with, that person is considered as racist for daring to question!

The woke-liberal-left’s belief seems to be that if someone feels something is “racist”, it is racist, full-stop, end of story, and the facts are immaterial. The disconnect with any rational consideration or evidence-based reason has similarities with the trans ideology, and with it the attempt to push us into an Orwellian world of woke.

All of this “woke” as an insult is not helping matters at all.

Why is it becoming a political left insult?

Racism is nasty.

If people think people are “seeing” racism when they don’t think it is a problem then they need to ask themselves why is that. Are they being too dismissive.

Likewise 'liberal' since Trump. That insult seems to have crossed the Pond. Liberal used to be an unequivocally 'nice' word but look how it has been used in posts on here. Has 'woke' just replaced 'PC' as an insult of choice?

Has 'woke' just replaced 'PC' as an insult of choice

Yep. Easier to throw insults than actually try and see someone else’s point of view I guess.

@Oakenbeach

Excellent posts.

Racism is nasty.

It is, but the way in which it’s definition has been stretched and weaponised to try and shame anyone who doesn’t cow-tow to the woke, liberal worldview risks aggravating tensions and making racism worse!

The woke-liberal-left’s belief seems to be that if someone feels something is “racist”, it is racist, full-stop, end of story, and the facts are immaterial

The facts according to who? If someone feels that something is racist, that is a fact.

Whether or not there was a racist intent is another matter.

Conflate the two and you have a problem.

That’s why the MM argument is important.

Some people feel that the intent underlying the MM treatment is racist. That is mostly likely because those people have seen and heard a lot of racism. If they’ve seen a lot of racism, then that is a problem. There is a problem in society if people are feeling subject to racism.

Denying that experience is pretty insensitive. It doesn’t mean you have to immediately shy away from a sensible debate about it. But what is happening is people are shutting it down as “woke” “lefty” rage etc.

That’s the issue here.

I’m mixed race. I’ve experienced my fair share of racism directly and indirectly. Some people don’t even realise they’re doing it but it’s there.

The other issues with MM is the tabloid press. It’s disgusting before we even get to racism. That’s why other white women marrying into the royal family have suffered at the hands of the press, because the tabloids are scum.

I don’t doubt there’s an element of “other” being directed towards MM and I think some of that is because she’s not British.

I thought LF was a knob who is devoid of empathy for anyone different to him.

But I found it scary that a lot of the people in the audience shared and applauded his views, over the views of Shami, who was called hypocritical and accused of not listening to the British people.

Yes she is privileged but she completely understands she is privileged and obviously had huge empathy for others not in her situation.

The scary thing to me Is the post brexit conservative mainly white male set, discounting any sort of “Ism”, and branding anyone who supports the vulnerable as “woke liberal elite” and “not listening to the people”. I find it very scary indeed. I’m not sure whether these exact words were used on the program but it’s something I keep seeing/hearing. Where has our compassion gone?

If he loses his almost none existent career it’s because he came across as a massive arse. I would touch him with a barge pole. There are lots of posh white men like him out there feeling hard done by for some reason.

Can you explain why we shouldn't be liberal Oakenbeach? I really would love to hear this from someone who uses that word as a criticism. I just don't get it.

On the subject of LF, he came across as vile, sneering, crude and misogynist (uncomfortably so) on Gogglebox. Many QT viewers (at least active on certain parts of Twitter) seem to have enjoyed his participation but the gentler Gogglebox viewers did not like his stint on there and I doubt C4 will use him again for that show.

I am also not remotely convince the worldview is liberal!

Can someone who thinks being liberal is a bad thing explain what liberalism is?

Liberal used to be an unequivocally 'nice' word but look how it has been used in posts on here.

Not so long ago we were all “liberals”, but those at the vanguard of liberalism took things too far,
as the tolerance with which it was synonymous disappeared as it morphed into an increasingly intolerant creed of identity.

Where previously liberalism sought to champion the rights of minorities alongside the majorities, having made huge strides over recent decades, in the wake of its success it increasingly seems to have chosen to champion minorities to the exclusion of majorities.

The result... Brexit and Trump, to which liberals then doubled down on their disregard and disdain for the majorities who were themselves feeling marginalised. Hopefully their crushing defeat at the 2019 GE will cause them to re-evaluate.

in the wake of its success it increasingly seems to have chosen to champion minorities to the exclusion of majorities

How?

I put Brexit and Trump down to the fact that the majority of people are not benefitting from the economic model which sees a very very small but very very rich minority take the lions share of the gains.

The majority know something is up so they turn on the easier scapegoats such as minorities. This is whipped up by the rich such as trump and brexiteers because it lets them off the hook.

Not sure how we can blame the liberals for that when we’ve had ten years of the right ruling in this country.

branding anyone who supports the vulnerable as “woke liberal elite” and “not listening to the people”

And this is the problem... the belief that anyone who has an issue with the woke agenda necessarily wants to trample on the poor and disadvantaged. My issue is that it is the intolerance of those on the liberal left that is stoking division and creating tension in our society, not healing it.

I see oakenbeach so what we really need is a new word. Not woke. No one has taken the middle right words (such as conservative) and appropriated those in the same way as abroad brush insult. The far Right still remains a term for this.

Oak I think you have it spot on, even though I am still very much liberal. What does taking liberalism too far mean?

I think the refugee crisis has done this in people’s minds. However many children (numbers unknown) die crossing the med, we (the UK) still don’t want to help those people out. We (the UK) blame that, and the EU, for all our individual problems, not the greed and capitalism that caused the banking crisis and subsequent 10 years of austerity. And was it not western governments interference in the Middle East that in part started the Arab spring and wars that mean there’s been untold suffering and masses of refugees?

What else though are we too liberal on? Genuine question because I think you have it spot on, but I don’t fully understand it.

"Wingedserpentfliesbynight

If he loses his almost none existent career"
"Non existent career"? Whatever you think of his politics, how can you deny that he has a very successful acting career?

Maybe he's sick of England and its "white" people being labelled racist, maybe he didnt articulate it very well but she had no right to throw the white male privilege at him. There would be uproar if hed used a phrase referencing the colour of her skin. Personally I'm sick of being labelled a racist living in a racist country.

Posters aren't saying too liberal, though. They use liberal itself as an insult . This ahs definitely come directly from the US where liberality is viewed by a more right wing nation politically (on the whole) with suspicion. I never heard this insult of 'liberal' in wide use before the Trump election.

So you can say all you like that liberals caused Trump but it is parroting his lexicon of insults.

The majority know something is up so they turn on the easier scapegoats such as minorities

To imply that the majority who voted Brexit are the same as those who scapegoat minorities for any woes they have is offensive, and I write as someone who voted remain.

I'm sick of labels per se! It seems that a person's views can be scoffed at and dismissed simply by a casual 'liberal' or 'woke' or 'snowflake' or silenced with a blanket #nodebate.

What is the opposite of liberal, anyway, and why is it such a great thing to be it, whatever it is?

Labels are the death of rational discourse.

Agreed.