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/

Ahhh, it all makes sense now! I can totally imagine someone combing nineteenth century dictionaries for a word to insult Megan Markle with. I can really see that happening. And if that someone is not particularly literary and has a very busy career, I guess they just had to find the time. How long do you think he spent trying to find the u-word? Hours? Days? And it had to have that secret nuance, didn't it? To people with jobs and lives who don't live on woke twitter it would just be a normal word. But woke twitter rumbled him and sent a baying mob to his door. Yes it definitely happened that way. I can see it now. Thanks so much for enlightening us.

To paraphrase:

Nowadays, a writer or politician has to take care to never say anything that a dishonest critic could choose to dishonestly misrepresent. It’s dementing and we cannot live this way

Are you being deliberately obtuse or do you really not understand the concept of white privilege? As you started a goady thread on here I’m going for option A.

Privilege in this sense isn’t about having a blessed life. It’s about not having an extra load to carry through whatever your life is.

A man who works full time will earn 8.9% more than a woman working full time. He might have a shit job and be overworked but he’s going to earn more than a woman who’s also overworked and in a shit job. Male privilege. In the interview for that shit job odds are he wasn’t asked if he had children or about childcare arrangements. Despite the law, there’s a good chance the woman was and her chances of being hired were impacted by her answers. Male privilege. If the job means being the last to leave at 11pm and having to walk a couple of streets to the bus stop in the dark to catch the last bus home he might worry about missing the bus and having to walk home. She‘s likely to have a lot more concerns about walking alone in the dark.

Privilege. It’s not about having a red carpet laid out at your feet it’s about having less shit on the path you’re walking.

DappleGray Of course they should keep all their own property

I want them to go, because a modern country should no longer have a hereditory head of state, there because of birth order not merit

What if Andrew had been born ahead of Charles ?
(not that I'm impressed by Charles' qualifications to be head of state either)

Confiscating private property from wealthy families is something totally different and would set a very dangerous precedent

OP
Your answer is nonsensical.

Do you really think a journalist who makes their living out of using words to generate a reaction didn’t understand the connotations of a word like uppity.

I've known the word "uppity" since at least my teens and I grew up very poor indeed

I'm surprised it's thought an unusual word, but maybe white people in the UK are less likely to know it.
"Uppity" came from the USA and was originally used by white Southerners to describe blacks who didn't "know their place"

I'm astonished a professional journalist wouldn't know the connotations of "uppity"

Especially given that it was also used about Barack Obama in 2008
www.nytimes.com/2008/09/22/opinion/22observer.html

Yeah ok @Cordylina except its overblown by a massive proportion and generally used to silence or demean. If you cant see why its divisive unhelpful rhetoric there will just be no end to this cycle.

Most people in the UK would have no clue that uppity was considered a racist term. No clue at all.

For most, their reference point would be Mr Uppity from the Mr Men children’s books series. Genuinely.

I know which n-word habitually follows the u-word, duchess, and I'm English. Never heard of that particular Mr Men book either. So much baggage in three syllables...

'Love of fuck' Really 😠

He was an arse and I turned the TV off. That doesn’t make me “woke”, just not arrogant, unpleasant and unaware.

LF talked over audience woman belligerently, effectively shutting her up. Isn't the use of the term "ultra woke" trying to do just that too - shut people up and dismiss their experiences as just fashionable rhetoric or unauthentic ? Audience woman was pointing out that just because he doesn't experience or witness racism that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. She was asking him to consider where his perspective originates and why it might differ to the perspective of POC or anyone from a different background. It seemed that he was referring to his experiences/ views as the default - the "truth" without considering other's perspectives. Its fair enough to assume that the colour of his skin and his background will inform his experiences and viewpoint.

It's ironic that those defending LF and saying he has every right to his opinion (which is true), and the ones getting the most upset by people like me, who think LF's opinion on racism, as a wealthy white male from a wealthy white background, isn't worth a wank.

Why is his right to voice his opinion being defended to the hilt, but my opinion on his opinion is being shouted down, by those who are so keen on the freedom to voice an opinion.

LF's opinion on racism is about as much use as Cyril Smith's opinion on hang gliding.

He is talking about something on which he has absolutely no concept or experience. Fucking stupid arrogant twat.

Gareth Southgate, England football manager, when asked recently about how black players should deal with racism from the terraces, and if they should walk off the pitch, said "I feel very uncomfortable, as a wealthy white middle class man, giving advice to young black men on how to deal with racism".

That's because Gareth has class, humility and self awareness.

Why is his right to voice his opinion being defended to the hilt, but my opinion on his opinion is being shouted down, by those who are so keen on the freedom to voice an opinion.

White make privilege in action.

It can make people very defensive but how can you change things if you don’t talk about them? The whole point privilege is that you’re not aware of the things that another group has to deal with.

On here I’ve seen threads where people argue that women in the UK don’t have anything to complain about and the gender pay gap and the underrepresentation of women on FTSE 100 boards and in Parliament is just about life choices. This is from other women. We’re not a homogeneous group - someone must be buying scented Tampax. Dissenting voices doesn’t mean there’s no issue.

Reading threads on here (about buses and pram space) I learned that if you’re in a wheelchair catching a bus can be a hell of a lot more complicated than has the bus arrived and has the driver opened the door to take on passengers. That you could be left at a bus stop because someone on the bus refuses to collapse their pram to allow you to use the wheelchair space or only being able to get onto some models of bus if someone volunteers to help manoeuvre you on isn’t something that had ever occurred to me. As it hadn’t, the knock on effects of that hadn’t either - missing appointments, having to allow extra time to go anywhere, freezing your arse off in the cold and rain, being verbally abused by entitled pushchair owners ... That’s privilege. I don’t think it’s divisive to say that. Once you know it’s an issue you might be able to at least avoid making things worse by eg making sure the pushchair you buy folds easily if you use the bus a lot.

I’m absolutely horrified at the voting figures, and think this is me done with Mumsnet.

The racist tabloids have won. They turned political correctness into an insult and appear to have managed the same with wokeness. Well fuck that. Empathy towards others and an awareness of the barriers they face is something to be celebrated, not criticised. But my empathy doesn’t extend to people who have had every advantage and every success, but still whinge about being so hard done by. Poor old Laurence and the terrible racism he faces that has had, er, precisely no impact on him at all.

Until the Meghan furore I hadn't known the racist connotations of "Uppity". It is a word I never use and just reminds me of the Mr Men books. Has this one been banned now?

I had no idea uppity was racist either. I am not from UK and in my 50;s and it is a common term for someone who is a little "hyacinth bucket" but in a haughty kind of way.
Yes, haughty, that's what it means where I am from.

Piggywaspushed You are right, racism is alive and well in the U.K, what you forgot to mention is that it is a 2 way street. I was in a Northern town over the festive season for a long weekend. I was spat at by Asian male teens and called a white whore, I was served by an Asian shop assistant who couldnt keep the contempt of his face and wouldn't even put my change into my hand instead slapped it onto the counter and told me i shouldnt be out on my own. I am 50+ years old was dressed in black trousers a winter coat and a hat but it seems i look like a whore, was that because these those teens think whores dress like that or because they hate white women ? But of course it must have been my fault that these young men are full of hate

Can see why Billie dumped him!!

When I was younger my Indian boyfriend's family told me they could never accept me because I was white. It works both ways and is never acceptable whichever way round

I think if non-racist people are constantly being shouted in the face at that they are racist, they could actually become racist.

What is interesting is the conflation of gender and racial politics now. It is hard to feel if people are so mad at Fox because he is a man who is white or a white who is male.

The problem with the identity politics woke crowd is that they are inflexible idealogues just like the people the are raging against.