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/

@Wherethecowsgobong

I've missed the hummus thing, I've been dropping in and out of the thread, sounds weird!?

Again, I'm not sure you've understood WP, if you're wishing BAME people could share it. Also, it's less something an individual white person should feel guilty for, than recognise and account for. Something LF refused to do; he found it easier (and more lucrative!) to dismiss it.

The examples you give are true, but these are groups of people who aren't seen as 'white' in this system.

Only saw your question about 'what can you do?' after I posted. I agree that the best thing we can do is acknowledge it, and not let people who face a lot less barriers, play people off against each other. (See LF's revived career!)

What I meant was that I wished that BAME were like me in the fact that I do not face discrimination fo rmy skin colour and I wish that was their experience too. Sadly, for many of them, it isn't. I wish we were all treated fairly and not judged on the basis of what skin tone or ethnic group we come from.

Re; Rotherham, I DO believe the white abuse victims were also victims of racism, not by their abusers but by the police who let "political correctness" and "fear of being seen as racist" stop them from taking action much sooner.

Ultimately acknowledgement without excuse is exactly what all honest people can do when discussing racism, classism, and sexism.

I am grateful to LF though for showing us who he really is. All we have to do is believe him. Now... and when he attempts to gaslight us later.

Yeah cause when it flies everywhere in England during world cups and other football events everyone associates it with racism

I don’t - i think folk should be absolutely ok with flying it

iwunderwhy

I think LF is an arrogant and naive twit. Him being priveleged might me part of that naivety but I don't think it is the root of the problem. Racism is the problem not privelege. Plenty of rich white men are not racist.

I think racism can be found anywhere but I do think the most virulent forms of racism in the UK are found within the less priveleged classes. All racism is wrong, though.

FWIW, I really have no issue with Meghan as a person. Maybe she was the wrong type personality to marry into the Firm, maybe she handled things badly, but am sick of this "burn the witch" mentality where she is concerned. Harry (and I quite like him too) is to blame for this mess also.

rockingchaircandle

I think it was in this thread, but I could be wrong- someone upthread mentioned the idea of cultural appropriation as an example of Woke going too far. Basically there has been an idea floated around the Universe of Woke Stoopidity that if you buy a BAME food like hummus for example, then you should buy it from a person of that culture (so, basically buying hummus from a Jordanian deli or grocers would be fine, but not a British shop). I am a long time lurker on MN and I remember a thread a while back where a poster actually said that it was wrong to buy hummus from a British shop not from a Middle Eastern retailer. The poster was deadly serious about it. IIRC, she was part white British, part ME, but had white skin and she said because of that, she felt it was wrong for her to identify as BAME, even though she technically is! Which is fine, as it is her choice, I think people can identify their ethnic group however they feel best, but I was a bit like "well, I have Ashkenazi Jewish and Romany ancestry from a few generations back but am mostly White British, but if i wanted to surely I could claim that I'm a kind of Minority ethnic if i wanted to?" I actually identify as White British, that is the majority part of my DNA and my life has been white British, I have pale skin snd green eyes and mousy hair, but at the same time, I would not think it a terrible crime to say am part ethnic or whatever. I just don't think it a big deal either way. This woman's earnestness about the hummus and not identifying as BAME just cracked me up a bit....

LF made me feel particularly nauseous when he called the woman in the audience "racist" for saying he was a white privileged male.

Does he even know what racism is? Clearly not! No idea at all.

@WhereTheCowsGoBong

'I think racism can be found anywhere but I do think the most virulent forms of racism in the UK are found within the less priveleged classes. All racism is wrong, though.'

Do you think they more privileged might be better able to disguise it?

@WhereTheCowsGoBong

I think cultural appropriation absolutely can be a bad thing but I also think people take it too far. When I first learned of the concept, it was in the context of a dominant (usually colonizing) culture taking things of spiritual or religious significance from an oppressed a culture and basically making it a fashion item (or a fancy dress costume or whatever).

For the most part, I don't see how that applies to food.

@TheCountessofFitzdotterel Ok but I assume you can understand that there are actually ways of measuring "racism" and ethno-centrism which are more objective than "how people feel about Britain".

Apparently we are a massively racist country which is nonetheless pursuing an immigration policy which will reduce the white population to a minority in 100 years and dedicates huge amounts of time and money to smoothing over racial division. Our police even ignore cases of mass rape in order to avoid ethnic violence.

So when you call Britain racist you should ask yourself "compared to what". What non-white country would have pursued the policies that we have?

I thought LF was saying that the negativity MM received was to do with her actions and not to call any comments made about a POC racism, which I agree with.

Of course there's a huge amount of racism in the uk and elsewhere but not every single comment is due to racism.

I'm not white btw

@UndomesticHousewife By "huge amount of racism" what do you actually mean? How are you quantifying this? Are you comparing countries with similar mixes of people? As far as I can see Britain has had an increasingly large amount of immigration since the 1950s/60s which has been handled fairly well given the unprecedented numbers. It is hard for me to picture a non-Western country absorbing such numbers without there being a genocide or a serious level of government suppression. The middle east massacres or discriminates against its non-Muslims. Africa is a complicated melting pot of ethnic violence & corruption. South America is highly racially segregated with the white-Hispanics often gating themselves off with guards and fences. The east Asian migrant societies (like Singapore) are nor functioning democracies - and have a huge level of state suppression to keep the various groups in line.

If Britain is so racist 1) why do we have an immigration policy of such magnitude? 2) why do hindus, Chinese, jews & west africans do considerably better than the natives? 3) Why do we spend loads of money on equality think tanks etc trying to smooth over the cracks of multi-ethnic society?

Seriously. By what measure are you calling British people "racist". It seems to me that the British, the Swedes, the Finns and the Germans are literally the least racist societies in human history.

Iwunderwhy:
Thanks, that article is very interesting:
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jan/19/there-is-a-reason-why-royals-demonised-but-wont-read-all-about-it-prince-harry-meghan-markle
It kinda supports the argument that her negative coverage is not racist but because she's suing the papers with Harry.

The hummus thing is a strawman here, its only mentioned to try to discredit other points.

The thing about pursuing an immigration policy that will see whites be a minority in 100 years is also straight out of the far right play book.

Oh and its perfectly legitimate to say that there is significant levels of racism in Britain, your little list seems to forget that we had a government policy which targeted POC who have every right to be here and denied them rights and in some cases deported them.

By "huge amount of racism" what do you actually mean

Here's a thought..instead of asking what she means, why not ask her for her experiences of racism...

I agree it’s a great article that should be compulsory reading.

It kinda supports the argument that her negative coverage is not racist but because she's suing the papers with Harry.

What’s the excuse before they started legal proceedings? The negative coverage has been going on long before that.

@malylis Do you disagree with the population projections? And do you disagree that a fundamentally racist society would be reluctant to allow in lots of foreigners?

@chomalungma Because my point was not about the subjective experience of racism. It was about whether Britain has lots of racism. And what "lots of racism" actually means.

I'd also like to add that the point about education "hindus, chinese,jews and west Africans do considerably better than the natives". Is bunkum

Chinese students perform best at GCSE, followed by the white Irish, white British students perform broadly in line with Black African students.

The difference between White British students and mixed chinese students ( who make up the largest group) is minimal, whilst from Asian its a few progress 8 points, but higher than the Pakistani.

The only levels where performance is coniderably higher is Chinese (not mixed), White Irish, and Indian. When you get down to being very specific.

@malylis that’s really interesting thank you for sharing

The 'woke' are like this Obama had it spot on.

Which population projections are you using? I've never seen one which says that white people will be a minority in 100 years.

A society can be fundamentally racist and allow immigration, although we do have some policies which are racist in our immigration laws.

@malylis ok but my point still stands. The left makes no attempt to put claims of systemic racism in a global or historical perspective. As far as I am concerned ethnic preference will always exist - largely because that is how humanity evolved. A culture of constantly blaming the racist natives for every instance of inequality is not going to produce a functional social or political system. It will backfire. Especially when the "anti-racist" left and "anti-racist" business class pursue economic and cultural policies which are to the detriment of the native population. I honestly think wealth and liberal tradition are all that stands in the way of genuine civil strife. Both the woke left and the corporate right are pursuing policies that will collapse the economy & erode the foundations of liberty under the law.