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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To expect Mumsnet NOT TO ALLOW OPENLY RACIST THREADS TO STAND UNDELETED?

235 replies

Hurlyburly · 10/09/2007 11:23

Hmm? Well AM I?

If someone tells me not to click on the FUCKING thread in question, I think I will explode. Racism should have no place on Mumsnet.

OP posts:
3andnomore · 10/09/2007 14:43

miljee, please expand....

fluffyanimal · 10/09/2007 14:43

"Racism is frequently more malign than that."

yes that's true, but I don't think the OP in the thread you are talking about was a case of that.

Blandmum · 10/09/2007 14:43

I also feel that xenophobia tends to stem from people being simply ignorent.

Racism comes more of hatered.

So not knowing about ethnic differences, could lead to people being xenophobic about Muslims in general.

Islamist Radicals (note, not Islamic peoples), may be racists because they hate Kaffus (unbelievers). BNF memebers are racist because they hate people who are not white(whatever white means)

cushioncover · 10/09/2007 14:44

Unless of course you mean the 'culture of Conservatism'.

Original poster
Hurlyburly · 10/09/2007 14:45

The OP was using the language of racism though. The "own country" reference?

But I do agree with your point that the OP wasn't malign. Some of the others were though.

OP posts:
LoveAngel · 10/09/2007 14:46

'Own country'. Grrrrr. I want to scream every time I read that.

3andnomore · 10/09/2007 14:46

the op of that post, did come back and said it was a mistake to say country, it was meant to say class

LoveAngel · 10/09/2007 14:49

yeh, common mistake to make that

cushioncover · 10/09/2007 14:49

Has anyone ever heard the anecdote about the time that Bernie Grant MP met the Duke of Edinburgh?

DoE: (loudly) And which African country do you come from? Bloody hot out there isn't it?

BG: Tottenham; and no, it mostly rains!

Scootergrrrl · 10/09/2007 14:50

Perhaps the openly-racist POSTS, of which there were a few on that first thread and which must break some kind of MN rule, could be deleted, leaving the majority of the thread to stand as a debate like any other?

LoveAngel · 10/09/2007 14:58

lol@cushioncover. The DoE. What an absolute arse.

3andnomore · 10/09/2007 15:03

erm, seeing that teh op was talking about Pre school class...I think it could have been an honest mistake in that case...

Desiderata · 10/09/2007 15:04

Quite so, 3andnomore. But never let the truth get in the way of a good racism thread

3andnomore · 10/09/2007 15:05
Smile
Original poster
Hurlyburly · 10/09/2007 15:07

I hadn't read the whole thread - and had missed the mistake that the OP said she had made.

OP posts:
EricL · 10/09/2007 15:07

I wouldn't call it an 'openly racist' thread.

Insensitive and ill-concieved - yes.

I refrained from posting in it cos i knew where it would end up eventually...........

lionheart · 10/09/2007 15:19

Just got back to this, LA, these things have been debated by many academics, educationalists, people involved with Black History Month,

Affirmative action, those who are developing theories of victimology. They aren't in a any sense agreeing with DW's idea that there is normal

history and then there is history which has a less neutral agenda but they do have concerns about how to teach this history and move

beyond it in various ways. (Black Athena, Mary Seacole, etc).

HTH.

ladymuck · 10/09/2007 17:47

LoveAngel, back to your 14:37 post (school run, homework and tea now over): you will not win over everyone with a debate - there will alwasy be a small vocal persistant minority. Yet they enable a debate to occur and for other people to read it and be challenged. Which is important.

After all the skill of a true debate (think Oxford Union, or Question Time say) is winning over the minds of the audience not the opponent.

lionheart · 10/09/2007 17:54

I think that's right too, ladymuck, and even more so because people can read so many different things into silence,

including consent, which is where the other thread on MM comes into it.

Original poster
Hurlyburly · 10/09/2007 18:00

Yes but perhaps neither LoveAngel (nor I for that matter) hadn't appreciated that the racism "debate" needed to be held on Mumsnet. This is not a reasoned argument situation. If you believe that racism is born out of ignorance, then a debate isn't going to fix that ignorance.

As to the audience point, I'm sorry but I just don't buy it. So the hearts and minds of the Mumsnetters are susceptible to being won over or alienated on this issue?

What so if my arguments fail, Mumsnetters all run off and join the Ku Klux Klan?

OP posts:
lionheart · 10/09/2007 18:08

I don't think it is always ignorance at all. Often it's just a pig-headed single minded desire to hate and despise someone. Not at all rational.

Original poster
Hurlyburly · 10/09/2007 18:12

Yes I recognise that too. But it's not susceptible to being cunningly argued around though, is it?

OP posts:
lionheart · 10/09/2007 18:16

Naa, it's not gonna happen like that but did you see the thread where someone used the word chinky and genuinely didn't realise there was a

problem with it. She was called racist and lots of huffing and mudslinging ensued.

Another thread was started by, I think, RedTartanLass that was very much like the one you started, very pissed off.

At the end some people did begin to understand (not all by any means).

lionheart · 10/09/2007 18:17

Bloody hard work, though, and infuriating and frustrating and all of that ...

ladymuck · 10/09/2007 18:22

No, but there are some remarks which are offence which are being unwittingly made - MB's example of referring to a takeaway as a chinkie, or the recent "paddy" thread (though I'm not sure how that was resolved in the end).

And even if we take the thread that you're referring to, I'm not sure that I do view all your quotes as being explicitly racist. But I'm taking time to think about my opinions on the subject, and I haven't yet reread all of the other thread (I did contribute early on, but I guess it has moved on by now). Yes, report "posts", but keep the debate. There are other moderated sites which will limit the topics of conversation.