Ollie Robinson cancel culture what do you believe?

[NEVERQUIT3331]

The latest news is about Ollie Robinson about a cricket player who when he was 18 years old was found tweeting sexist and racist things.

England dropped him and made him apologise. And there is no idea if he will ever return.

We can all agree that people need to be hold accountable for their actions. Some people definitely should be cancelled e.g. Katie Hopkins, Anjem Chowdhury as they will never change (or they aren't willing to.)

But if someone did something say 5 years ago or more and they do not hold these views anymore surely they deserve some sort of chance?

Definitely education is needed which can stop people having ignorant people (not everyone though but many people)

Plus with cancel culture there is a double standard if you say we should cancel then a lot of people should be cancelled e.g. Chris Brown, Camila Cabello (racist messages in the past etc..)

I thought Chris Brown had been cancelled! He certainly should be. He beats up women FFS. And he isn't even sorry.

Re this cricketer-- I don't know. At 18 he's an adult. And non-racist people don't say racist stuff, so he must have at least believed it at the time. How do we know he still doesn't? He only apologised because he got found out.
If he wants to redeem himself he needs to do more than hang his head in shame as plead youthful stupidity.

@suspiria777 very true but I feel that if we let some people back into society for committing crimes in the past e.g. fatal drink driving, burglary etc surely we can educate most people and ensure they do not repeat the same mistakes. They should be punished but eventually given a chance to redeem themselves if they are willing to change.

And regarding Chris Brown, he is still popular people still love his music.

Either education works - and people can learn, change, grow, move on - or we are in a new Lutheran age, where people are mired in original sin and only the elect are touched by grace and can be redeemed.

Personally, I believe in education, learning, changing - and the possibility of learning and moving on.

🤷‍♀️

I think we've reached an extraordinary stage, where we accept premises in the area of politics that we refused in religion a good century ago.

I mean, I genuinely believe in the ideas that

• you can educate people about anti-racism and that will change people.

• that people, when they realise what racism is and how devastating its effects are, will become anti-racist.

• that politics is about changing people's beliefs, and that politics as such ceases to exist if you don't believe you can change people's minds.

I find this movement to fixity - a kind of belief in irredeemable sin - in modern politics incalculably harmful for politics itself.

For things that aren't crimes, in an enlightened society, people should be able to admit to wrongdoing and apologise.

Once this is done sincerely, it doesn't seem proportionate to punish/shame/cancel them forever. To me it says more about those who enjoy the shaming others part. Sadly though this is again becoming a sport for the left and right wing alike. If we're going to do this let's not pretend we're an advanced nation - let's bring the stocks and rotten vegetables out and be up front about it.

I think he can educate himself, show that he is remorseful and be forgiven.

However, I hate the excuse that he was a teenager so that's an immediate pass to be allowed. My 9 year old knows not to make racist or sexist comments so I don't see how this is excusable. And 19 is an adult, not a young teen.

[quote NEVERQUIT3331]@suspiria777 very true but I feel that if we let some people back into society for committing crimes in the past e.g. fatal drink driving, burglary etc surely we can educate most people and ensure they do not repeat the same mistakes. They should be punished but eventually given a chance to redeem themselves if they are willing to change.

And regarding Chris Brown, he is still popular people still love his music.[/quote]
sure, we let people "back into society" but that doesn't mean they should (in the case of this man) be allowed to retain privileges like being able to play sport representing the country on the international stage. Especially since his racism has ONLY JUST come to public attention -- there needs to be some actual consequences, not just a "sorry i got found out" speech.

Actions have consequences, and if being racist means some privileges are made unavailable, I think that's all to the good. In this case, it seems perfectly appropriate that he is not currently being allowed to play a game of cricket.

Less said about Chris Brown the better to be honest.

And it's so cynical.

You do the window-dressing of cancelling a few people, rather than addressing deeply embedded and structural inequalities.

It's just cynical, contemporary capitalism. 🤷‍♀️

It's not progress. It's plastic progress.

The ECB should have done their homework long before he was selected, so that his teenage social media was found out. The ECB could then have decided not to select him, or have him attend equality training for example, before he played for England.

I think we've reached an extraordinary stage, where we accept premises in the area of politics that we refused in religion a good century ago

I find this movement to fixity - a kind of belief in irredeemable sin - in modern politics incalculably harmful for politics itself

This is so perfectly articulated! Identity politics uses exactly the same tactics as religion used to use.

Structural racism is the fact that children in poverty are disproportionately children of colour. And we have increasing numbers of children in poverty.

That's real inequality. How many of those children will go on to play professional cricket?

That's a difficult-to-address structural inequality when it comes to elite sport.

But plastic progress gives us cancel culture and asks us to celebrate it, rather than doing the hard, heavy work of addressing structural inequalities which haven't just persisted but have worsened.

I'm sick of it all.

And angry at this quietist performance of right-Onness from organisations.

His tweets were cringey, ignorant and very poor taste but he doesn’t deserve to be cancelled. He’s probably grown up a lot since they were posted.

I feel that it’s teaching teens etc that this behaviour cannot and will not be tolerated. Online activity can never truly be deleted, there is always a footprint somewhere.

In the case of this cricketer, his past behaviour has impacted his future life and rightly so. Maybe it will teach some people to think about what they post before they do it.

'Cancelled' seems stretch. He's been suspended pending an investigation, and I suspect that investigation will be "it was a long time ago, he's much less of a dick these days and has agreed to attend sensitivity training".

The timing may be unfortunate, and I suspect someone has been sitting on the tweets for a while and waiting for the most damaging time to release them.

But as a general rule, if an organization finds out one of its members has been making racist/sexist tweets, I don't think a suspension pending investigation is unreasonable.

Yeah, they have to be held accountable. I wouldn't have said comments like that at that age. You're not magically going to become not racist because you're in the public eye or a few years have passed.

@EloquentlyBrash

His tweets were cringey, ignorant and very poor taste but he doesn’t deserve to be cancelled. He’s probably grown up a lot since they were posted.

I agree with this.

He has apologised and I think he should be allowed to learn and be a better person because of it.

I know this is not the point but I am uncomfortable with people going back on someone's social media for 10 years to find things to ruin them.
And really anyone who is representing their country should have had all of this looked at prior to selection.
Or obviously not tweeted it in the first place.

I think a much more powerful way to handle it would be some sort of community service.
Maybe even some cricket coaching for under privileged children? Volunteering?
Education and becoming a better man would be much a better example to make.

He has apologised and I think he should be allowed to learn and be a better person because of it.
And that's what I expect the end result will be at the end of the investigation. The only real question is whether you let him carry on, or suspend him, until the appropriate authority has had time to investigate. I dont think that a suspension is at all unreasonable, nor do I think it amounts to 'cancellation'.

Gosh the sanctimononious puratanical streak runs deep on mumsnet today. He may well hold some inappropriate views on women and people from other ethicities but do we really want to become a society that destroys individuals for a few inappropriate comments on social media from when they are teenagers. They werent abusive to an individual' they were mildly derogatory in terms of what constitues misogyny and racism. He didnt commit a crime so shouldnt be punished or compelled into being 'educated' for something stated 10 years previously unless his employers have more recent evidence of same behaviour. What next 'education camps' in Siberia for all the men that have subjected women to sexist jokes over the years. We are in danger of entering a puritanical era where 'identity' is the new god.

@Nutrafin

He has apologised and I think he should be allowed to learn and be a better person because of it. And that's what I expect the end result will be at the end of the investigation. The only real question is whether you let him carry on, or suspend him, until the appropriate authority has had time to investigate. I dont think that a suspension is at all unreasonable, nor do I think it amounts to 'cancellation'.

True.

Suspension + investigation = appropriate.

And I do hope that is what happens here.

It feels like a storm in a teacup.

If this had happened 5 or 10 years ago (and to be clear again, what has happened is a temporary suspension pending investigation) nobody would have batted an eyelid.

But now the right wing has gone all in on the 'cancel culture's narrative, seeing it as a potential vote winner, so you have the fucking Prime Minister weighing in and inflaming the situation.

And it's not as if the Conservative Party hasn't suspended members for use of racist language in the recent past.

For all the talk of performative outrage on the left, there seems to be a fair amount on the right...

True.

Suspension + investigation = appropriate.

And I do hope that is what happens here.
That is literally what is happening here...

I feel for the young today
Any mistakes will come back to haunt you.

We were able to make mistakes when young and it doesn’t chase us down years later.

Making stupid mistakes and saying ridiculous things is part of growing up.

@thecatfromjapan what's capitalism got to do with it?

Please. It’s not like racism was ok 5 years ago, and it’s not like 18 year olds can’t be expected to know better. Why does he deserve a second chance? How much longer are people like you going to advocate compromising people’s human rights for the sake of protecting white men who behave like cunts?

@User52739

Please. It’s not like racism was ok 5 years ago, and it’s not like 18 year olds can’t be expected to know better. Why does he deserve a second chance? How much longer are people like you going to advocate compromising people’s human rights for the sake of protecting white men who behave like cunts?

Oh I didn’t realise 5 years ago no excuse then