To think MN has a race problem and it’s getting worse

[MovingOutofZone2]

Posters say incredibly offensive, often outright racist things and MN lets them stand as it’s a ‘difference of opinion’ and that’s fine. Other posters complain about this and MN deletes said complaints as they are ‘personal attacks’ and that isn’t fine.

Then we have mods wandering in and going ‘let’s have peace and love’, as though ‘both sides’ need to calm down. No, we need to stop placating racists.

I’m not going to give examples as this will get taken down as a TAAT, but I cannot be the only person to be fed up with all this. MN needs to do something about the racism, race baiting and general cultural ignorance. Unless the site is ONLY meant to cater to white people and, even then, I firmly believe that most posters of any race don’t want to see all that ugliness.

It’s getting to the stage where, as a Black person, I’m steeling myself before I log on. And knowing that half the time I report a comment, I won’t even get a token acknowledgement. This isn’t right. It wasn’t always like this.

@Sausagenbacon If you don’t personally see the racism though, does that mean that it 100% doesn’t exist? Is there room in your way of thinking to understand that different people perceive things different ways, and maybe neither of those ways are definitively right or wrong?

For eg people with trauma might see offense in something that I can’t see offense in. Does that mean I’m right or they’re right? Like I posted yesterday about my son’s white friend’s experience of the “where are you from” question vs my non-white son’s experience of that same question. His white friend doesn’t see the racism in that question because it doesn’t lead to racial bullying. My son does, because it often ends in racial bullying for him. Is one of them right, or are both of them right?

It’s not as simplistic as saying “everyone who disagrees with you/me is a racist!” It’s understanding other people’s perspectives and experiences whether that’s, for eg, people of colour giving white people the benefit of the doubt about the intent of a question/comment, or white people understanding how their comment/question may have made people of colour feel uncomfortable/angry.

@BewareTheLibrarians

Do you think Hussey should have been afforded the opportunity to apologise before being fired?

You said (direct quote): I haven't seen anyone on MN supporting what Lady Hussey said. No one. Without exception posters have said she was wrong. I provided screenshots of people doing just that.

So, based on this thread, you state that the problem with me is that I (direct quote) just can't take on other points of view.

You then agree that you haven’t taken on any other points of view on this thread, but don’t seem to think that’s a problem. It’s fine for you to (maturely) reject opposing POV, it’s only a problem (and immature) when other people do so.

A clear illustration of my previous post on entitlement and nonexistent self awareness. So, thank you.

I think offering her the opportunity to apologise if she wanted to may have been more appropriate and helpful than her resignation, but that’s purely in my opinion and I have no idea if I’m right! But I think forcing her to apologise wouldn’t have been at all appropriate either.

I think the whole thing being dragged across social media has been massively unhelpful, but I don’t know how else Ms Fulani could have been open about what happened. But now she’s facing a ton of abuse on Twitter and similar, as is Mrs Hussey, which is only damaging things and further polarizing opinions.

I wonder how it could have been phrased by both parties to raise the issue without offending anyone on any side? Do you think that would have been possible?

No because we have too much division at the moment. Here is a great opportunity for people to understand each others point of view. Now we have lots of people not understanding each others point of view.

The fact is some people won't understand why this could be offensive, and some people won't understand that there may have been no ill intent behind it. So we have a large amount of division here.

It's also interesting that I feel a deep sense of anger for husseys remarks because I know how that feels for be questioned like that, but it's somewhat tempered by the idea of wondering whether I'm viewing it though a lens of trauma and getting it wrong.

I think years ago I would have just been angry about yet another old white racist woman and called anyone that saw it differently a racist.

Not every -ist and -phobic statement is actually -ist or -phobic.

1. She resigned - she was not fired
2. Any decision was from the RF.. NF did not ask for her to resign or be fired I doubt NF would have that kind of influence in the RF
3. NF had not even spoken to The RF at this point.
4. At that point NF had not even named LH although her name was in the media

So the question is what made LH resign at such speed. Maybe the RF thought that's the quickest way to deal with the negative publicity

That all makes perfect sense @HotChoxs . Reacting because of previous trauma is very human and understandable, and it does also make sense that people without your previous trauma won’t have a clue how they’ve upset you.

I think raising awareness can only help people understand the effect their words have on people, but often people feel berated and insulted, either rightfully or unfairly, depending on how it’s done. There are a small number of people who will refuse to accept or understand, and really it’s their loss.

@samyeagar Can you give any examples of -ist or phobic statements that aren’t actually -ist or phobic?

I think overall I just felt that naturally as the country became more mixed up it would lessen and resolve itself, I still believe that and in my view is that it continues along this trend.

The problem I have now is that I don't think that the level of anti-racism now is doing much else but continually creating more and more division.

I'm sure there's racism on MN, I'm sure there's a lot of subtle racism, but it's pointless and tiresome to address every single issue that could potentially be racism. People are far too quick to jump into it.

From where I'm standing it's quite weird to watch a load of white people start jumping up and down about it 20 years after it was a major issue. I think in the grand scheme of things certainly in this Country it really isn't these days.

I agree with this. Genuine overt racism should be challenged but the recent trend for the ever offended (and almost always white) type of individual is what leads to people like Trump getting elected. There are plenty of elderly people who just aren't up to date with the latest politically correct terms and the large majority of them won't be around in a decade or two. I generally believe we're moving in the right direction.

Huge respect @MovingOutofZone2 for your patience with this thread.

I'm glad at least one person understands where I'm coming from. After typing that enormous post I read it back and thought 'meh, I'm wasting my time, should've just got an extra 20 mins sleep'.

I feel that the baby risks getting thrown out with the bathwater in some of these situations and it becomes almost a boy who cried wolf situation. People will just give up trying/taking notice altogether if all they meet is hostility.

I'm just sick of white social justice warriors tbh. Most of them are middle class individuals working in professional jobs who probably only rub shoulders with the most privileged members of the BAME society. I doubt they'll believe this but I'm friendly with loads of non-British individual having spent years working in the construction/trucking sector - a particularly diverse sector due to the fact that good written/spoken English isn't a mandatory requirement. I work for a Sikh owned company and the team I currently manage comprises two British Jamaicans, a guy of Somalian descent, a Sikh, two Muslims, a Hungarian, and three working class Brummies. None of them give a shit about people asking about their heritage.

This may ruffle some feathers but tbh I don't give a shit. BAME people are fundamentally human and share many of the same characteristics as the rest of us. This sometimes includes the common human trait of wallowing in self pity and there's certain type of individual that is more than happy to embrace the victim identity that is so readily pushed on them. It's utterly endemic in feminism, racial politics, and identity politics but much less common offline in the real world.

The vast majority of these demographics are happy to just get on with it but there are those with a penchant for drama in each and every group. A lot of people seem to automatically regard them as some kind of ultimate authority on the lived experience of that group but I don't agree with that. I'll always challenge overt racism but if somebody is determined to seek offence then I don't care what their ethnicity is, I'm still going to tell them to get a fucking grip as I would tell any of my white mates. If you don't like it then tough shit. Nobody has the monopoly on how people should think.

I find certain sections of the media do try and stoke division at every opportunity.

Not a week goes by when there seemingly isn’t a story about something innocuous being racist, even ascribing racism to inanimate entities such as the British countryside, gardening (because of the use of vocabulary re native and non native species) etc.

And in the discourse of anti racism, there are things which are to me very obviously racist. A teacher on tiktok says that grammar is rooted in white supremacy so won’t be expecting her students to use it. My sister has had equality and diversity training session at work where she has been told that punctuality and productivity are values rooted in white privilege. Not only are these things patently nonsense but it seems very obvious to me that they are themselves racist as they imply that people from particularly ethnicities should not be expected to be on time, productive, or grammatically correct.

This is what results in people being defensive and saying "you can't say a thing these days"

And it sets back the cause of people who want to tackle genuine racism (both overt and covert).

NF woman experienced racism.
Witnesses called it racist and offensive.
Following an "immediate and detailed investigation", the outcome was that LSH's behaviour was unacceptable and deeply regrettable
LSH apologised and resigned.

The fact that people continue to deny the racism is extremely problematic for the UK. These are educators, employers, HCPs, police officers etc. I hope they are never called for jury duty.😬😬😱

Sorry for the random woman in my post.

@thewriteradmitsthat There’s a difference though between overt racism, covert racism and cultural awareness though.

For eg, the “grammar” example you wrote about actually makes perfect sense to me a cultural awareness and has been an issue in linguistics for years. But it’s completely niche, mostly American and I wouldn’t expect most people to have heard of it. (Basically, there’s more than one dialect of English, and while it’s appropriate to suggest that written work is completed to a predetermined written style, it’s not appropriate to tell children who use, for eg, AAVE, to only use “standard” English in the classroom or that their version of English is “wrong”.) To the average person it would sound bonkers, but when you know it makes sense.

If it doesn’t apply to your life, it makes no difference to you. But for some people, it does apply to their life and it makes a big difference for it to be recognised.

@TruckerBarbie

I'm just sick of white social justice warriors tbh. Most of them are middle class individuals working in professional jobs who probably only rub shoulders with the most privileged members of the BAME society.

Actually this is what made me do a double take on it all. i was in a social community with a lot of people like this and i had to leave it. Having experienced a load of racism and grew up with a white sibling i was very sceptical around the notion of white privilege but here were a lot of white people who were very confident about it all.

Furthermore the ones who were most vocal about how important this all was were the ones who I was invisble to and kept triggering me on a personal level before this became a thing.

@BewareTheLibrarians yes I am very aware of the debate about the use of standard and non standard varieties of English (not just AAVE but other dialectal and vernacular forms). It is generally a accepted tenet of benign prescriptivism however that whilst telling someone to change their spoken accent and/or dialect is mostly unacceptable, the same does not apply in writing. This tiktok example was talking about written not spoken language.

Ngozi Fulani is a fraud. Her real name is Marlene Headley and she was born to Barbadian parents. She has no connection to Africa and her company accounts make interesting reading. Sorry I don't know how to link the article but if you Google 'receipts Ngozi Fulani' the relevant address appears.
The article is on Reddit. She has claimed huge amounts in personal expenses and been consistently late in filing accounts.
It's a real shame because people like this are damaging race relations.

Oh interesting @thewriteradmitsthat Would you mind posting the link to the TikTok if you remember it? I’m a bit of a geek about dialects and linguistics in general so it would interesting to see in terms of it being applied to writing as well. Was it in the US?

@thewriteradmitsthat

As I've said I have a white sibling, similar age and same gender.

To say I've outperformed them in almost all areas of my life would be an understatement. Of course they didn't experience the racism that I did, but they also didn't acquire the determination I did through that experience.

So to hear that my sibling has a certain level of privilege from a bunch of white people feels like I'm being gaslighted to say the least.

I've even had it explained to me and every time that's happened I've always come back to wondering why it's considered privilege instead of favouritism or even a more benign synonym such as advantage.

It was on libsoftiktok, the account is called @shafferlovestoread.