Greta Thunberg - why would she be regarded badly?

[StrawberryDream24]

I've just met someone who was extremely scathing of a woman dressing as Greta Thunberg for an "inspirational women" dress up type thing.

She didn't elaborate, other than that it was ridiculous for someone to have done that and she had to hold her tongue in telling them so (and the circumstances allowed for no further discussion for me to find out why she felt that way).

I don't know a great deal about GT but what is this lady on about? Has anyone any idea? Is there something I'm missing?

I just don’t think she is doing anything useful. Effective work on climate change is becoming a scientist or engineer and developing new technologies or getting a job where you can help craft government policies. It’s not about going to protests and shouting into the wind

that is the kind of activism I did as a child. Then I grew up, got a degree, and got a seat at the table for issues I care about. It’s slow, plodding work. It’s frustrating. It’s demoralizing. It’s unappreciated. It matters.

Yes we can. We can write to our MP's, we can boycott and we can speak publicly about what is happening.

That's how every other genocide has ended.

Really, its only white men that are called Gammons. What else do you call an insult based on someones ethnicity and colour?

Not that this needs spelling out because you know this full well and are just weasling out of it, gammon refers to someone who is white who is angry and so goes red and pink in the face like a piece of gammon, mainly men. It cant be applied to someone who isnt white because its about white skin.

Theres another thread running at the moment where posters have also needed to spell out why 'karate chops' is considered racist because its referring to far east asian people all being lumped together as karate loving people

Karate and chops, do not mention ethnicity but its obviously its a stereotype of far east asian people.

Same with gammon.

'most people' might not consider it racist (although I dispute that, you're just ignorant enough to claim this) because there is an inherent assumption that people who are white cant be victims of racism. Stereotyping an ethnicity is racist.

The “gammon” term came specifically from an episode of Question Time filmed in York at some point during the Brexit days. It was coined on Twitter because all the pro-Brexit voices were incredibly homogeneous:

• White (albeit tinted red to puce with righteous indignation)
• Male
• Bald or bald-adjacent
• Middle aged to elderly
• Overly emotional about the existence of foreign people and their preception of the EU as some satanic force of evil

So clear was this demographic that the name stuck - the name of a porcine food which generally is eaten by older people of this very demographic.

I don’t think it’s “racist”, especially when most of these gentlemen appeared to be judging the value of people by their race or nationality.

A 'gammon' can only be a white person. Its a slur. Therefore its a stereotype based on ethnicity. Therefore it is racist.

It is not about eating habits.

White people can't be the victims of racism. Racism is prejudice + power. In the UK, where white people are not the victims of systematic oppression, there is no power imbalance working against us and therefore no racism.

Also - since when do you need to be white to have the capacity for going pink in the face?! What a silly little comment from someone desperately seeking victim status as a way of avoiding culpability.

Im not sure Im culpable for anything and Im not a victim of anything

Racism is stereotyping based on ethnicity, its prejudice and discrimination and abuse based on ethnicity.

Of course while people can be victims of racism. They might not be victims of structural racism in a country like the Uk, but that doesn’t make it impossible to be racist against white people.

Just apologise for using a racist slur and move on. Ridiculous to keep fighting this.

White people can't be victims of racism? Best tell all the Irish/ traveller/ gypsy/Eastern European people I know. I'm sure they'll all be thrilled to know that they can't be victims of racism now. Excellent work.

Not a slur. Never has been. Stop appropriating victim status as a means of denying culpability for racism ✌️

I don't personally see Gammon as a racist slur. It's not referring to 'white people' as a whole. It's referring to a particular type of middle-aged white men who are likely actual racists themselves!
I don't personally use the term, but I don't see it as racist. It's totally different to eg, using the n-word to describe black people. Because the history of it is so different - the former born out of a need to call out racists; and the latter born out of slavery, imperialism and oppression. Just not comparable.

She is a pompous and annoying, plus she is a useful idiot for Hamas. Best to be ignored.

Tbh, she's pretty annoying.

Whether or not we should be looking after the environment nobody wants to be lectured by a privileged teenager who's never worked a day in her life.

Yes, there have been a lot of posts criticising her "repetitive" delivery or the way she comes across as "childlike", "rigid" or "single minded". Presumably from posters who know full well she is autistic 🙄.

Wow, some people still have no understanding whatsoever of autism, do they 🤦‍♀️

Autistic or not nobody wants to be lectured by a kid.

I'm also autistic, but find her tedious, preachy and sanctimonious. The level of vitriol she gets is unwarranted, and the ableism towards her isn’t ok, but it is also permissible not to find all autistic people likeable.

Just what I was about to say but you beat me to it! 👏👏

He won’t be in prison for his ‘stance on CC’, he will be in prison because he was found guilty of committing a crime. If everyone with a stance on Cc were to be imprisoned, they’d be holding them 10 to a cell!

Bollocks.

This sort of sophistry is why the far right is in the accendent.

I so agree with this.

The Hamas attack on the festival was a disgrace, but the response by Israel has been totally disproportionate. I also think it's shocking that the people of Gaza are held to blame for the actions of Hamas. They haven't had elections there since some time in noughties, Hamas keep cancelling them.

It is referring to white people, the gammon is the pink flush of their skin as they get het up about something.