AIBU to think some people on here are way too obsessed with not being seen as racist?

[BadWordlePlayer]

I’m posting in AIBU because this has been niggling at me for a while with the tone of so many threads lately, but it's really blown up following the bodycam footage of the Henry Nowak case.

There seem to be loads of posts these days where people are basically showing off how not racist they are, or how much they hate racists or the 'far right', or jumping in to call something racist at the slightest thing. It feels performative, like they’re desperate to signal their virtue and make sure everyone knows they’re on the “right” side. I get that racism is bad, obviously, but it sometimes feels like it’s taken over to the point where common sense goes out the window.

Henry Nowak shows how dangerous this mindset is. This poor 18-year-old student was stabbed multiple times by Vickrum Digwa, who then lied to the police claiming Henry had racially abused him. The officers took that accusation at face value, handcuffed Henry while he was lying there bleeding out and saying he couldn’t breathe, and didn’t treat him as the victim urgently enough. He died in police custody essentially. The mindset of those officers sounds exactly like the over-the-top “must not be perceived as racist” attitude you see in some threads here. They sidelined a dying boy because of a racism claim (which turned out to be a complete lie). That’s not just sad — it’s dangerous.

This isn't a left wing / right wing post and I’m not saying racism doesn’t exist or that we shouldn’t call it out when it’s real. I also hate the phrase "virtue signalling", but I can't think of a better one than it. This constant virtue-signalling and knee-jerk reactions make situations like Henry’s more likely, not less. People (including police) become so paralysed by the fear of getting it wrong on race that they get it horrifically wrong on everything else.

Am I being unreasonable? Or has anyone else noticed this shift on MN and in general?

Of course I hope that Henry Nowak rests in peace, but I wouldnt be surprised if every night he haunts his murderer and the police who mistreated him.

It's an absolute disgrace.

People are no longer walking on eggshells with policed language in case someone somewhere takes it the wrong way and clutches their pearls. Mental health is failing in our culture, and being robust enough to know what to take personally and what not to take personally is an essential skill.
Snowflake Pandering Officially Finished.

I'm sorry but you sound so uneducated. 'Muslim' is categorically NOT an ethnicity. A Muslim is a person who follows Islam. If you follow or convert to Islam, you are Muslim. You are very loud and wrong on this thread.

So I you suggesting victims of racism shouldn’t take it so personally and are just snowflakes? Or just disabled people?

*It used to be that we all understood what racism was: calling a black person horrible names; denying work to an Irish person; beating up an Asian man for being Asian; graffiti on a synagogue. Laws were introduced to combat these things and they because less socially acceptable (although of course they didn't disappear altogether, unfortunately).

The problem is that as that old style racism was mostly being sorted out, a new style of racism had to be invented to keep the DEI industry going. This included things like microaggressions, anti-colonialism, defunding the police etc. As actual racism became less and less of an actual problem, the fight against racism because more intense, judgemental and puritanical, which lead to increased hypocrisy, fear and virtue-signalling. In a system that judges every arrest of a black man as racist and posts everything a police officer does online, of course that's going to distort how people behave*
I've never read it described so well and accurately.

The problem is that the police were there because they were called for a racist attack, so they’re automatically going to go in believing whoever called it in initially. It’s not like they just came across a random fight and just assumed it must be the white man at fault.

I find threads like this a bit tedious as it’s always one way outrage and just trying to cause more of a racism divide. There should be compassion for any victim of a senseless attack. The people who keep banging on and on about the Rochdale grooming gangs (which yes is horrific but it seems to be the only example the racists have all pounced on) don’t seem to show any outrage at the likes of the Epstein files or the horrific abuse at the hands of Catholic priests. Or have any comments when a Sikh girl gets raped for her ethnicity. It’s only when there’s a chance to demonise anyone non white that the pitchforks comes out.

Why can’t we show compassion for everyone who is a victim of a horrendous crime and stop ignoring the fact that far more rapes/assaults/murders in this country are committed by white men. Male violence is the problem, across every ethnicity!

Looking for racism everywhere is part of the West’s decline into irrelevance. Starting with Europe.

It’s some kind of post rational, post truth, cult like obsession where logic is just so old school. Why celebrate treating people equally. Once the west had largely started to achieve that, it had to be about going one step further. Creating victims and victim narratives.

Of course, people will use it to play the race card, like this killer did. He has a free pass on killing someone in cold blood, and using the madness created by white saviour syndrome to excuse his behavior. This is utter madness.

The truth is that most rational Muslim people and people from ethnic minorities see this madness for what it is. Ever wonder why women from minorities are over represented on the right of politics. You know, the ones the progressive racists like to call names like ‘coconut’ because they refuse to conform to their version of victims that need to be saved.

Totally agree with you.

Have you watched the Henry Nowak footage?

The police arrive with a clear agenda that they have to be kind and supportive to the person screaming "racism", that they don't seem to notice or care that there's a boy bleeding to death in front of them.

This comes from a mindset that the very worst thing in the world is to be perceived as racist. That if there's a danger of that happening, all logic, rationality and even compassion has to go out the window. Those officers probably had more DEI training than any other type of training.

It doesn't mean that racism isn't real or should be tolerated, but it is an extremely toxic mindset that can result in well-intentioned people handcuffing a dying boy, mocking him and dragging his body around until his life ends.

And that mindset is prevalent on this site.

Why are we meant to call out men for being disproportionally a threat to others just because it might be true but we're not allowed to call out men from certain cultures out for being disproportionally a threat to others just because it might be true?

There’s definitely a group of highly disingenuous, loathsome posters who whenever something fairly obvious is stated they demand ‘Where is your evidence? Do you have a source for that?’ - in the absence of a gold plated worldwide study, they simply will not accept the evidence of people’s eyes and ears. When white people commit racist crimes it proves their narrative that only white people are very racist, and when non whites commit racist crimes ‘this is being used to fuel an agenda’.

I’ve worked in crime for years now and it is absolutely true that some groups commit more crimes, or more certain types of crime, than others. I won’t comment on which causing what because I can’t be bothered to go into long winded explanations which will no doubt be refused to be believed anyway, but yes they absolutely include white people, and others.

However I will say there are some groups I almost never see. Japanese, Chinese, Philippino, Sikhs (this recent case is highly unusual), and some African countries.

Pretending we are all one big homogenous blob who commit crimes as similar rates is nonsensical and actually rather offensive to the groups above who commit basically none.

Why can’t we show compassion for everyone who is a victim of a horrendous crime and stop ignoring the fact that far more rapes/assaults/murders in this country are committed by white men. Male violence is the problem, across every ethnicity!

Oh this is so tired and disingenuous now.

Of course more murders and rapes are committed by white men, the majority of men here are white.

What about knife crimes?

“Most” are committed by white men?

Don you think that’s because the majority of men in this country are white.

Edit - cross posted with twisterlollies

It’s exactly the same issue with those boys who committed rape in Fordingham. They had previously been reported for incidents of violence, sexual aggression and animal abuse but the police had not recorded anything and let them go each time. That meant their history was not raised in the rape case. Had they been black or brown boys, those very same police taking those very same actions would have been accused of being too afraid of being called racist. The same police errors and actions are framed differently when it’s a white vs non-white attacker. @CheeseyOnionPie

The rapes committed in Fordingbridge were by 3 boys from the travelling community. One could argue that the police didn't want to record their previous crimes for fear of being called racists about the travelling community.

I can’t comment on London as I don’t live anywhere near there. Knife crime is a lot lower where I am thankfully. I’m sure there are stats on this, and whatever the results are will be what they are.

It’s human nature though isn’t it? To hear someone was being unjust unfair to someone and assume about them. I don’t think people can learn from exceptions such as that because all it tells anyone is that there are people who are liars/ not to be believed, and we all know that but it’s hard when something happens to make that call

Tbf I've never had to prove I'm not racist because I'm not racist!

There is a two tier system too for the travelling community alongside other ethnic groups.
Kelly Ann Lynch, non traveller, found dead in a canal in Monaghan Ireland by two traveller lads she’d be seen with earlier, no investigation, classed as suicide, over 100 injuries.

Well you clearly felt the need to put that out there.

What makes you think people are 'pretending' to be anti-racist? Maybe they just are.

Looking for racism everywhere is part of the West’s decline into irrelevance. Starting with Europe.

It’s some kind of post rational, post truth, cult like obsession where logic is just so old school. Why celebrate treating people equally. Once the west had largely started to achieve that, it had to be about going one step further. Creating victims and victim narratives.

Of course, people will use it to play the race card, like this killer did. He has a free pass on killing someone in cold blood, and using the madness created by white saviour syndrome to excuse his behavior. This is utter madness.

The truth is that most rational Muslim people and people from ethnic minorities see this madness for what it is. Ever wonder why women from minorities are over represented on the right of politics. You know, the ones the progressive racists like to call names like ‘coconut’ because they refuse to conform to their version of victims that need to be saved.

Well, they’re all clamouring to downplay the slaying of Henry. That’s fairly racist in my book. We all know their reactions had this been a young non white lad who bled out while handcuffed after being stabbed as his white attacker was fawned over and asked to choose his food from the kitchen.

The truth is that most rational Muslim people and people from ethnic minorities see this madness for what it is. Ever wonder why women from minorities are over represented on the right of politics. You know, the ones the progressive racists like to call names like ‘coconut’ because they refuse to conform to their version of victims that need to be saved.

Yes the Tory Cabinet circa 2020 who were apparently ‘the most right wing in history’ compromised, among others, Rishi Sunak, Kwasi Kwarteng, Suella Braverman, Priti Patel and James Cleverly.

It doesn’t sit comfortably with them that the UK is actually one of the most left wing countries in the world. Much of the non Western world is, by comparison, very right wing.

What do you mean he has a free pass to kill? No he doesn't thats absolutely not true.