Why was Prince Philip allowed to keep saying offensive things?

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There are so many examples of Philip saying offensive things such as:

"If you stay here much longer you'll all be slitty-eyed." This was said to a group of students during a royal visit to China.

"If a cricketer, for instance, suddenly decided to go into a school and batter a lot of people to death with a cricket bat, which he could do very easily, I mean, are you going to ban cricket bats?" This was said in response to calls to ban guns after the Dunblane incident.

"It looks as if it was put in by an Indian." This was Philip talking about a fuse box in a factory.

There are so many more examples. Why was he allowed to act this way whilst representing the Royal Family? I like a laugh, I can take a joke, but he was so often just really offensive.

I agree and I think he should have been helped and guided to do better. If he wasn’t, that wasn’t acceptable with all the resources they had. If he was, and he either ignored them and failed to change, grow and do better, then he wasn’t suitable to do his role.

I’m not a royalist, but I think they should at least be interesting and gossip worthy.

I miss the days of Princess Margaret - snooty old lush, Philip - outrageous, funny and rude, Diana - slightly unhinged, prone to stalking, Fergie - totally dodgy grifter, Harry - seemed like a laugh.

Now they’re all terribly well behaved but boring. Kate is utterly blah, William too.

I want scandal and judgement, dammit.

I'm not one for censoring adults, but he very willingly exploited his immense privilege and the fact that he was untouchable. It's especially nasty bullying behaviour - even gaslighting really - when you know very well that you can make an openly racist or other deliberately hurtful comment and the person feels forced to laugh it off and defer to you as their 'better'. He could be grossly offensive to them, but they had to be obsequious and charming to him.

I think back to the time when there was the inquiry about Diana's death, and there were many people who believed that PP might have been responsible for/connected to her death. Of course, the official inquiry found unequivocally that it had been the result of a tragic accident (albeit exacerbated by the drink driver and chasing paparazzi) and certainly not a premeditated murder of any kind.

However, just theoretically supposing that PP had planned and ordered her death, do we really think that anybody would have been brave enough to have officially released this - with nobody quashing it? Followed by his sentencing in a court and imprisonment, all sanctioned in the name of his own wife - one whom we later discovered prefers to pay off people and try to buy their silence, rather than see her own family members face due legal procedures?

And if we agree that - had he wanted to - he could have got away with something like that... how was anybody ever going to stop him 'only' making grossly offensive and nasty comments to 'little people'?

Well Im offended on behalf of all cowboys. I want everyone mentioning substandard work being done by cowboys be cancelled with immediate effect.

🤣

You don’t speak for me.
What he said was offensive then and is offensive now.
Im in my 60s btw.

He was well known for saying offensive things but back in those days people were less shocked about this kind of thing. He did say them less as he got older, so I guess he kind of moved with the times.

It doesn't make sense to say 'things were different', because while he was alive and saying this stuff he was known by those who liked it for his 'gaffes' and those who didn't for his racism.... It's not as though people suddenly got narked by it all in 2020, otherwise we wouldn't even know, or have have batted an eyelid, at the time when he did come out with (for example) the slitty eyes comment.

Some people just do like racist old duffers, and many felt he had some kind of redemptive 'relatability' or even as the youth often seem (nauseatingly and patronizingly) to say about old people, that he was 'cute'

I don’t think he was particularly funny, nor do I think he especially intended to be. He spoke without thought and due to the extreme privilege of his station, there was very little that could be done about it.

The Queen wasn’t the nations adorable granny either. The PR overhaul to recover her public image from the late 90’s onwards, was quite remarkable.

Again I think you're being idealistic, which I guess goes with the territory. Maybe it's easier to imagine fixing a dead man's attitudes than wrestling with why today's world is going backwards in many ways rather than progressing towards your ideals.

Completely agree.
They were their Spitting Image characters back in the day.

Maybe he was just being a distraction so nobody noticed what Andrew was up to

He was offensive by any measure. The gammons loved him though.

Racists and racist apologisers assemble. 🙄

🤣You’re saying he “misspoke”?🤣🤣🤣

Given the fact that hes well and truly dead, hes not going be saying offensive things anymore, is he, so why the angst?
Things were different in Philips era, Im glad that its no longer acceptable to mock race, disability etc but I think things have swung too far the other way, in that somebody can say something innocuous, harmless etc, but if one other person decides its offensive, youre in bother.
Probably why so many people are so miserable nowadays, they are terrified to say anything lest they offend someone.
Im glad im no longer in the workplace !!

Isn’t there a biography coming up?

What sort of thing might you want to say that you think you would get into trouble for?

The mental gymnastics here. Good grief.

Isn’t “gammon” an offensive term?

Think the title is “Bantz by Phil the Greek”.

Not to me.

HTH.

Does your title include a womans name beginning with K? Why are you starting this Thread? What is your point, will it benefit anyone? Or are spending your life looking for things to be offended by?

All my adult life he was a very old man. I think sometimes he made mistakes - e.g. I think the Indians comment, he meant Cowboys, it looks like it was made by Cowboys, otherwise it doesn't make sense.

That said, it's no surprise that aristocratic white people are racist.

I remember there being a fuss about at least one of these, people put up with racism, it was acceptable. We're back to that time, probably worse.

And stuff like Bo Selecta and Little Britain were still considered acceptable on C4 and the BBC in the mid-late 00s. Come Fly With Me had multiple black/brown/yellow face characters and was broadcast on BBC 1 in 2010. They were only removed from streaming services in 2019-2020. We're not to far removed from laughing at casual racism.

Phillip got away with it partly because he reminded everyone of something their old grandad would have let slip, and partly because a lot of people secretly would like to be able to say those things today.