Why was Prince Philip allowed to keep saying offensive things?

[SewANeedlePullingThread]

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.

“He was a disgrace”

And that’s what these unbelievably limited thought processes boil down to. A brave man who was forced away from his home and family to live with relative strangers in exile as a very young child. A man who won medals for his bravery, who married a queen and served her country at her side for decades, whose mother was honoured as “Righteous Among The Nations” by Israel for hiding a Jewish family during WW2 is no more than “a disgrace”. Honestly I feel really sorry for people who are so limited in their thinking processes, who cannot assimilate the idea that people are made up of whole swathes of traits and nuances, good and bad and in between. What a grey and inflexible way to look at life and other people.

I would prefer he was decent regardless of the actions or beliefs of other people. We are talking about him, not David Lammy et al. If you want us to comment on David Lammy's beliefs you can start a thread about him.

Sad fucking thing was racist language was acceptable in wider society for a long time and many people worked really hard to make it unacceptable.

I think this is why historical dramas that gloss over the past for a warm cuddley feeling of inclusivness help erase actual frequently nasty history.

People worked long and hard to make it unacceptable dismissing it as it was always obviously thus diminshes that work. Though I do agree by 90s many of Prince Philip remarks did get kick back in press and there was push back on them.

I also think adult should be accoutable for their actions - so Philips kids actions as adults are on them.

Why didn't the queen ever speak like that in public? Or the then Prince Charles? If it was so acceptable why didn't everyone do it? And why did it have such a shock value if it was so common?

It's refreshing some people get it.

That particular trait was a disgrace and unbecoming for someone so distinguished.

He was a product of his time, his environment and his upbringing.

His childhood was chaotic, his mother was institutionalised, his father pretty much abandoned them and his sisters were married (3 to members of the Nazi party).

He then married into an environment where nobody would challenge him.

He appears to have had a kind side and a strong sense of duty alongside some questionable views and a willingness to express them.

I suspect he thought he was funnier than he was and that he was practicing plain speaking which others experienced as rudeness.

Most people are nuanced and have good and bad sides.

Oh don't be so daft! 😂 He didn't confuse 'cowboy' with 'Indian'. He 100% was not mistakenly referencing First Nation Americans ... He had grown up among people who had colonial lives, it was absolutely a reference to employing a 'local' if you lived in pre-1949 India. He might not have but so many of his social circle had. I know people who grew up in places like Kenya and they've reported similar derogatory phrases used about native Kenyans.

His behaviour was glossed over, excused and minimised, because the continuity of the monarchy requires them to be seem as special, superior and desirable. A bit like the emporers new clothes, if anyone had piped up with the obvious, that he was actually a nasty racist piece of work, the illusion would fall apart.

Very well said @Ukisgaslit

This is a waste of everyone's time, isn't it. I'm stopping now.

I'm quite prepared to believe he had good in him - there are enough anecdotal stories out there that paint him in a better light. I'm commenting on the obviously racist and crass statements he made in public on a fairly regular basis - often while he was on official Royal visits. Yes, I do think that makes him - or his behaviour if you prefer - pretty damn disgraceful.

I'm quite capable of nuance, thank you. 😊 I thought we were talking about one aspect of his behaviour.

He was a product of his time, his environment and his upbringing.

Prince Philip or Prince Andrew ?

Because it was funny at the time. That’s why.

His behaviour was glossed over, excused and minimised, because the continuity of the monarchy requires them to be seem as special, superior and desirable.

Because they are.

I thought his eye comment was, in his way, a humorous response to the comments made by Chinese elders telling Chinese youngsters if they stayed too long in the West they would get round eyes,

Indeed. And by all accounts, the two she loved most (Andy has been well documented as the favourite) were the ones who got away with whatever they liked. Andy still gets away with it today, just without the title.

I always thought he was referring to the famously dodgy electric cabling in India. I remember lots of the streets in Delhi had hundreds of tangled cables crisscrossing overhead. So I assumed the fuse box had lots of spaghetti dangling around it.

I think that's more likely than the cowboy thing. It is still stereotyping a nation- but maybe reflective of comments that were more prevalent at the time and in that generation.

Calling out double standards and hypocrisy is always worthwhile I think.

I was thinking about Prince Phillip who had a traumatic and chaotic childhood.

Prince Andrew was a product of a poor upbringing in that he was clearly spoiled, indulged and excused. If the stories are true (and judging by that interview) he is an utter embodiment of the Dunning Kruger effect. A person with a massively overinflated sense of their own correctness and wonderfulness.

God, how sanctimonious you sound. I hope that none or most of us would want to be a racist either.

You've started a thread about what someone who's now dead said 25 to 40 years ago just to make a point about how amazing you are?

Part of the wider social change happening - and Queen was quite shy and followed path of saying as little as posssible like her mother ( was was shocking racist apparently behind closed doors).

It was slowly started to be considered more shocking and less acceptable as time passed and societely changed - in fit and starts. Societal attutudes change with time often leaving older people behind and I think his behavior was often seen in that light - but also did get push back and more so as decades went on.

Yes. As per my comments about the fuse box in my Goan hotel room, Indian electrical installations don't necessarily conform to what the UK considers to be 'best practice'.

He'd travelled a lot and I expect his comments were referencing what he'd seen, rather than an attempt to slur British Indian electricians.

A lot of Duraglit sloshing around today polishing these halos.

You know nothing about me so stop making an absolute ass of yourself.