Can we have a sensible discussion about Cologne.

[HelenaDove]

I feel very uneasy about the way the discussions on the news board are going.

Can we have a discussion on the events of Cologne that isnt racist or sexist (meaning no sexism towards British OR refugee women) I find it very hard to believe that a feminist would refer to young women as girlies or talk about them as if their pregnancies were immaculate conceptions. Yet i have seen someone refer to young British women in this way as well as ask why some of the refugee women are pregnant.

Some of the comments ive seen are making me very uneasy and i hope i am articulating this in the right way that it is intended.

By what measure of any human rights issue (including the care of elderly people, mainly women) is Syria or Afghamistan superior to the UK, Sweden or Germany?

'Being racist, actually helping to cause harm, is not the same as being seen as racist by other liberal western people. That distinction is absolutely vital, and I think it's being pushed aside here.'

I think this is happening. For many younger people, the expansion of what was deemed racist happened so long ago that they don't have any memory of what constitutes actual racist behaviour. I don't see how they are going to be able to distinguish between being accused of racism by liberals and actual racism, outside of specific contexts that have had a lot of focus (Rwanda, Nazi Germany, the U.S. in the 1950s).

YY Almond to the young people really not understanding racism.

My DDs (9 and 15) have at various times told me I'm being racist, for things that are really are not remotely racist.
Eg Once I pointed out the eyes of a black model/actress -they were vivid green, even now I'm not sure they weren't contacts (or photoshopped they were that vivid/bright). I said maybe they were so striking because 'the majority of black people had brown eyes'...that statement is apparently racist...

Yes, I think the definition of racism has been misinterpreted and changed over the years. It's an easy way of shutting down an uncomfortable point. It's the trump card to call racist on someone.

The nature of Europe has been changed now by this huge influx of men who have imported with them their own history and culture of sexual violence and cultural misogyny. The elections in Germany have shown that this whim of Angela Merkel to open the doors of Germany has not been embraced by the German people. Some speedy legal introductions of zero tolerance of any and all misogyny, is essential to avoid the glue of the Eurozone melting away.

There has been a tenfold increase globally of deaths from extremism and terrorism, I think the report said since 2000 to 2015. Other forms of extremism will rise up in response to that.

And I don't think we have have very good ways of understanding or responding to any of these extremist (and racist) ideologies, because most adults living in Britain have got very little experience of large numbers of people supporting those kinds of racism.

Prejudice is not a one way street. Minorities are quite capable of being profoundly prejudiced, except its individual members of a majority who will selectively bear the impact of encountering it, while most members of the majority proceed blissfully unaware of realities on the ground, their view diminished by scale.

Real world example, a female teacher in a classroom is presented with male students who come from a culture that respects women only so far as a father will beat them if they disrespect their own mother. Boys brought up to understand there is no danger in disrespecting women, only danger in disrespecting the wrong woman should another man takes offence to it. You think things go happily for that teacher in the classroom? The irony being the teacher can themselves be from a minority, an entirely different one that has a higher basic level of respect for women.

Just found this it was in Australia www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/2592510-to-worry-about-the-future-of-the-world

Glad to see posts on my FB feed from Labour GO citing Tony Benn as a reason to vote leave.

Helps redress the aeguement that it is only the right wing that wants out.