Sarah Champion

[Timefortea99]

Anyone one else enraged/disturbed about her resignation as Shadow Equalities & Women's minister? Gave an article to The Sun (probably not the wisest choice of newspaper) talking about Asian grooming gangs in her constituency and the rest of the UK. There is a problem, we are letting people down if we do not talk about it. It is still going on. Yet now the woman who arguably knows quite a lot on the subject, has been silenced. I actually don't think I could vote for labour ever again. They are morphing into a misogynistic party.

Bothers me as well. I don't think Jeremy Corbyn has ever been particularly sympathetic to women's rights, but the other thing that the Rotherham case brings out to me is, how do we understand oppression and privilege? We talk on this board about male privilege, white privilege and class privilege. But I'm betting the poor girls victimised by the Rotherham gang didn't benefit much from being white.

Or maybe the fact that they were white made it more likely that their attackers would eventually get caught? I'm a bit about this idea, not least because the ham-fisted application of anti-racist policies and a liberal dose of corruption no doubt appears to have delayed justice if anything. But if white privilege operated at all, what does that say about how these men would treat similar status girls within their race and culture? Does that mean that there may be many, many Pakistani girls who are abused but whose cases are invisible because they are not white? Can we then infer from that that there is a serious cultural problem with how this particular Pakistani community views the rights of women and girls? ...hang on a minute...wasn't this what Sarah Champion was trying to get at?

(I also have my doubts as to whether privilege and power are necessarily equivalent, and think a distinction between the two would sort out a lot of muddled thinking in this kind of discussion, but that's another debate for another thread.)

She didn’t resign for talking about grooming. She resigned because she said in a notoriously racist paper that there was a “Muslim problem”.

Naz Shah accused Sarah Champion – Labour’s equalities spokesperson, with responsibility for how to prevent abuse – of making “blanket, racialised, loaded statements” that would set up stigmatised Pakistani boys to fail.

Naz Shah, Wasn't she suspended for anti Semitic posts she made on Facebook?

No sympathy whatso ever. A grubbying politician aiming for the UKIP style. She is an embarrassment in that article. JC was being v polite toward her.

Naz Shah, Wasn't she suspended for anti Semitic posts she made on Facebook?

Yes she was. Are we supposed to ignore the cultural aspects of this?

It was an extremely poor decision on her part, especially at a time of such heightened racial tension. We need strong voices for women and girls but not at the expense of stigmatised groups in a racist rag; dogwhistling to the people most inclined to be enraged by the huge brush she tars the Pakistani community with. I cannot for the life of me work out why she did this. I initially thought she'd been quoted and exaggerated. I never believed she had actually penned the article. Very disappointed.

She apologised for a poor choice of words. Which really means a poor thought process which was strong enough to turn those thoughts into typing action to be consumed by a readership. The apology was as bad as the words proceeding it.

Poor choice of words maybe but the debate has been shut down. So, it will go on. There is a cultural dimension to this. Not talking about these things allows far right wing groups to thrive. Denying and silencing the debate inflames racial tension.

Young, vulnerable girls have been let down - the people who tried to highlight this before we're accused of being racist and it looks as if the rights of a minority group transcend the rights of young girls not to be targeted. To dampen down racial tension the problem needs airing, debated, exposed. Covering up will just cause more racial tension, with far right groups getting traction.

Why should she not have addressed the root cause of the problem Pannnn?

Who does it help to not speak up about it? Let's stay away from the obvious Middle East for once. Would you want your daughters to grow up in Malaysia or Bangladesh? Why, because they follow a certain religion that has a proven track record of leading to countries with very specific cultural norms?

If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck...she had every right to call it what it is.

ps or in case of priest child sex abuse cases would you also want to call it an "old men problem" rather than a priest/Catholic Church problem?

The chief constable of Northumbria police was on the news the other day saying in the Northumbria case the men were from a variety of ethnic backgrounds and so it was impossible for him to discuss it in the terms of one community. We also have many paedophiles and paedophile rings operating in the white community (for example the recent case of the football scouts).
That's why Sarah Campion was wrong to frame it as Pakistani men. Because it isn't. Paedophiles will groom vulnerable children. We need to be talking about mens attitudes to sex and exploitation of vulnerable girls. We need to be talking about why social services and police turned a blind eye to red flags.
The ethnicity of the offenders is quite low down on the list to me and a way of 'othering' the offenders so society can continue to pretend that sexual abuse of children is a rare thing.

I thought the Rotherham grooming gangs were exclusively Muslim?

With all the abuse by priest I don't remember people talking about a 'Catholic problem'. But there was a raised suspicion of priests I suppose so we are quick to generalise. I think as much as other img we want a 'profile' so there is something to avoid.

The description of the perpetrators was accurate for these crimes. Not all rape crimes. SC had the perfect right to talk about this and the overwhelming majority of the men caught so far for gangs grooming young women are Muslim. We cannot go on pretending it doesn't happen. Same with Catholic priests and of course the Catholic Church has been criticised for the cover ups and not admitting what had happened. There is no hritarchy of wrongs here. They are all wrong but the issues must be spoken about. SC was right to do this. No sensible person thinks this attacks all Muslims but some men need to be called out or what they are.

JC denies lots of things whilst supporting other causes that suit him.

She didn't say they were Muslim, she said they were Pakistani. Many were not.

Bartholins do you think the fact all of these men are brown skinned and were targeting white girls is irrelevant? They are paedophiles and racists.

Eighteen people found guilty over Newcastle sex grooming network

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/aug/09/newcastle-sex-grooming-network-operation-shelter?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Copy_to_clipboard

No I don't think it's irrelevant.

The ethnicity of the offenders is quite low down on the list to me and a way of 'othering' the offenders

The offenders were "othering" the victims. Are there organised gangs of white men targeting Asian or Afro-Caribean girls? Whether there are or not I don't see how you can ignore the racist element of these men's crimes.

She didn’t resign for talking about grooming. She resigned because she said in a notoriously racist paper that there was a “Muslim problem”. That's interesting. I have heard that Trevor Philips said the same thing. So how come people understood what he said and not hers or was the wording different. To be fair Trevor Phillips decided not to single out Pakistani men and did say it would be wrong to do so.

Look, these are specific targets and specific men doing the targeting. It absolutely needs addressing for what it is in terms of culture. It's easily solved but ignoring it by claiming that others do it too simply fails to tackle the enormous problem head on.

Putting your head under the blankets doesn't make the problem go away.

Outrage naturally when a priest says he won't go to the police on confessions regarding paedophilia.

Quite frankly I don't care whose precious feelings are hurt regarding this. Child sexual abuse has to stop now.

Whether there are or not I don't see how you can ignore the racist element of these men's crimes.

I'm not suggesting we do but the tone of debate makes it all about ethnicity, that's my problem.
I think the bigger problem is mens sexual violence towards women and girls and we need to tackle that.
In these cases I'm more alarmed about social workers claiming the girls were making a "lifestyle choice" and not intervening when drunk/drugged girls were in the company of much older men.
That's why the offenders ethnicity is low down on the list. We can't tackle this until we start taking females seriously, start taking red flags seriously and start prosecuting all sex offending as a serious matter. In my opinion. I don't think talking to Pakistani or Muslim communities about this will help one jot because these men know what they are doing is wrong and they don't care.
Meanwhile the tone of the debate just stirs up the racial tensions even further.

Meanwhile the tone of the debate just stirs up the racial tensions even further.

I totally disagree. It has nothing to do with race, it's all to to with men and their entitlement. And herein lies the problem.

Men's violence towards women. Regardless of their race or colour.

Elendon Disagree. Some cultures certainly have varying degrees of this phenomenon. In addition, if you say it is regardless of culture, then there is no hope for any change. That seems poignant and means all this is fruitless?

This is where we are today. Some things quite simply cannot be said or your career is over. Even if they happen to be 100% true.
I have no sympathy for Champion though. She ignored this for years and only began to speak out when she judged that the public mood had swung far enough in the right direction. She forgot that her lefty peers hadn't swung with that mood though.
Labour, in particular, Momentum still operate the hierarchy of victim hood in which white school girls are near the bottom.
I'm reposting a message from another thread and this link
inews.co.uk/opinion/columnists/muslim-community-still-denial-rochdale/ Is Yasmin a racist?

Whether there are or not I don't see how you can ignore the racist element of these men's crimes

I'm not suggesting we do but the tone of debate makes it all about ethnicity, that's my problem

The tone of debate veers towards not debating the racist element at all. Glasgow, and I'm sure other cities , acknowledge the problem of gangs of young white picking on young Asian men and vice versa. Both are prosecuted as aggravated hate crimes.

MrGHardy I'm talking about the culture of sexist masculinity. It broaches all races and all ages.

I like males. I like their biological function; but I could never be in the position, nor would I want to, to force them into sex without their consent.