I miss the 80s when racism was called just what it was!
Today, people seem to water it down or just "dress it up" in different terminology.

Emily, from Big Brother has been descibed as "misguided" and people have talked about her almost affectionatley as just trying to be "street"! Why?
The Charles De Menezes shooting, a series of "unfortunate errors" Why? Why do people feel the need to defend the police and say its "harsh" to talk about institutional racism?

Why the hell, in an age where peoples lives are still largely dictated by the colour of their skin, or where they were born, are people refusing to ackowledge that racism still exists?!!!

I can't speak for anyone else, but for me, the Emily from Big Brother incident was an example of a white person using the 'N-word' because she had heard Black people use it and thought that it was acceptable for her to do the same. I don't believe that it is acceptable for white people ever to use it, and I think that it was stupid and offensive, but not indicative of racist intent on her part. In contrast, for example, the comments that Ron Atkinson made about Marcel Desailly seemed to me to suggest an attitude to black people that was racist and the sort of 'comedy' that was being shown on British TV until comparatively recently (Bernard Manning, Jim Davison, et cetera, et cetera) was unequivocally racist. So was the bullying of Shilpa Chetty in Celebrity Big Brother. So I don't think it's a question of refusing to acknowledge racism, but rather one of recognising that there are degrees of racism and degrees of culpability.

As for the de Menezes case, I think that the 'shoot-to-kill' policy was probably wrong (though in the context of a threat from suicide bombers, the police were in a near-impossible position). The whole operation was appallingly badly-managed and the attempt to cover up and spin the facts was unforgiveable. However, I don't see where institutional racism came into it (and actually, the 'Justice4Jean' website that promotes the family's campaign makes no reference to racism as a factor).

On the other hand, institutional racism certainly exists within the police and throughout the criminal justice system and it needs to be tackled. A lot of good work is being done: the way that racist crime is now dealt with is massively different to what was happening in the 90s, let alone the 70s and 80s. The way that Black people were treated by the system consistently in the 80s was shocking; similar things still occur, but less frequently and, more importantly, they are much more likely to be challenged. And whilst I think complacency is dangerous, failure to acknowledge progress is a mistake in my view, not because anyone deserves praise for doing things the way that they should always have been done, but because recognising progress is essential to maintain it.

Again, the view of the Police expressed by many Black communities has changed, not least because of a recognition that those communities need an effective, non-racist police force.

I remember the racism of the 70s and 80s well and I think Britain is now a less racist society, but also that it is racist in different ways. And I think that the way we deal with racism and other kinds of disadvantage has to change, if we are ever going to achieve a society that is free from racism.

If it was over very quickly pink shay, you might not have seen this.

It's a longer article, but I thought it got the incident you raised spot on. It disagrees quite strongly with the point you raised above.
If you disagree with its opinion what does it matter?

OK so you don't care for that way of viewing the Big Brother ''N'' word incident you rasied.
I didn't think you would. But it's a legitamate point of view in my opinion.
And actually much better than yours.
(Although you didn't elaborate very much in your post).

I'm sure your opinion of this incident would be one well supported on the forum, and mine and JBoyds very much in the minority.

But that's diversity of opinion for you.

and I think my point of view is better than yours or I wouldnt hold it would I!

I have given my opinion on the racist Big Brother incident several times. It just doesnt wash with me that she was trying to be "street" and fit in! When I was in Uganda, many of my friends used the N word and not once did it occur to me to use it!!!

I think that it was unacceptable for her to say it, but I think that treating her as if she'd said it in an intentionally racist way was unfair when the racism in the celebrity BB series (which involved racist bullying) was treated differently.
Where I think 'Spiked' are wrong in the article Damon quotes is that I don't think they were primarily taking a moral stance; I think that their main purpose was to increase their ratings. I think that they have used racism to make BB more controversial and thus more lucrative.
And I think that's despicable, cynical and dangerous, and much worse than the original stupid comment.
Racism that is deliberate and motivated by an overtly negative attitude to black and asian people (such as the Ron Atkinson episode) is where I think the anger should really be focussed.

J Boyd, the problem with "progress" is that it is a result of legislation. It doesnt necessarily mean that people are no longer racist it just means that people are now more scared of being caught being racist. I find it totally unaccepatble that we are living in an age where we need anti-racist legistaltion and equal opportunity poli
You've said that it needs to be tacked in a different way. One way would be to tackle incidents of racism head on. Ackowledge that they still exist and to stop dressing it up or down.

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown is on pink shay's side here in this article in the London Evening standard. She says:

I often agree with her point of view, but I think she is missing something here.
It's not that I think the offensive words she highlights are acceptable, but the question of how you police society to prevent them being aired.

Should the Daily Telegraph be prosecuted for racism, for allowing letters in its letters page to be published with headlines like: The case for keeping migrants out. ??
Or letters wich start: ''Hidden cost: many of our problems - congestion, shortage of affordable housing, and a struggling education system - are caused by overpopulation. Rather than tackle the fundamental cause, the government and media resort to single issues.''
Or someone else who writes that the children of the migrants now doing these dirty jobs that British people don't want, wont want to do them either. ''What then??'' asks the letter writer, ''Another massive wave of people to settle here?''

I don't like this narrow way of looking at the world, and there might be racist sentiment in there.
But in a free society, you can't do much about it.

I agree with that almost entirely; where I would disagree is that I honestly think that racism is less prevalent than it was twenty or thirty years ago. It is still there, and it has changed, but there is less of it, because there has been progress towards integration. And I also agree that I want to live in a society where anti-racist legislation is unnecessary; the question is how we get there.



I don't disagree with that either; there are still cases where racism simply needs to be confronted. The problem is that, as you say, people are now more careful about language (the 'I'm not a racist but...' syndrome). So I think that tackling racism now has to be about changing attitudes at a different (and deeper) level. I think that most of the real progress has resulted from people of different backgrounds mixing and finding that they have things in common (which is why I have doubts about 'multiculturalist' approaches which emphasise difference). Given that a lot of racism now does not get expressed using racist language, focussing on language alone isn't going to achieve very much. Without going over old ground, I think one of the problems with the BB incidents (in both series), was that it gave the message that only language matters - not attitude or behaviour. In the celebrity version there was a lot of speculation as to whether there was any 'missing footage' that showed the perpetrators using the 'P-Word' when it was quite clear that what was happening was racist bullying. So the offenders could say 'we didn't use racist language, so we can't be racist'....
That's why I think it is reasonable of Damon to try to open up debate (though I disagree with him quite a lot).
And as I've said before, I think that focussing on race to the exclusion of class is a mistake.

i think that this case of accidetal rasisum was totaly accidental...she was sorry she did not want to cause offence it just slipped out. We should accept that she should not of said it but she did and it raised awaness of rasium which is a good thing so some good did come from the mistake and also it rocked BB which in my opinion is a rubbish program anyway!

That girl off Big Brother just wanted to say something to get out of there and cause a bit of scandal. She was most likely thinking it would be humiliating to get voted off and this way she would save face. What she didn't realise is exactly how totally demonizing it is to use the N word if you are White. She must have had a serious shock.

It would appear JBoyd that you are pretty much on you own in that opinion.

Clearly you are referring the earlier part of his/her statement rather than the later.

The girl in question was extremely nieve (& probably a bit stupid) ... she thought 'indie' was something new in 2007

There's an argument on a Yorkshire cricket forum I go onto. Just wondered what people think on here.

Yorkshire are signing yet another South African who happens to have a British passport.

One poster said he wasn't happy about this prefering 'local' lads who'd come through the ranks. The poster went on to say he wanted a spine of Yorkshire born players in the team. Yorkshire already have a number of players either signed under the Koplack ruling or 'from overseas' who happen to have a British passport.

A 2nd poster reacted by calling the first poster racist for being against non-Yorkshiremen.

So is this racism ? I know some will say this is all a bit silly ... but it's causing mayhem on the forum in question.

Depends on how pedantic you want to be. So you've come to the right place!

This online dictionary suggests racism is a system of prejudice baced on race or ethnicity.

Do you categorise non-yorkeshire(wo)men as a race or ethnic strain? If you do, then you've got racism. If you don't, then you've got a more generic form of prejudice.

IMHO I wouldn't call it racist, but I would call it discrimination.

I misread this as categorising yorkshire as an ethnic stain

Is the South African, British by birth?

There is an arguement for keeping your teams English, look at the sorry state of the English footie team, the Premier league as some of the best players in the world, but few are English.
If you're bringing in overseas players, they have to bring something special to game, like Shane Warne who can pass on his skills to his team mates.

Can't see that's it being racist myself, and 'appen I'm quite the kneejerk pc reactionary around these parts

The player is a young South African born player who happens to have a British passport

and their wives, girlfriends, sisters, and probably mothers.

all for Warnie?

he's all about skills!

Where to put this story? Is there a Glastonbury thread? I thought (for 30 seconds) of putting it in the thread about what gigs people are going to see, but this has political overtones, and a charge of racism has definately been raised. What am I talking about?
The story about Jay-Z playing at Glastonbury this year or not. And whether 'that kind of music' is welcome there.
I heard this woman who wrote this piece (Amina Taylor) talking about it to Dotun Adebayo on his BBC London sunday evening radio programme.

Personally I have no clear opinion on it. But it's interesting to mull over (for me it is anyway), exactly what the writer of the piece is saying.

Here is the rest of the Guardian article: Where's your guitar, Jay-Z ?
On the programme (which is available on 'listen again') there were some stange things said, about Glastonbury not really being a 'black thing' regardless of who is playing. Amina Taylor said (laughing), ''we don't do mud.''

Have you ever been to Glastonbury?

I read the Emily Eavis article in the Guardian and the fact she used the race card about Jay-Z is just pathetic.
Maybe its just because he's shit that no one wants to go see him. Maybe its because they keep going on about the fact he's flying over "especially" for the festival when its supposed to be a festival that champions working against climate change.
If I wasn't working Glastonbury, I certainly don't think I'd bother with a ticket this year.

I've always thought it was interesting that a festival like Womad, with its culturally diverse programme, attracts a largely white audience. But i guess most world music audiences in the UK, like most jazz audiences, are white.

The overwhelming number of blues fans in the United States is white guys. I don't understand that either.

I thought Glastonbury was a music festival that was supposed to attract music fans of all types. My mistake.

I don't do mud either!

It is and there is music for everyone at Glastonbury - there's a fantasic jazz/world stage, an acoustic stage and up in the dance area there are loads of different stages catering for all aspects of "dance" music - roots, reggae, r&b, break beats, hip hop, drum and bass... you get the idea.
I know Jay-Z is an enormous star but that's where he should be playing - up in the dance area.
The Pyramid stage has always been about the mainstream "rock" acts... I see mud flying, I really do.

Having said that, I don't think its just Jay-Z playing that has put people off (and I don't think it has anything to do with racism either) - I think the mud from the last two years has been a massive factor.
Last year, in the main, was just miserable.

There is a big music festival in northern Michigan this summer, and what attracted me is there will be rooms in a big comfortable lodge for people (like me) who want no part of portajohns, mud or being uncomfortable. Elitist? Sure!

Back to topic, is it racist to not want to see JayZ? At least in this country, he has crossed over to the mainstream.

Just once. In 1985, (if you really wanted to know )

perhaps when you've formulated your own opinion on this, you could come back and bore us with it Damon.

if you want to know my opinion.

main stage + rap = a big turn off for the current glasto going audience. (50% islington dads, yummy mummy's and 3 wheeled child buggies, 25% stag/hen do fodder, 21% crusty hippies who inherited some money, 2% rap fans, 2% people who think elvis is still alive.)

But didn't Tom Jones play the main stage once?

I don't see it as racism that people don't want to see Jay-Z at Glastonbury (if that is the reason for poor ticket sales). Not sure that hip-hop/rap always works in a festival environment. All the bling in a Jay-Z show is a bit out of place amongst the hippie pretensions. Did Public Enemy ever play Glasto? Snoop Dogg played Roskilde last year and my wife's nephew, who is a massive fan, said it was pretty disappointing.

Jay-Z is a shit rap act...... There are so much better "hip hop acts" with much more underground and indy cread. I would of booked the Wu tang Clan, Jurassic 5, Da la Soul, Beastie Boys and Public Enemy etc etc type groups who do brilliant shows at festivals and which most of the crowd can sing along to there songs and are down to earth. Not blooming blinging Jay Z.

Cypress Hill did the main stage once, not sure about Public Enemy.
If they were playing that would be ace but wants to see Jay-Z's mainstream pap anyway?

It's not racist and the very fact that some internet blogger has played the race card is pathetic.
JayZ isn't the sort of act that in normal circumstances would be considerd for Glastonbury, regardless of how mainstream he is or isn't. I wouldn't associate or expect to see (on a main stage) anything that isn't guitar orientated.
Could you imagine seeing the Back Street Boys at Ozzfest?

Amina Taylor the woman who wrote in the guardian, says different. She says this:
Have a listen to her on Dotun Adebayo's BBC London radio show on listen again. She wasn't happy about it.
She felt that there was a kind of racism in the discussion. She's a black woman, so according to some logic, racism it is.
Btw. I like and respect Amina Taylor. I have heard her on the radio often. She has the most gorgeous soft lilting Caribbean accent.

Go on and tune into the programme. She comes on (I think) in the second half of the first hour. She and Dotun also talk about Womad attracting a largely white audience, and Dotun also makes a joke about the Notting Hill Carnival being a ''white'' event, and even thogh laughing about it says: ''You know it's true, Carnival is not a black event anymore.''

I raised some impressions of being at last years Carnival on this forum. Opinions that were not so different to Dotun Adebayo's and many of his guests and callers on his sunday night show. Zippy Jon and Sarah, seriously lampooned them.

Barbara, LeftintheUS (and everyone else), have a listen to Dotun Adebayo. He really is a top guy. I like him a lot.

I went to a Blues evening in Detroit once and the audience was predominantly white.

In Detroit!

(And it was a good evening too - Thanks Barb )

I'd love to see Public Enemy headline - they'd fit the ethos really well - and they'd be fucking ace

Jay-Z - I'll go and sling some mud at the misogynist wanker, unless of course someone better is playing at the time - which is highly likely!

I've seen the Enemy twice. Great shows both!

I remember seeing on TV Wyclef Jean at Woodstock 99 getting pelted with bottles and cans and anything that was not nailed down. It was mental I can't wait to see the same towards Jay Z

i saw fiddy cent defeated by a garden chair at reading festtval. although he had the last laugh. gets the full fee for 5 minutes work instead of an hour.

So what do we tell Amina Taylor?

Is this a cross reference to the chap from Ohio?

tell her what you like Damon. no i tell you what, tell her what SPIKED likes. or dotun. or debs orr. just don'tt waste my time talking about it here.

Perhaps Amina Taylor, when she says stuff like this, is overestimating.
She certainly doent't seem to be getting much sympathy on this forum.
When I suggested something similar last year, I got shouted down.

Tell her to have a coke and a smile and shut the fuck up!!

No Damon - YOU don't get much sympathy on this forum.
I don't think most people give a fuck who she is or what she thinks, especially if its come from you in the first place.

Another fucking bombshell.

It intrigues me to try to know what it is (or was) particularly that I said that gets/got up Saraha's nose so much. I mean, she was preety fast to make me (most) unwelcome on the forum. After just a few months if I remember right. Yes I have got into a few slanging matches with different people, but I don't think I ever started the unpleasantness.
For example, I don't think I've ever said a bad word about Pam. Why would I? She seems like a perfectly nice person, and although our paths have rarely crossed, I will read her posts with interest (and respect of the person) like anyone else on here.
Obviously I reckon Sarah doesn't like my ''take'' on the issues of racism and multi-culturalism.

Amina Taylor made some particular remarks, which were pretty close to calling the lack of enthusiasm for Jay-Z headlining at Glastonbury, racism. Now it's fine to poo poo accusations like that if you think they are unfounded, but I have been saying (banging on) since I started on this forum, that opinions like that of Amina Taylor are absoutely commonplace within the black community, if Dotun Adebayo's sunday evening radio programme (which I listened to again last night), and the Voice newspaper, are anything typical of feelings in Britain's black population.

Accusations of racism are made all the time. Just last week, people on his show were highlighting the case of the 'racism' of British Airways crew, who ejected most of the passengers in Economy class off a plane at Heathrow, who were on-board a flight about to take off for Lagos Nigeria, when many of the passengers got upset and started protesting about a Nigerian man who was being deported on the flight, and was shouting that he was going to die if sent back, (and was being physically restrained by officials who were to accompany him on the flight).

Was it racism I wonderd. A man who was kicked off the flight was in the studio with Dotun, and admitted that the whole cabin did get a bit agitated, with lots of raised voices and arguing.
I do not support forcible deportations of anybody, but in the kind of climate we live in today, airline workers do not put up with 'unruly' passengers. Period.
Here is some information on this incident. There is talk of a boycott of BA.
As people who called the show said, it wouldn't have happened on a flight to New York.
Whether it was racism on the part of BA staff though, is difficult to say.

That's why I'm not really entirely in agreement in the way this thread was started. ''Racism: just what it says on the tin,'' is in my opinion, rather too woolly. As it seems to imply, that if someone like Amina Taylor says something is racist, then it probably is.
Some people (politically) want to believe that nothing ever changes, and that (for example) the British police are as institutionally racist as they ever were, and the BNP is a major threat. (it will be interesting to see how many votes they get on thursday.

I was at the 'Love Music - Hate Racism' concert in Victoria Park yesterday. I thought it really sucked btw. There were some really long waits between the different bands coming on, and when I finally saw some music, it was decidedly lackluster.
The last event of the day, at the main stage, had Jerry Dammers introducing it, and I thought at least that might go off with a rousing chorus of some great ska tune that yould have everybody dancing. But a bloke came out and spoke the words to 'Ghost Town' really slowly, while a brass section played the music, (again) really slowly. And that was it. Thank you and goodnight.

I had (of course) been looking at the makeup and demography of the people at the event.
The white working class wasn't really there (if you can be so crude to piogen-hole people like that - what I mean is, white people who look like a football crowd). And the black population of London was quite noticeably under represented.
And the Asian population (considering we were in Tower Hamlets) was almost invisible.
Was it the lineup that didn't attract a more representative cross section of the population I wondered.

There may have been some of that.
But I think there was also some of that thing that makes Womad so white, and even as barmyrob said, also a blues concert in Detroit.

And I must say, when people were giving political speeches about ''smashing the 'Nazi' BNP, just like the NF was defeated 30 years ago,'' it didn't quite do it for me.
And I suspected (and here Jon can come in and say that I think I can read people's minds), that (perhaps) some of the black people in the crowd (like my sister's boyfriend who I was with) also might have rolled their eyes just a little at that kind of talk.

Ask him about the BNP, and he'll say: ''never seen 'em mate.'' (Truth).

hey Damon, remember this from the Ken Livingstone thread? It's a reply to something you wrote in the Musings On Political Corectness thread. I've moved the conversation here - it seems somehow more appropriate, don't you think?

Shock horror, I actually agree, in part with a post by Damon... falls on the floor...

I thought the speeches on Sunday were awful - really screechy and exactly the kind of thing that turns kids off politics... Ken Livingstone was the only person I came away with thinking "good on him" actually. He said in order to defeat racists like the BNP you need to vote on Thursday - not vote for him, but vote in general.

I really dislike this thing of calling the BNP Nazis... I think it diminishes the power of the word and means people don't worry about the BNP because they're not "that bad really". Think that is a daft decision by the organises, personally.

The trade union leaders (who I've never been a fan of, when was the last time they were on the shop floor, exactly?) were treated like celebrities and it was all terribly self congratulatory.

The sound was dreadful too - we got there just at the end of Hard-Fi and I was thankful we missed them, it sounded dreadful.
Damon Albarn even stopped their opening number because the sound was so bad and he didn't think it was fair on the audience to continue if it was going to sound that bad. As I mentioned in another thread, we left soon afterwards.

Where I do think you are way off Damon, and kind of highlights something I've not had evidence of before is the make up of the audience. Are you sure you were at the same gig I was? I saw lots of black kids and asian kids - usually in groups with their white mates, all dressed the same.
There were also loads of black and mixed race families.
One thing that did really impress me was the number of young people there - these are the people who we need to engage with - not your trade unionists when you're just preaching to the converted.
The percentage of black people in London is less than 10% and I'd guess that the crowd was at least 25-30% black or mixed race.
You might not have seen any stereotypical muslim families in head scarves and the like but then you wouldn't at a western rock gig.

Aren't Trade Union gatherings pretty much a back-slapping affair (Tolpuddle almost bordered on it this year, I felt - Uncle Tony aside) and I'd reckon, personally, Thatcher did as much to make me aware of politics than anything the Labour party did at the time

I agree SL, I actually think that the BNP rather enjoy being labelled as a Nazi party, despite their leanings in that direction I do think it actually adds strength to their (BNP) arguement that they're aren't as bad - yet?