Give it a Hanky and a Slap
A spectre is haunting the place. No doubt you’ve already read or heard about the Fulham cops.
…the author Lynette Burrows went on a BBC Five Live show to talk about the government’s new “civil partnerships” and expressed her opinion – politely, no intemperate words – that the adoption of children by homosexuals was “a risk”. The following day, Fulham police contacted her to discuss the “homophobic incident”. A Scotland Yard spokesperson told the Telegraph’s Sally Pook that it’s “standard policy” for “community safety units” to investigate “homophobic, racist and domestic incidents”…”It is all about reassuring the community,” said the very p.c. Plod to the Telegraph. “All parties have been spoken to by the police. No allegation of crime has been made. A report has been taken but is now closed.”
It’s pretty staggering. All this ‘reassuring the community’ crap – can I be the only one who is developing a violent allergy to the very word ‘community’? A community right now seems to be a very unattractive and annoying specimen. A whining, nose-running, pants falling down, sleeve-plucking, feeble, knock-kneed, spiteful, tattling, nagging, droning, sniveling, self-obsessed pile of ordure. Why is everyone expected to keep reassuring it all the time? Why isn’t it expected to grow up? Why is it allowed – allowed? encouraged, urged – to run screaming to the police and the courts and the monarch and the armed militias every time someone ‘offends’ or ‘insults’ or ‘wounds’ or ‘blasphemes against’ or ‘disrespects’ its horrible poxy tiny closed airless stupid little beliefs? Why does it get to push all the grown-ups around all the time with its high-pitched noisy demands? Why doesn’t everyone with one voice tell it to shut up and piss off?
The community in question is not even a real community, it’s a spectral community, The Community as it exists in the minds of people who think it has to be reassured all the time. That community is not only whiny and covered in snot, it’s also damn dangerous. It’s a shut up device, and it works a treat.
Mark Steyn gets one thing quite wrong though, I think.
Mrs Burrows writes on “children’s rights and the family”, so I don’t know whether she’s a member of PEN or the other authors’ groups. But it seems unlikely the Hampstead big guns who lined up to defend Salman Rushdie a decade and a half ago will be eager to stage any rallies this time round. But, if the principle is freedom of expression, what’s the difference between his apostasy (as the Ayatollah saw it) and Mrs Burrows’s apostasy (as Scotland Yard sees it)?
Well which Hampstead big guns are we talking about? Some of them precisely did not line up to defend Rushdie fifteen years ago, and isn’t that exactly when all this sickening community-reassuring got going? With a good many Hampstead big guns saying Rushdie was a bad fella and that the feelings of devout Muslims ought to be respected? Yes, as a matter of fact, it is. And I strongly doubt that the people who ‘lined up’ (what else should they have done, pushed and shoved?) to defend Rushdie would all approve of the Fulham police work in this case. Hitchens for instance? That seems vanishingly unlikely. Steyn seems to have his enemies confused here (not for the first time).
I loved his last sentence, though:
‘Here’s a thought: we should be able to discuss homosexuality, Islam and pretty much everything else in the same carefree way Guardian columnists damn Bush’s America as “neo-fascist”.’
Doesn’t being called a neo-fascist constitute a grievance? And can’t those with grievances do whatever the hell they like? It wouldn’t surprise me if Bush paid a visit to the Guardian’s offices and blew himself up while in a huddle with some editors.
Another false argument needing a name is;
“You did (or didn’t do) X therefore you have no right to do (or not do) Y”, when X and Y are suggested to be similar issues or matters
Maybe it can be the Steyn Gambit.
It has always seemede to me that every dog is entitled to choose the tree up which it will bark. And we can all decide for ourselves whether X and Y are similar.
I do agree, be the way, that the police action is scary.
The simple answer to Ms. Burrows is that all parenting is a risk and that gay parenting seems not to be a greater risk than others. No need for the police for that.
Oh, by the way, I imagine the reference to Hampstead was rather more pointed than you seem to have noticed.
Re PM’s remark on Steyn’s writing:
>But it seems unlikely the Hampstead big guns who lined up to defend Salman Rushdie a decade and a half ago will be eager to stage any rallies this time round.< Given the context, I very much doubt there was any more meaning in Steyn’s citing Hampstead than in his writing of “big guns”.
“Godalmighty, PM, do you want the police coming around to have a chat with you every time you say something that someone finds offensive? Have you thought about this?”
I thought they just phoned her up? Do I want the police to ring me up to ask what I said/did whenever I say something rude about gay people or some racial group on the radio or I’m alleged to have hit my wife? Um, I don’t suppose I’d mind too much. More importantly, if they bring in this godawful religious hatred law, I won’t mind if the police ring me up and ask what I said about Islam or Christianity on the radio either. Unless it becomes a sort of harrassment in and of itself.
“I don’t think saying something obnoxious ought to be classified as a ‘homophobic incident’!”
Well it does because the government wants to collate the figures. Which is fair enough. It isn’t a crime. I’m not hugely keen on the whole, ‘if you think it is racial/homophobic it is’ position, but then the police are intensely racist and homophobic so they have a point.
“the police are not obliged to investigate every complaint. They’re obliged to listen and pay attention, but not investigate – not phone people up and give them a talking-to. But they are free to.”
Of course they aren’t obliged to investigate -anything-, but if its a plausible complaint they have to. They aren’t obliged to investigate allegations of murder either, but they do if they have reason to believe there is something in it. We don’t know what the complainant told the police, they might have claimed she said she wanted to kill all gay people for all we know.
On the other hand, the police shouldn’t be giving people a talking to over stuff like this, but do we know they did?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/12/10/ngay10.xml&DCMP=EMC-new_10122005
“During the programme, she said she did not believe that homosexuals should be allowed to adopt. She added that placing boys with two homosexuals for adoption was as obvious a risk as placing a girl with two heterosexual men who offered themselves as parents. “It is a risk,” she said. “You would not give a small girl to two men.””
“”A member of the public complained to the police and an officer contacted Mrs Burrows the following day to say a “homophobic incident” had been reported against her.
“”I was astounded,” she said. “I told her this was a free country and we are allowed to express opinions on matters of public interest. She told me it was not a crime but that she had to record these incidents.””
So yes, it was a homophobic incident, and no, it wasn’t a crime, and no, the police did not lecture her but simply followed up a complaint made by a member of the public. I can see the scope for abuse (using it as a form of harrasment), but I do not agree with her interpretation that “They were leaning on me, letting me know that the police had an interest in my views. I think it is sinister and completely unacceptable.”, or your extreme outrage over the situation.
The Steyn gambit…hmm…I’m not sure. It can be abused, of course, but surely it is often worth wondering why someone is furious about X and not Y.
Sure, we can wonder. My objection is to the alleged inconsistency becoming the argument.
It is related to the “slippery slope” or “thin end of the wedge” argument: if we allow removal of life support from the brain-dead, next we will be putting grandma down because she is a bit of a nuisance.
Much of life is about drawing lines, stopping on slopes, distinguishing between similar cases. It can always be open to argue about where to draw the line but foolish to try to avoid doing it all at by staying off the field entirely.
(Apologies for mixed metaphors)
PM writes:
>Do I want the police to ring me up to ask what I said/did whenever I say something rude about gay people or some racial group on the radio or I’m alleged to have hit my wife? Um, I don’t suppose I’d mind too much.< Let’s leave off the straw man bit at the end about allegations of striking one’s wife and stick to the first part. Saying something rude may well be in the mind of the beholder, so who’s to say when it’s rude or offensive enough to complain to the police, and that the police will be expected to take action? People are always taking offence, and reading this or that into something someone says (including the offence of alleged “–ism”). What an appalling state of affairs if we end up with the situation PM apparently views with equanimity. On this evening’s Radio 4 PM programme Aran Jones, head of what he called a housing and anti-colonisation [sic] pressure group, said he intended pressing the police to investigate Tony Blair’s alleged expletive “Fucking Welsh” on hearing the disappointing results of the election in Wales earlier this year. Although cut out of the memoirs of the spin doctor Lance Price who reported it, the words were leaked and reported in the press. Price has been interviewed by the police and Jones is pushing for them to take action against Blair. No doubt this Welsh git would regard his case as much justified as the situation PM envisages in the scenario cited above. And no doubt if I publicly called Price (on the grounds of the silly action he is taking) a Welsh git he would take offence on behalf of the Welsh even though I suspect the great majority of them think he is a prat. I’m sure he regards himself as racially offended by Blair and that the police were absolutely justified in questioning Lance Price and (he hopes) in following this up with questions for the Blair. What a fatuous waste of police resources. Do we really want a society in which people will bend over backwards to avoid saying something publicly that *might* offend one group or another (be they gays or ethnic groups)? We already know what happens in such a situation: recently a performance of a Christopher Marlowe play had certain references to Mohammed omitted by the director because Muslims might (just might) be offended. The kind of society in which people might be questioned because someone or other takes offence on grounds of sexual orientation or ethnic group would likely produce self-censorship of an invidious kind just in case someone out there might be offended and complain. I can only say that is not the kind of society I want to live in.
I’m reminded of the time a couple of decades ago when someone on the BBC Radio 4 News Quiz called Neil Kinnock a Welsh windbag, in response to which the Times humourist Alan Coren said “I didn’t know Kinnock was Welsh”.
“People are always taking offence”
I know I am. I get offended some 90 thousand times a day – and yet, oddly, I almost never call the police about it. I kind of don’t think they’d be interested.
If one takes a historical perspective, and remembers that within the lifetimes of the majority of adults today it was quite acceptable for people in Britain and elsewhere to treat Blacks, Gays and women as subhumans, worthy of more-or-less publicly expressed contempt and the occasional good kicking, and that *absolutely nothing* was done about this for a very long time, then I think it is not exactly the end of civilisation as we know it if the pendulum swings in the direction of a little over-sensitivity…
Of course, if the delightful woman who thinks that gay men are a threat to little girls [what is that, where’s the logic there, incidentally??] were to be grabbed from her bed at the crack of dawn and slung in a cell incommunicado for a week, we might have something to worry about…
Allen Esterson wrote:
“no doubt if I publicly called Price (on the grounds of the silly action he is taking) a Welsh git he would take offence on behalf of the Welsh even though I suspect the great majority of them think he is a prat.”
I think he would be right. There is surely no reason to mention his nationality when calling him a git. Would it be acceptable to mention the skin colour of a native of say Uganda when insulting him?
Who are these Hampstead Bigguns ? And where can I buy one ?
Seriously though – Radio Five thrives on getting mildly controversial a55holes like this on air, and then getting dimwits like me to react. Trouble is, someone will always be outraged when it comes to this type of low-insight broadcasting (why not – it’s a free country they cry), but everyone involved should know that making nasty little pernicious jibes at some privileged, notional ‘others’ will always outrage too many intelligent people than is sensible. Then the human faeces that are 90% of newspaper columnists will climb to the top of their holier-then-everyone else’s tower and give us their ‘wisdom’. (barfing noises)… We, the fools, then throw our pennysworth in… in fact the whole thing’s a shower of shit stirred up into a shitstorm, by shitbags, then washed away into an ocean of excrement and mediocrity.
So there. (phew). No offense.
“Saying something rude may well be in the mind of the beholder, so who’s to say when it’s rude or offensive enough to complain to the police, and that the police will be expected to take action?”
It isn’t about just saying something rude that some particular person will take offence about. It is about two very specific cases, homophobia and racism. And the action that is required by the police is looking into it to see if a crime has been committed. I happen to agree that it is an overreaction to demand the police investigate this woman saying she thinks gay men will abuse adoptive children, or Anne Robinson saying she wants to ‘get rid’ of the Welsh. However, I agree with Dave that it is hardly the end of the world if someone gets a phone call saying there’s been a complaint made about them that has been investigated, as long as they make clear that nothing they’ve done is a crime and no action will be taken against them, and as long as it isn’t used as a method of harrasment.
“…he intended pressing the police to investigate Tony Blair’s alleged expletive “Fucking Welsh” on hearing the disappointing results of the election in Wales earlier this year.”
I thought they’d already looked into it and decided there was no crime? It’d be a pretty funny prosecution, as I’m not aware of any laws even close to prosecuting second hand reports of things said in private.
Look, what you, and OB, and most people here seem to have overlooked is that there is a complete difference between the police being extra careful to investigate the sorts of alleged crimes that in the past they would have ignored, or that people would have been afraid to report, and actually prosecuting people because someone claims to have been offended by something they said.
“The kind of society in which people might be questioned because someone or other takes offence on grounds of sexual orientation or ethnic group would likely produce self-censorship of an invidious kind just in case someone out there might be offended and complain.”
I’m somewhat intrigued about all this talk of oversensitivity. Claiming gay men are child abusers is objectively homophobic, and using racial or national labels when insulting someone (‘welsh git’, ‘black bastard’) is objectively racist behaviour. Neither are very serious or even illegal, but it is hardly oversensitive to take offence. The law does not allow you to just complain if you are offended by something, this all has bugger all to do with people not liking their religion lampooned, only if you hear/see a homophobic or racist incident will the police investigate your ‘offence’. Frankly I’m not that bothered if these people self-censor to avoid being homophobic and racist.
I’d be intrigued to know what you think about the police investigating people who say things like “Alan, it’s not just a few Middle Eastern bastards at the weekend, it’s thousands. Cronulla is a very long beach and it’s been taken over by this scum. It’s not a few causing trouble. It’s all of them.”
, and “Come to Cronulla this weekend to take revenge. This Sunday every Aussie in the Shire get down to North Cronulla to support the Leb and wog bashing day …”?
PM, I agree with all that to the letter – but we have to think why are we allowing these pernicious arseholes so much bandwidth/airtime in the first place ? It’s just inflamatory shite thet the contollers of Radio 5 (and increasingly Radio 4) are getting away with, in place of analysis and debate. The only sensible place to direct criticism is to the producers of that programme asking them: why have they brought on such a sub-standard guest knowing all she’d do is talk shate about gays and wind everyone up with out bringing an atom of value-added to the debate? It’s the same reason they make f@cking reality shows – it’s the cheapest programming possible, and they know that cow-people will sit absorbing it like they’ll learn something, or be entertained, or, or something…
Bastards.
No offense to cow-people, of course.
Paul Power wrote:
> Allen Esterson wrote:
“no doubt if I publicly called Price (on the grounds of the silly action he is taking) a Welsh git he would take offence on behalf of the Welsh even though I suspect the great majority of them think he is a prat.”
>I think he would be right. There is surely no reason to mention his nationality when calling him a git. Would it be acceptable to mention the skin colour of a native of say Uganda when insulting him?< If Price was a git who just happened to be Welsh you’d be absolutely right. But as I was labelling him a git specifically in relation to an action taken by the head of a Welsh nationalist group that was self-described in a rather silly way, self-consciously on behalf (as he sees it) of the Welsh, I think I’m entitled to call him a Welsh git. You may disagree. Who is to decide? Call in the thought police. This only brings home the problems with PM’s position. Paul thinks I’m displaying prejudice in this specific case of my calling Price a Welsh git. I say I’m not, and that my words were justified by the context. Why does Paul think (as he evidently does) that his opinion is more valid than mine? And if I were to have used those words on the radio, would PM feel that someone would have some justification for complaining? And that the police would then be right to investigate? That’s why the incidents highlighted on the Radio 4 PM programme are pernicious, and cause for concern for people who value free speech (with all the usual caveats about its limitations).
PM wrote:
>It isn’t about just saying something rude that some particular person will take offence about.< I was only quoting your own scenario, PM:
> Do I want the police to ring me up to ask what I said/did whenever I say something rude about gay people or some racial group on the radio … Um, I don’t suppose I’d mind too much…< PM writes, alluding to words by me above:
> Claiming gay men are child abusers is objectively homophobic, and using racial or national labels when insulting someone (‘welsh git’, ‘black bastard’) is objectively racist behaviour .< That makes clear why Ophelia and I are concerned over this issue. PM now says that my use of the words “Welsh git” is “objectively racist behavior”. I think that, given the context in which I used the words, this is absolute nonsense. This issue is not about sensitivity, it’s about the absurdity of responding to bigotry in the circumstances of the original issue, or (more generally), alleged bigotry, by complaining to the police and (above all) by their then questioning the alleged offender. (And, on a more minor level, it’s also about accusing people of racism, “objective” or otherwise, at the least excuse.) >Frankly I’m not that bothered if these people self-censor to avoid being homophobic and racist.< PM begs the question here, and in a telling way. The allusion to self-censorship is presumably a response to my citing the Christopher Marlowe play (otherwise why would PM have brought it up?). He goes on to *choose* the examples concerning which he would be happy to see self-censorship. But it’s not about what PM or I or Ophelia choose to think is justified in being suppressed (one way or another) – we would have different views on that. What PM’s remark illustrates is that suppression (directly or indirectly) is okay by him as long as it’s something *he* decides is objectively homophobic, racist, or whatever. PM writes:
>I’d be intrigued to know what you think about the police investigating people who say things like “Alan, it’s not just a few Middle Eastern bastards at the weekend, it’s thousands. Cronulla is a very long beach and it’s been taken over by this scum. It’s not a few causing trouble. It’s all of them.”
I’d find the comments appalling, but not something I’d want the police to get involved in.
>and “Come to Cronulla this weekend to take revenge. This Sunday every Aussie in the Shire get down to North Cronulla to support the Leb and wog bashing day”?< That’s clearly incitement to violence, and the police should take action.
Anyone seen the Champions League draw ?
What that last exchange suddenly brings back to me is a few months ago one of the German glossy weeklies (I think it was “Stern”) had a cover devoted to the take-over of German tourists’ favourite holiday beaches by the Russians. Unflattering illustrations (two fat Russian women pigging out at a buffet with little brown-skined child standing between them; shaven-headed tough-looking muscleman standing in water; man smearing some cream on almost-fully-exposed chest of enormous elderly woman; two vacuous-looking bimbos with Barbie-like figures and I think there may have been a fifth example I’ve forgotten), a scare-heading which was something like the “Russians are coming” and the whole cover was advertised on billboards in train stations with the additional element of a phrase something like “They’ll make you long for the British!,” in a way that implied that it couldn’t have gotten much worse than the British.
It only came up in conversation with one person, who also thought it was alarmingly candid and tasteless about the race element, but I didn’t pick up on any wave of responses like complaints from the Russian Embassy and I don’t know what the piece behind the cover was like. I don’t see it as being markedly different from “Cronulla Comment A” and it was very public and up-front.
To Allen Esterson:
The only thing I have a problem with is the coupling of “welsh” and “git”. I still can’t see the call for it. I do not think my opinion is, ipso facto, any better than anyone else’s. I would prefer not to say things like “Welsh git” for 2 reasons: 1) it might make me more likely to say something racist; 2) some Welsh people who might otherwise agree with me might misconstrue my meaning.
I would note of Mr Blair’s “Fuck the Welsh” comment that in the event of his being removed from office by a general election, he will not say “fuck the English”. Nor, during the long years when the British Labour party could not win a general election, did any senior Labour party member ever utter such a comment, even though it was the English voting against them that kept them from power. I have come across English jokes about the Irish, Scots and Welsh but never even one Englishman telling a joke that began “have you heard about the thick/tight-with-money/overly-verbose Englishman”.
BTW I am not in favour of the police’s involvement in this case or any similar instance.
BTW2: Was Blair’s comment not about the results of an election to a purely Welsh institution, which makes it even more questionable given that he is not resident in Wales?
“He goes on to *choose* the examples concerning which he would be happy to see self-censorship. But it’s not about what PM or I or Ophelia choose to think is justified in being suppressed (one way or another) – we would have different views on that. What PM’s remark illustrates is that suppression (directly or indirectly) is okay by him as long as it’s something *he* decides is objectively homophobic, racist, or whatever.”
But, and I suppose I may as well repeat it again, it is only homophobia and racism that the polis are supposed to investigate in this way. Therefore, self-censorship over religious sensibilities has nothing to do with it. So the only room for disagreement is whether something is or is not homophobic or racist. In the case of Lynette Burrows, yes, it was homophobic, not a lot of room for interpretation there. In the case of ‘Welsh git’ it is more complicated, I doubt the PM was being racist, Anne Robinson – maybe, you – I don’t know.
“I think I’m entitled to call him a Welsh git. You may disagree. Who is to decide? Call in the thought police.”
No, the question is whether it is potentially racist (defined in the rather broad British law sense) to call him a Welsh git, not whether you are justified or allowed to do so. I’m happy, just, to let the aggrieved group define it as so if they think so (although personally I’d have made the police decide, and given them guidelines, but i don’t get to make government policy). Further to my other example, what are your thoughts on ‘Black bastard’, ‘little Asian shit’, ‘fucking Paki bastard’, ‘stupid Irish shit’ etc? [‘but he -is- a Paki!’]
“What PM’s remark illustrates is that suppression (directly or indirectly) is okay by him as long as it’s something *he* decides is objectively homophobic, racist, or whatever.”
Uh? I said that (a) I don’t think it is suppression, (b) I don’t mind people avoiding being racist or homophobic because they don’t like the idea of people complaining about them and then them getting rung up and told someone has complained about them. What do you think is being suppressed by this? What secret thoughts about gay people and people of other races do you think is just itching to get out but is afraid of a phone call from the police telling them someone has complained about them? I’d have thought fear of public outrage would be a bigger motivation than a phonecall from a WPC. Seriously, apart from your problems over your desire to use someone’s nationality as an epithet when insulting them, what other things are there that you think would be complaind about and investigated that ought to be aired?
“I’d find the comments appalling, but not something I’d want the police to get involved in….That’s clearly incitement to violence, and the police should take action.”
And you don’t think that there is a rather grey area in between? So it is just fine and dandy to spend your days saying that a specific racial group is the scum of the earth that our polluting our fine land, just so long as you don’t say we should hurt them in any way? And you don’t think that there are reasonable grounds on hearing the first statement to investigate to see if there are grounds for prosecuting for the second statement? And I’m sure you’re aware that incitement to racial hatred is a crime in the UK, as well as incitement to violence.
Oops, homophone, arse.
“Oops, homophone, arse.”
Now that sounds truly offensive.
Paul wrote re Blair’s alleged “Fucking Welsh” expletive:
>Was Blair’s comment not about the results of an election to a purely Welsh institution, which makes it even more questionable given that he is not resident in Wales?< My understanding when the issue first arose that Blair’s (alleged) comment was in response to results in Wales in the General Election, but now you’ve raised it I can’t say for sure.
OB, obviously, the Fullham cops are planning on trying out for bit parts in a revival of Joe Orton’s Loot. They were simply rehearsing. Case closed.
Oh, and one quote from the play:
“Reading isn’t an occupation we encourage among police officers. We try to keep the paperwork down to a minimum.” – Inspector Truscott.
Here’s a couple of examples to illustrate my concerns about self-censorship. A year or so ago an academic of Afro-Caribbean descent suggested that one of the factors in the academic underachievement of boys of Afro-Caribbean descent in the UK was the black youth culture that surrounded many of them (and I think he included the factor of the large percentage of absent fathers). The Mayor of London’s race advisor Lee Jaspers immediately published an article accusing the academic of being guilty of internalising racism, with the implication that anyone who put this issue up for discussion was liable to be labelled racist. This is what I meant by people making allegations of racism at the slightest excuse. Most people don’t want to face that kind of thing, and prefer to keep their views to themselves. I’m not talking about racist views, I mean views that are liable to be interpreted as racist by those who make such accusations at the drop of a hat.
I know the kind of situation that prevails in this kind of atmosphere from my experience teaching in a College of Further Education in London. People mutter their views to colleagues, but keep their heads well down in public discussions. I have experienced what happens to those who don’t. I had numerous criticisms of the methodological deficiencies of a study undertaken by a member of the teaching staff researching the experience of black women employees of the college. A newsletter presenting the general conclusions was given to all teachers, who had the opportunity to check out the survey in the library, and to attend a committee meeting to discuss how to proceed on the basis of the report. I attended the meeting (the sole non-committee member) and voiced my criticisms of the seriously flawed survey. The result? No one took the least notice of my criticisms, and one person accused me of unconscious racism. (The survey was accepted as it stood and the meeting commenced to decide what steps to take next – not that teaching staff hadn’t been adequately furnished with “anti-racist” material for many years previously.)
So what do most members of the teaching staff do in such circumstances. They keep their heads below the barricades and mutter in private about “anti-racist” issues. And that is one of the things I mean by self-censorship, which is liable to occur at the local level or in the public domain if allegations of “racism”, “homophobia”, etc, are so readily made.
“The Mayor of London’s race advisor Lee Jaspers immediately published an article accusing the academic of being guilty of internalising racism, with the implication that anyone who put this issue up for discussion was liable to be labelled racist. This is what I meant by people making allegations of racism at the slightest excuse. Most people don’t want to face that kind of thing, and prefer to keep their views to themselves. I’m not talking about racist views, I mean views that are liable to be interpreted as racist by those who make such accusations at the drop of a hat.”
I thought that “The place to challenge instances of bigotry is in the broadcasting studio, not via the police. That’s what this issue is about.” Yet it seems it is YOU that gets to decide whether things can be called “racist views” or whether they are just “views that are liable to be interpreted as racist by those who make such accusations at the drop of a hat.” You are objecting explicitly to people challenging what they perceive as bigotry in the broadcasting studio (or in this case in the press). It seems to me that your beef is with things you think are legitimate being labelled racist. Your problem is not with the police having an involvement per se.
By extension, are you objecting to someone saying ‘putting children with gay adoptive parents is a risk because gay men will be inclined to abuse the child’ being labelled as homophobic?
PM,
“In the case of Lynette Burrows, yes, it was homophobic, not a lot of room for interpretation there.”
That’s ridiculous. Of course there’s room for interpretation there. The very word homophobic requires interpretation – it’s an evaluative word, an emotive word, a moral word – it’s on the values side of the facts/values gap, the ought side of the is/ought gap.
“You are objecting explicitly to people challenging what they perceive as bigotry in the broadcasting studio”
There is a difference between challenging and calling the police. That’s a fairly basic difference – no, I take that back, it’s a very basic difference.
I find this discussion truly surreal. What is it that you guys like about B&W, I can’t help wondering?
“If one takes a historical perspective, and remembers that within the lifetimes of the majority of adults today it was quite acceptable for people in Britain and elsewhere to treat Blacks, Gays and women as subhumans, worthy of more-or-less publicly expressed contempt and the occasional good kicking, and that *absolutely nothing* was done about this for a very long time, then I think it is not exactly the end of civilisation as we know it if the pendulum swings in the direction of a little over-sensitivity…”
Hey – I hear publicly expressed contempt for women all the time. It’s absolutely routine. We’re bitches and hos, we’re either sex toys or a waste of space, we’re stupid, we’re feminazis, we’re ballbusters, we’re parasites, we’re snakes in the grass, we’re trophies, we’re baby-killers. It’s chronically infuriating – but that does not make it a police matter. Are you guys completely unaware of the territory between Nothing and calling the cops?
“Of course, if the delightful woman who thinks that gay men are a threat to little girls [what is that, where’s the logic there, incidentally??]”
The point is not that the woman or what she said is delightful, the point is that it is not a police matter. Saying something illogical is not generally a police matter. You do realize that, right?
“were to be grabbed from her bed at the crack of dawn and slung in a cell incommunicado for a week, we might have something to worry about…”
And short of that there is no problem? There is (again) no territory between being able to express an opinion without “investigation” and being slung in a cell incommunicado for a week?
“That’s ridiculous. Of course there’s room for interpretation there. The very word homophobic requires interpretation – it’s an evaluative word, an emotive word, a moral word – it’s on the values side of the facts/values gap, the ought side of the is/ought gap.
“
Well a reasonable definition is “fear or hatred of homosexuals and homosexuality”, I don’t see where the facts/values gap comes in here. I happen to think homophobia is wrong, but I have my doubts that Lynette Burrows shares that view.
Ok, onto the question at hand. Was Lynette Burrows homophobic? Well she said “she did not believe that homosexuals should be allowed to adopt. She added that placing boys with two homosexuals for adoption was as obvious a risk as placing a girl with two heterosexual men who offered themselves as parents.” Now that statement seems to me to be motivated by ‘fear of homosexuals’, and thus to be homophobia. I’m sure you could try and cobble together a half arsed justification for it that would try and claim that she is entirely motivated by misguided (or not?) ideas about homosexuality that yet do not add up to fear of homosexuality. But then I’d probably throw this line of yours back in our face: “In other words, you’re right about the overt content, but I think you’re overlooking the hidden content – the subtext, if you like.”
“There is a difference between challenging and calling the police. That’s a fairly basic difference – no, I take that back, it’s a very basic difference.”
I think you’ve misread the context. I was implying that there is some tension between the positions expressed in “The place to challenge instances of bigotry is in the broadcasting studio, not via the police. That’s what this issue is about.” and “The Mayor of London’s race advisor Lee Jaspers immediately published an article accusing the academic of being guilty of internalising racism, with the implication that anyone who put this issue up for discussion was liable to be labelled racist. This is what I meant by people making allegations of racism at the slightest excuse. Most people don’t want to face that kind of thing, and prefer to keep their views to themselves. I’m not talking about racist views, I mean views that are liable to be interpreted as racist by those who make such accusations at the drop of a hat.”
“I find this discussion truly surreal. What is it that you guys like about B&W, I can’t help wondering?”
Cheer up. Only the other day someone was moaning that everyone here agrees with each other too much.
“But then I’d probably throw this line of yours back in [y]our face: “In other words, you’re right about the overt content, but I think you’re overlooking the hidden content – the subtext, if you like.””
No need for throwing. No need for temper. Sense a little subtext of hostility – even phobia, perhaps – of your own there?
More to the point. Yes, I do think it’s worth digging for subtexts – but I do not then claim that there is “not a lot of room for interpretation there”. That would be imbecilic, since subtext by definition is interpretive. You can’t reasonably claim both that Burrows’s subtext is homophobia and that there is not a lot of room for interpretation about that. That’s a remarkably sloppy argument.
“I find this discussion truly surreal. What is it that you guys like about B&W, I can’t help wondering?”
Oh, and for what its worth, I am deliberately adopting a somewhat more extreme position than I normally would as a direct response to your and Allen’s hyperbole on the subject.
“More to the point. Yes, I do think it’s worth digging for subtexts – but I do not then claim that there is “not a lot of room for interpretation there”. That would be imbecilic, since subtext by definition is interpretive.”
Damn, should’ve saved it. My point was more that you’ll have to try pretty hard, and contort rather amusingly to get a reading that is not homophobic, and even then there’ll be a pretty clear subtext of homophobia.
Ah – I suspected as much. I think I said yesterday that it must be a joke.
I’ll stop wasting my time then.
If you want to make an extreme argument for effect, fine, but then make an argument.
“If you want to make an extreme argument for effect, fine, but then make an argument.”
Hey, no fair, I am too. And by more extreme, that doesn’t mean my natural position is that we shouldn’t have any laws about incitement to racial hatred, or special emphasis on investigating racially or homophobically motivated crimes. Just that I thought this particular case was rather heavy handed.
Back to Burrows being homophobic, yay or nay?
“Hey, no fair, I am too.”
Well, I don’t think you are, and I just said why. It’s sloppy to say there’s not a lot of room for interpretation about a subtext – it’s sloppy to claim more certainty than you can possibly have.
Why back to Burrows being homophobic, yay or nay? That’s not the issue, it’s a side issue, and I’m not sure I care.
At any rate – I don’t know. I don’t have enough evidence to know, or to have much of an opinion. Judging from the tone of the very brief excerpt I heard on PM (the programme), I suspect she is, but that’s not much to go on. The statement itself could be just bad thinking rather than phobia.
And not so fast. “or special emphasis on investigating racially or homophobically motivated crimes.”
Er – what crimes? Surely “racially or homophobically motivated crimes” means things like assaulting or killing people purely because they are black or gay. What crime is at issue here?
Oh hell, I said I wouldn’t waste any more time, didn’t I.
“Er – what crimes? Surely “racially or homophobically motivated crimes” means things like assaulting or killing people purely because they are black or gay. What crime is at issue here?”
You are right, there is no crime here. But, I do still think we should have a “special emphasis on investigating racially or homophobically motivated crimes”. Which was what I was trying to say. Anyhoo, if you can’t be bothered, and I have to do some work, I shall call it a day.
“But, I do still think we should have a “special emphasis on investigating racially or homophobically motivated crimes”. Which was what I was trying to say.”
That’s what you did say. But if there is no crime, what’s to investigate? This is rather the point.
PM writes on my raising the case of Lee Jaspers and his accusation of internalising racism:
> I thought that “The place to challenge instances of bigotry is in the broadcasting studio, not via the police. That’s what this issue is about.” Yet it seems it is YOU that gets to decide whether things can be called “racist views” or whether they are just “views that are liable to be interpreted as racist by those who make such accusations at the drop of a hat.” You are objecting explicitly to people challenging what they perceive as bigotry in the broadcasting studio (or in this case in the press). It seems to me that your beef is with things you think are legitimate being labelled racist. Your problem is not with the police having an involvement per se.< This bears little rational connection to the point I was making.
PM wrote concerning yours truly:
> You are objecting explicitly to people challenging what they perceive as bigotry in the broadcasting studio…< PM’s imagination is in overdrive here. On the contrary, I stated explicitly that the place to express objections to bigotry is in the broadcasting studio (if that is where the bigotry was expressed).
“Aggrieved groups (or rather, those that claim to speak for them, and who often set out to stir up other people feelings because they are so, so, aggrieved) tend almost by definition, to find people guilty as charged because they work on the basis of perception, not reasoned argument.”
I think that’s a key point. It’s behind a lot of really bad thinking that is all too commonplace. We can all feel aggrieved, but it doesn’t follow that we are right to feel that way. We may be right or we may be wrong. If we give up on reasoned argument to ascertain the truth of the matter, we end up with a world of pure irrational unquestioned assertion. That’s no better with perceived grievance than it is with Biblical or Koranic authority.
Excellent discussion!
Can we all agree that people who think some “races” are inferior, or that people who are sexually attracted to adults of their own gender are sinful are woefully ignorant, but that some real harm should result from their actions before the police get involved? And that a whole lot of people need thicker skins?
Oh, Allen. You’re just a corrupt Westerner who doesn’t understand the NEED to beleive and to protect your holy creeds from the infidels. Just go back and sip your lattes, sir. Until the Army of God closes the caffees, at least.
The broader issue, I think, here is that many harms — perhaps most harms to which the average person is subject — can’t be prevented or ameliorated by law. Or rather, can’t be in a democratic society. Social pressure, custom, friends, relatives, having enough of the ready at the right time, etc. are the balms for most ills, not the cops. The supposition that if something is wrong in a society, we immediately need a corrective law is, I think, bonkers. I am not speaking from a libertarian viewpoint — I’m perfectly happy to see the economic world regulated in certain ways. But the fruit of social democracy, liberalism and all the rest of it ought to be that a homophobic woman can appear on a radio station without the police being interested; at the same time, she can be heavily sassed, insulted, and otherwise verbally mistreated by sex-positive or non-bigoted folks in their own forums. Friends can refuse her their further friendship. Her mother can call her and say, really. Her children can complain that their friends aren’t allowed to play with them. Etc. The pavlovian forces of political correctness — which actually are often pretty good thing — can work their magic, and be complained about in Tory periodicals.
Such is civilization, before Blair got ahold of it.
Point of information: Mackenzie was certainly never a Commissioner. He retired as a Chief Superintendent, I think. And I should know – I’ve interviewed him about his career.
Can we all perhaps agree that roger nails it?
Oops, thanks, Chris. I was making notes and listening at the same time, and I’m not clever enough to do that. Got it wrong.
Yes, roger nails it.
“I’m perfectly happy to see the economic world regulated in certain ways. “
Just a minute, there. The economic world is the same as the world we all live in. All laws impact on people (who sometimes combine as companies, societies or whatever). Are you saying that when our activities are “economic” we can be more regulated, or have a lower standard of liberty than when we are, for example, doing things for non-economic motives?
Otherwise, Roger, I do agree that you have nailed it.
Brian Miller wrote:
>Can we all perhaps agree that roger nails it?< Not quite. Roger wrote:
>But the fruit of social democracy, liberalism and all the rest of it ought to be that a homophobic woman can appear on a radio station without the police being interested; at the same time, she can be heavily sassed, insulted, and otherwise verbally mistreated by sex-positive or non-bigoted folks in their own forums. Friends can refuse her their further friendship. Her mother can call her and say, really. Her children can complain that their friends aren’t allowed to play with them. Etc. The pavlovian forces of political correctness – which actually are often pretty good thing — can work their magic, and be complained about in Tory periodicals.< Certainly criticize her views vigorously in the public domain, but encourage a campaign of ostracism? Not in my book. Reminds me too much of Stalinist period in the Soviet Union or the cultural revolution China when people whose views were deemed “anti-people” were avoided by their acquaintances for fear of finding themselves ostracised. I have to say that the way some of the views in this thread have been expressed is to my ears uncomfortably close to the mirror image of the religious groups they abhor. Each has their sacred cows that are deemed inviolate and offenders must be reviled. Yes, I know that the difference is that *your* views are the ‘right’ ones, but my point is that there’s a touch of self-righteousness that has something in common in both cases. I’m not, of course, saying there’s nothing to choose between people’s views on the issues under discussion. But there’s a certain air of intolerance – even to the point where one or two are not averse to police questioning the ‘offender’ when, horror of horrors, he or she expresses “homophobic” views on the radio – hanging around. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know people are going to rush in and say that one *should* be intolerant of certain views, but could we have a little less certitude that “we” and those who think like “us” hold the ‘correct’ views and people who don’t are fair game for reviling and even – as we now see – social ostracism à la Stalinism. And please note, I’m not talking about the BNP and such types here.
Hate to come in so late but I note from this week’s ‘Economist’ that crime rates continue to drop across the country. I think the police are bored and haven’t got enough to do, which is why they phone up contributors to radio programmes and breathalyse my daughter when she is sitting in her car on our driveway at 6:30 in the evening.
After all when they do something useful like shoot a suspected terrorist they just get moaned at…
To Allen Esterson:
I hope I have not offended anyone by using the expression “native of Uganda”. We are all native of somewhere after all. I’ll have to think about an alternative word, perhaps it’s “denizen”.
Regarding “Incidentally, the equivalent in the above instance would be calling someone a Ugandan git”. That’s certainly one equivalent, but a reference to skin colour would also amount to the same thing. Here’s why, I think: take the expression “prominent Catholic”. This could mean two very different things: one, a person who is prominent because Catholic e.g. the Pope and two, a Catholic who is prominent for reasons unrelated to his/her Catholicism. Now take the expressiion “Welsh git”. This could be interpreted as “a git because Welsh” or “a git who happens to be Welsh but whose being Welsh has nothing to do with being a git”. I think neither covers this situation. Being Welsh may have been a necessary condition for this fellow’s behaviour but it was far from sufficient, as the fact that he was not joined by the rest of the Welsh in his complaint goes to show. What is needed is an adjective to describe this sort of behaviour in general, this sort of easily-offended “something must be done to put a stop to this sort of thing, there should be a law against it” attitude. Then I would have no problem with describing this individual as a “(insert adjective) Welsh git”.
BTW: If Mr Blair made his remark in the context of the last general election, then he was being racist – why pick on the Welsh for not supporting him more – why not curse the English for voting against him? They outnumber the other peoples of the UK by the order of 10 to 1. Even if the Welsh did not elect a single Labour MP, it would count for nothing against a landslide pro-Labour vote in England.
Paul wrote:
> If Mr Blair made his remark in the context of the last general election, then he was being racist – why pick on the Welsh for not supporting him more – why not curse the English for voting against him? They outnumber the other peoples of the UK by the order of 10 to 1< That’s precisely why it would make no sense to curse the English. In that situation he would have to curse the *electorate*. But the whole thing is a silly storm in a teacup. The election results in Wales go (relatively) against Labour. Listening to the results in private Blair (allegedly) curses “the Welsh” in a moment of frustration. And we’re supposed to take this seriously? And not only does Paul believe that Blair was being “racist”, he even feels the need to apologise if he has possibly offended anyone when he wrote of a “native of Uganda”. I rest my case.
Just to throw another point of view out there…
Clearly in the case of this interview no crime was in fact committed. beating people up *because* they are gay/black/female/whatever is a crime, incitement to violence is a crime. neither of these took place in the interview.
however (*puts on debating hat*), how about the idea that what Burrows was doing was incitment to legal opression of gay rights? Is that comparable to someone going on the radio and saying that black people should not be allowed to ride in the fronts of buses or go to cafes that are declared to be for white people?
it’s still not a matter for police involvement, though.
–IP
On the ostracism issue in what roger said. I hesitated over that too – but I think he’s saying something a little different from ‘Burrows ought to be ostracized.’ I think he’s saying she can be, in a way she can’t be shopped to the police. (I take ‘can’ to be both moral and legal there, but I’m not sure.)
“But the fruit of social democracy, liberalism and all the rest of it ought to be that a homophobic woman can appear on a radio station without the police being interested; at the same time, she can be heavily sassed, insulted, and otherwise verbally mistreated by sex-positive or non-bigoted folks in their own forums. Friends can refuse her their further friendship. Her mother can call her and say, really. Her children can complain that their friends aren’t allowed to play with them. Etc. The pavlovian forces of political correctness — which actually are often pretty good thing — can work their magic, and be complained about in Tory periodicals.”
Note the ‘ought to be’ and the ‘often’ in ‘often pretty good thing’. I think that stops well short of a ringing endorsement of social pressure, while still saying it’s allowable in a way that legal coercion is not.
Still, I do share Allen’s qualms about the ostracism, and even more about the excess certainty about the rights and wrongs of it all in some comments.
IP wrote:
>how about the idea that what Burrows was doing was incitment to legal opression of gay rights?< For Pete’s sake, what we had was a woman with a religious agenda saying something bigoted and silly that is easily refuted and people want to go for her on legal grounds of incitement to oppression, or even go as far as envisaging a social ostracism that includes her children (can you believe?) so as to bring pressure to bear on her. And not a peep of opposition from most who’ve contributed to this thread, only voices of approval. Can’t people get a sense of proportion? With some of the comments I get the feeling that if I changed the subject matter around I could almost be on a Muslim website with people seeking to get back at someone who had said something disparaging about Mohammed.
Hey, OB, is this the longest thread in N&C? Ever? I understand Allen’s observation: the original remarks weren’t worth all the fuss.
Still, as a believer in free speach, I must say: feel free.
Ken,
Well, it’s up there. But there have been long ones before – in the 60s and 70s. The longest one I’ve found so far after a small amount of browsing is in August 2004 – 95 comments. Irritatingly, they’re on a post by the other guy. He never comments, I don’t think he even reads B&W, so when he does comment, people swarm all over it. Typical.
Allen Esterson wrote:
“That’s precisely why it would make no sense to curse the English. In that situation he would have to curse the *electorate*. “
Sorry but that’s backwards. He did not curse the entire electorate, just the Welsh bit. Why pick on them? He was holding them to a different standard to the English and that’s racist either against the Welsh or against the English.
Anyway, there is indeed a large problem here: how to evaluate what is said as opposed to what is written. Looking to the law for redress against words uttered in such circumstances is going way overboard.
“Why pick on them? He was holding them to a different standard to the English and that’s racist either against the Welsh or against the English.”
You can’t be serious. Because the tv had just reported they were voting against him and he was expressing mock outrage. Picture this: US presidential candidate watching election returns with supporters; news is that Kentucky has voted for opponent: candidate says “fucking Kentuckians!” And that’s racism??
That’s the silliest thing I’ve heard in some time.
I’m not, as a couple of people have thought, astonished or outraged that people think such things, but I have to say I am extremely surprised that regular fans of B&W think such things. It seems like a complete mismatch.
Roger nails it. And if you want another data point about what can happen When Theocrats Attack, look no further than Calvin’s Geneva. Attempts to make everything that isn’t virtuous illegal tend not to work, but they fail in rather unpleasant ways.