I mean to post something that insensitive requires a level of not giving a feck.
Has political correctness actually gone mad?
- Thread starter Pogue Mahone
- Start date
I mean to post something that insensitive requires a level of not giving a feck.
The only joke he made that is hugely offensive is the one in your imagination.
No, it could suggest an utter lack of general awareness because he literally wouldn't make the connection in his head instinctively.
This is when you guys are being ridiculous. Megan has had racial slur thrown at her since she was announced to get married. It doesn't matter How much out of the loop he says he was. It doesn't take more than a second to see where the issue in what he posted can come from.
Genuinely this is quite ridiculous. I won't attack you but all I'm going to say is probably ask any black or coloured person and see what their reaction is.
It's really not ridiculous. He isn't viewing black people as apes, nor considering Megan's race.
I have never said I can't see the issue. It's obvious. I'm arguing that this was not his intent: to be clear when he posted the tweet the racial connotations were not, I believe, even crossing his mind.
And those who think that doesn't matter. It does. Clarkson makes actually racist jokes with racist intent. Baker does not and has no history of doing so. I believe he's made a stupid mistake based on his genuine lack of consideration as the thought of the racist comparison wouldn't cross his mind. Which makes him a fool and not scum.
The reaction of the black or coloured person, justified as it would be, would have no bearing on Danny Baker's intended meaning.
I don't think this is a cognitively dissonant position.
@mancan92, look at the thread you're in. The people that tend to frequent it often have a blind spot on these matters....
I actually like Danny Baker, but even if I didn’t I’d maintain that it’s a lot of fuss over nothing - as usual.
I don’t get why context counts for nothing now. If enough people decide you meant it, then you meant it.
I don’t get why context counts for nothing now. If enough people decide you meant it, then you meant it.
The point is who is worth defending in this situation?
The person who made the hugely offensive "joke". Even by "accident"
Or the people who are angry as this sort of joke has hurt them and their family for many generations.
You have the 7th most replies here
What the hell was he thinking?! What made him even think it was a good idea to do that.
I have no clue.
I'm not defending him. I'd have sacked him. I understand the hurt. So, no it's not the point I was making.
Given that I'm going to get pissed off here for being seen as some sort of defender of reactionary bigot, I'll take one final stab at this:
Danny Baker is not a racist. He is, however, a white man in the UK. He is not constantly aware of racial connotations, nor does he suffer racist abuse. It is not on his mind. Therefore, he, highly insensitively, released a tweet for which he was deservedly sacked. He had, and I believe this, not viewed the chimp as a dehumanising symbol as used by racists, but as a "performing animal" metaphor for celebrity culture. However, that makes Danny Baker an insensitive fool not a racist cnut. This is not a nuanced position I'm taking here.
Is it clear from this that I am not:
i) defending him
ii) belittling those offended
iii) saying the backlash is unjustified
iv)suggesting he shouldn't be sacked
Cheers for deciding I'm an anti pc Daily Mail reader rushing to defend bigots based on the thread I'm posting in (which you're posting in too) and then fecking off rather than making the effort to read what I actually wrote rather than what played out in your head.
Well yeah hardcore racists are worse than the sort of racially insensitive twat that you often seen in this thread but I mean in terms of whether he should be sacked or not.
Chat shit, get banged. No idea if the dude had racist intentions or not as I don't even know who it is, but people lose their job over posting stupid shit, let alone things that could be racist.
However, the people who call for others to get fired or canceled over something they're not really sure about just to signal their stance are even worse tbh.
And by the way, I had no idea Harry's wife was mixed race before this whole thing. I'm willing to bet the majority of people outside the UK have no idea either. You couldn't tell by looking at her at all.
However, the people who call for others to get fired or canceled over something they're not really sure about just to signal their stance are even worse tbh.
And by the way, I had no idea Harry's wife was mixed race before this whole thing. I'm willing to bet the majority of people outside the UK have no idea either. You couldn't tell by looking at her at all.
That's fair enough to the people who live outside of the UK, slightly less so for someone who works within the UK media. Even if you give him the benefit of the doubt, he's a fecking moron at best given he is a Millwall fan and the monkey chants that lot have used.
Man this thread has become such an embarrassing circle jerk. I was on the side of the “PC gone mad!!1!” people on the issue of Apu being cancelled, but reading some of the thoughts and opinions since then I feel dirty to have agreed with those points.
Even saw someone who enjoys Trump’s tweets because he doesn’t care about the backlash to them. If you enjoy any of the garbage that clown posts because it “triggers people” then you should take a long, hard look at yourself.
Even saw someone who enjoys Trump’s tweets because he doesn’t care about the backlash to them. If you enjoy any of the garbage that clown posts because it “triggers people” then you should take a long, hard look at yourself.
I’ve thought about this a bit more and i think my initial take was wrong. It’s undoubtedly a moronic thing to do, even if he didn’t intend anything by it. But I don’t think the “what, me guv?” act he’s doing is sincere at all. He’s a clever bloke. There’s just no need for it at all really, he should’ve just used his brain.
He's owned up to the mistake and responded well - I feel some sympathy for him in that it seems fairly obvious he didn't intend to come across as racist, but he's also openly admitted he understands why it could be perceived that way, and he's not shirking away from taking responsibility for his own actions. In time I think he'll come out of it quite well compared to some people who, whether they're at fault or not, end up making things worse for themselves by doubling down and picking fights etc.
A more serious apology from him today, after the "yeah but" apologies of yesterday.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-48226247
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-48226247
And there you go. Just needed one night to sleep on it and get his apology straight. Basically he's a casualty of the 24 hour news cycle. Everyone on here who is honest with themself can relate to a "yeah but apology" immediately after you've done something you end up regretting. To be brutally honest, sometimes it takes a day or two to even get round to a "yeah but apology" if you get sucked into arguing your case, or feel you've been unfairly treated. So releasing this statement the morning after the offending tweet is all we can reasonably expect from him, all things considered.
Anyone even vaguely familiar with his personality and politics would know that the rush to label him a racist, then immediately sack him from his job, wasn't a whole lot less impulsive and thoughtless than the tweet which kicked off the whole shit-storm.
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I think the objective of people who are against racism should be to change the minds of people who might otherwise be racist by explaining why it is wrong.
Some of the comments made about Baker are so obviously contrived as to be counterproductive to that I'm afraid.
Some of the comments made about Baker are so obviously contrived as to be counterproductive to that I'm afraid.
It stopped being about that a long time ago. Now it’s all witch hunts. Make one mistake, and you are that thing. Instead of talking about why referring to black people as apes is wrong, it’s just name calling and virtue signalling.
I don't think he's racist, i think he's a twat. He drew comparisons to the IRA/Troubles straight after the Boston Bombings and had a mini backlash about it so I think he should be hyper aware of how tweets could be interpreted even if there is no malice behind it.
The firing might be over the top but what can you expect for an employee of a national broadcaster making a potentially racist joke about a member of the Royal Family.
The firing might be over the top but what can you expect for an employee of a national broadcaster making a potentially racist joke about a member of the Royal Family.
At the same time, you have plenty who are always willing to stick their head in the sand when issues like this arise and immediately take aim at the so called Social Justice Warriors for calling out racism and prejudice, turning it into a them vs us situation, whilst dismissing legitimate gripes.
The reaction of @DouLou in this thread is a perfect example of this. Neither side is perfect but one side is more harmful imo.
The difference is completely irrelevant to the cases discussed though. And for many, it's not obvious or trivial at all.
For example, in my native language there is no separate word for "ape". They are called "anthropoid monkeys", basically.
The difference is obvious, though. Monkeys have tails. Apes don’t.
Agree it’s irrelevant to this discussion.
This is why everyone speaks English.
oh come on, we're going through a bad time, give us something.
Many Old World monkeys have barely any tail so it's not always that simple. Not that most of us would ever find themselves in a situation where being able to tell them apart at a glance would be useful in any way.
Fair enough.Do you genuinely think there are many people alive today who simultaneously don't think racism is wrong and are receptive to having their minds changed?
I think there are a lot of people who think racism is wrong but who don't notice racism when it's institutionalised, endemic or built on stereotypes that we may not even notice we've accepted. Sometimes having a third party step in and name it as a problem is what it takes to make people think.
Of course there are. The great majority of people are racist to some degree, I'm not afraid to admit that I am in some cases, and I can't help doubting anyone who claims they're not. The question is how we handle it and can we overcome natural instinct and behave decently and fairly to each other, which of course means learning about each other and seeing there are more similarities than differences between us when we look for them.
But that is, in my experience, what actually upsets people. I mean, there are enough incidents that have been discussed on redcafe that basically have shown that.
Take the Lukaku racist song as an example. Villain and other posters spent days patiently explaining what was racist about that song and why it was racist, and they just got streams of posts calling them humourless, cry baby snowflake SJW idiots as thanks.
Ah right, I misunderstood what you were saying then. I agree, but I don't think many people are as receptive as you are to receiving that feedback. There's an absolute wealth of resources people can easily access if they are interesting in learning but people don't want to engage with it and, instead, would prefer to argue with those who do. I'm not really sure what the answer is.
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As for the point at hand. Dany Baker is an idiot and deserved to lose his job. I've replied to a post saying they don't know what he's thinking by agreeing with it.
If he is racist in twenty first century UK he's an idiot. I know there is a few of them some highly educated but that doesn't stop them being idiots.
If he isn't a racist and didn't understand the ramifications of that post then he's an idiot as I have lived through the last 50 odd years with him and would know exactly how that post would be interpreted.
There is really not much to discuss. Anyone saying that he wasn't stupid for making that post and shouldn't have been sacked wants to catch themselves on. People who have been affected by racism can capture better the hurt, anger or what ever other emotions involved with it far better than I can.
The fact that this is in the PC gone mad thread instead of the racism thread is an embarrassment to the site. There is no way that being infuriated by this is PC gone mad and it is racism whether it was deliberated racism or not.
So the only thing that should really be there for me to comment on in the PC Gone Mad Thread is that Apes and monkeys are fundamentally different. We are much more closely related to apes than we are monkeys for one.
Now if people are from countries that don't differentiate between the two then that's fair enough and regarding them my point doesn't stand.