Maybe, depends on the jury.
Like I said, she wasn't on trial for "saying something racist".
Sam Kerr | Found not guilty of racially aggravated harassment
- Thread starter ryansgirl
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Maybe, depends on the jury.
Like I said, she wasn't on trial for "saying something racist".
i know it's difficult to acknowledge nuance and it's easy to just read a headline but let's explore what actually happened:
- sam kerr and her girlfriend are out drinking, get a black cab home. one of the two throws up in the backseat.
- the cab driver complains, says they have to pay for it, disagreement ensues
- cab driver, without telling the two women, calls the police and they tell him to drop them off there
- the two women, not knowing they're being taken to the police station, think they're actually potentially being kidnapped, they try and ask the driver where they're taking them, he doesn't answer. they therefore break the glass to try and escape
- when the car stops, they exit the cab via the window and try and approach one of the police
- the police don't turn on their video cameras, and basically don't believe their story
- they get taken into the police station, the two women try again to tell their story, the police don't believe them. only at the point they start drunkenly getting more angry, do they put their cameras on.
- sam kerr sees this as a white man, in power, not believing what a supposedly insignificant little mixed race woman is saying.
- sam kerr then tells the police man in question that he is 'stupid and white'. this is pretty obviously a comment on power and privilege, not racism - something i'm sure she has experienced a lot of in her life, unlike the supposed poor white heteronormative policeman.
if you think this comment is because 'sam kerr is a racist,' then i'm just glad you weren't on the jury, and thankfully we do have people who have sat through the actual evidence instead of just making ignorant posts on a message board.
you can add to this the fact the police man didn't make any complaint about racism initially. it was only added as a complaint about 10 months later when it became clear the other charges were not going to stick. he clearly didn't give a feck about being called 'white', nor should he be. what police should be doing is taking complaints by member of the public seriously - mixed race women included.
- sam kerr and her girlfriend are out drinking, get a black cab home. one of the two throws up in the backseat.
- the cab driver complains, says they have to pay for it, disagreement ensues
- cab driver, without telling the two women, calls the police and they tell him to drop them off there
- the two women, not knowing they're being taken to the police station, think they're actually potentially being kidnapped, they try and ask the driver where they're taking them, he doesn't answer. they therefore break the glass to try and escape
- when the car stops, they exit the cab via the window and try and approach one of the police
- the police don't turn on their video cameras, and basically don't believe their story
- they get taken into the police station, the two women try again to tell their story, the police don't believe them. only at the point they start drunkenly getting more angry, do they put their cameras on.
- sam kerr sees this as a white man, in power, not believing what a supposedly insignificant little mixed race woman is saying.
- sam kerr then tells the police man in question that he is 'stupid and white'. this is pretty obviously a comment on power and privilege, not racism - something i'm sure she has experienced a lot of in her life, unlike the supposed poor white heteronormative policeman.
if you think this comment is because 'sam kerr is a racist,' then i'm just glad you weren't on the jury, and thankfully we do have people who have sat through the actual evidence instead of just making ignorant posts on a message board.
you can add to this the fact the police man didn't make any complaint about racism initially. it was only added as a complaint about 10 months later when it became clear the other charges were not going to stick. he clearly didn't give a feck about being called 'white', nor should he be. what police should be doing is taking complaints by member of the public seriously - mixed race women included.
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Sam Kerr after puking in a taxi and then her missus kicking out the window.
Thanks for proving my point but you could've done that without this aggressively racist remark, do you cowardly suggest everyone living in Spain is a filthy racist (40 million people)? Does it apply only to Spanish-born Spanish-blood or also to expats?
Calling someone x and y doesn't meet any sane bar for harassment anywhere.
Just because something said might be racist doesnt mean it amounts to racial harassment. The harassment part is the bit which should do the heavy lifting.
Just because something said might be racist doesnt mean it amounts to racial harassment. The harassment part is the bit which should do the heavy lifting.
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Well let's take a look then.
Harassment: anything that might cause upset or annoyance.
Yeah I'd say that it's likely that calling someone stupid might satisfy this criteria.
Racially aggravated: demonstrate toward the victim hostility based on their membership of a racial group or the offence is motivated by that hostility.
They had a "disagreement" presumably about refusing to pay for throwing up in his taxi. Guess we don't need the details as no way did he tell them he'd call the police if they didn't pay. And they didn't hear him calling the police even though they were able to have a verbal disagreement with him in the car? How does that work?
A jury who actually heard all the details disagreed.
So based on this it's legally OK to call someone:
Stupid and black
Stupid and brown
Stupid and yellow
Stupid and red
Stupid and black
Stupid and brown
Stupid and yellow
Stupid and red
Only Spanish born! I'm an expat living here and I'm obviously not racistThanks for proving my point but you could've done that without this aggressively racist remark, do you cowardly suggest everyone living in Spain is a filthy racist (40 million people)? Does it apply only to Spanish-born Spanish-blood or also to expats?
Apologies for the throwaway initial comment, but it's what a quick read of your dismissive, borderline arrogant post inspired. I've lived here for a while now (it's 48m not 40 btw), and absolutely adore it, but as I've shared many times before on this forum, I have a massive issue with how racism is discussed in this country, going back to my first corporate Christmas party where a Spanish colleague turned up in blackface (and let's not get into being in the Atletico ultras section of the Wanda Metropolitano with fans doing monkey chants at Vinicius).
But ok, I'm genuinely curious - what did you mean by your initial post?
You leave Fred the Red out of this.
clearly they didn't realise they were being taken to the police, or else they wouldn't have attempted to escape the car.
they were also drunk.
this case was specifically about racism though, not about being drunk or an annoying passenger. she ended up paying for the damages anyway.
I fixed that for you.Thanks for proving my point but you could've done that without this aggressively racist remark, do you cowardly suggest everyone living in Spain is a filthy racist (40 million people)? Does it apply only to Spanish-born Spanish-blood or also to immigrants?
Right, no one's ever tried to do a runner on a taxi with drink on them unless they thought they were being kidnapped. Ok.
do you work for the police too?
she's a millionaire, they're not going to do a runner ffs
It's obviously racially aggravated harassment and it's equally obvious why the jury didn't find her guilty. The law might not discriminate between the situations but there's a common sense argument that white here was used to mean privileged.
A waste of everyone's time, given how busy the courts are with real cases how is that in the public good.
A waste of everyone's time, given how busy the courts are with real cases how is that in the public good.
Harassment does rely on a course of conduct rather than being a single incident. Was that test met?
What on earth are you talking about, yeah those people who famously never do runners from the police over trivial stuff when they're in trouble or make stupid drunk decisions. Kidnapped by the taxi driver, give me a break
What on earth are you talking about, yeah those people who famously never do runners from the police over trivial stuff when they're in trouble or make stupid drunk decisions. Kidnapped by the taxi driver, give me a break
the irony is delicious, but it's so far over your head you don't even realise.
You realise she's part white and not at all black right? What do black people have to do with this?
Go ahead and explain it then. Explain this mysterious conversation they managed to have where they refused to pay but the taxi driver just suddenly went completely silent, somehow called the police and was told to go to Twickenham station without ever speaking. Or... she was acting like a drunk moron and lying?
I don't think the decision will encourage anyone to read up on power dynamics and their relation to race, nor does the decision undermine the existence of those power structures. I'd say the courts decision is in spite of white power rather than it diminishing. POC have not gained anything from this.
they were in a black cab, where there is usually a partition window, and an intercom system which could make it quite easy for him to call the police without them knowing.
the point i'm making though is you immediately not believing her story - which is what the police also did, leading to her comment in the first place.
it's also interesting your main concern is this part of the story, and not the actual point of the entire case.
It was a silly comment to make but when you read the full facts of the situation an apology would suffice.
There's quite a clear difference in calling someone "stupid and white" and "stupid and black" in my opinion. Never in my life have I heard anyone seriously interlink whiteness and stupidness, and it's quite clear that happens much more with blackness.
It's like a woman touching a man's chest in public, and a man touching a woman's chest in public. Those things are obviously not the same.
It's like a woman touching a man's chest in public, and a man touching a woman's chest in public. Those things are obviously not the same.
TBH I hadn't even thought about him, I was thinking more about fellas with feathers in their headgear!Sorry if you found my comment arrogant, but what I meant is that outside of the core Anglosphere it just seems ridiculous to hear about institutions such as this Australian Diversity Council who think they have any authority on deciding what is racist and what is not - also in the context of countries different than their own. And then you see that the Board of Directors and the CEO of these Councils - just like in case of this Australian one - are predominantly white, predominantly millionaires, predominantly born-in-wealth. So it's difficult to treat them and their holier-than-thou attitude seriously. Moreover, if it was just hypocrisy and the elites trying to feel better about themselves it would be half of the issue, but if they go about "look, according to our studies you are marginalized (and our families actually played a big role in ensuring it's the case) so in our opinion other laws should apply to you and you should be treated differently" it becomes really dangerous. You alienate people and you make marginalized groups feel even more marginalized - never really treating them as the same class citizens as everyone else. As per their definition it would be unacceptable for an Australian to call me "a dirty Slavic cnut", because Eastern Europeans are not in the position of power compared to Australians, but it would be fine for me to call them "a dirty Aussie cnut". Feck off with that.Only Spanish born! I'm an expat living here and I'm obviously not racist
Apologies for the throwaway initial comment, but it's what a quick read of your dismissive, borderline arrogant post inspired. I've lived here for a while now (it's 48m not 40 btw), and absolutely adore it, but as I've shared many times before on this forum, I have a massive issue with how racism is discussed in this country, going back to my first corporate Christmas party where a Spanish colleague turned up in blackface (and let's not get into being in the Atletico ultras section of the Wanda Metropolitano with fans doing monkey chants at Vinicius).
But ok, I'm genuinely curious - what did you mean by your initial post?
And that's not to say Spain doesn't have issues with racism, because every country does to a smaller or bigger extent. I'm sorry you experienced first-hand racism here and there's no excuse to blackface or the fecking fans of Atleti, but I really don't think the American/Anglosphere definitions of what is very racist (blackface being the most racist thing you can do) and what's acceptably racist (white elites deciding among themselves what's racist towards other groups, economic violence etc.) applies to all the world.
Correct. I've only recently made the upgrade from being an immigrant to an expat thanks to a salary bump. Not taking it for granted - might be back to being an immigrant in no time.
these threads are always worth a scan to see who says what
Yeah but someone also needs to account for the fact that not all black cabs are black!
I read that twice and genuinely tried to understand your underlying point but (and I don't mean that in any mean way) I'm not sure what it is. Just gives me the impression of trying to be edgy by saying people calling out racism are hypocrites and taking a niche example of the Australian diversity council (I have no idea why that made its way into the conversation, has it been discussed in this thread?)
My point about Spain wasn't as much about racism as it was about reaction to and discussion about racism.
Glad she got off the ludicrous racially aggravated harassment charge.
It’s not that it isn’t racist, the charge was racially aggravated harassment, which is different. My initial reaction when the video of her saying it came out was ‘guilty’ but the more I read about the details of the case the more I felt my initial reaction lacked nuance. Any racially aggravated harassment needs actual distress. That is what the courts were trying to ascertain and the officer didn’t do enough to convince the courts Kerr’s comments caused him actual real distress.
DEI gone wrong.
Shes mixed race. I was talking in general terms and the most common minority we talk about when it comes to racism is black people. People who are mixed race are no different from anyone else when it comes to racism on both sides of it. People can be racist no matter their skin colour.
So we're now allowed to say because of someone's race they are stupid?
I don't know if you've been dreaming all your life of finally having permission to do so but I'm afraid I still wouldn't recommend it.
Absolutely sickening conduct from the drunken refusal to pay, the vomiting, the smashing the window and the obligatory invoking of every possible victim card she could. Just a brain switched to left wing autopilot. Forget about the comment to the police officer, there would be absolutely unanimous condemation if a male player and his pal were sick in a taxi and kicked the window in. Vile person it seems and completely unashamed of her actions.