This entry is prompted by a discussion with a particular person, but I have been meaning to write it for ages, and the discussion this morning was merely a reminder.

If there's one excuse that's guaranteed to piss me off when you have upset someone it is It was just a joke! This phrase is generally trotted out by people in a position of power when they have upset someone who is in a less privileged position. I am bang alongside the right to free speech, but the right to free speech cuts in all directions. Yes, you absolutely have the right to say offensive things; but the corollary of that is that other people have the right to call you out on it, and to tell you that you are being offensive and why.

If you thoughtlessly (or even purposefully) say something sexist or racist or whateverist, and someone calls you out on it, and your instinctive response is to say but I was only joking!, think what you are saying by saying that. You are saying Not only do I reserve the right to be inconsiderate of your feelings, but when I hurt you, I will compound that by making out that you should expect to be an object of fun. How does that make things better? Why is it funny to pick on people who are weaker than you and then laugh about it? That's not humour, that's bullying. That's why Johnny Vegas sexually assaulting people on stage isn't funny, because he is the one in the position of power and he is abusing it. That's why racist "jokes" aren't funny, because white people are in a position of power, and they are abusing it.

Freedom of speech is a wonderful thing, and I am fully in favour of it being as extensive as possible. But if you use your freedom of speech, you have to accept that sometimes, you are going to upset people, and that is a perfectly valid reaction for them to have. Belittling people for being offended is missing an opportunity to learn why something is offensive. And this absolutely does not mean that you can't say the offensive thing again; but if you say something offensive with the knowledge that you are being offensive then that is you being a bit of an arsehole. That's cool if you are OK with being an arsehole, but it's a bit rich to pretend that you're not.

And do you know what makes it worse? If you then follow up a conversation about why picking on people is not funny with anti-racists/feminists are so HUMOURLESS!! and telling the person who has called you out that if they don't like it then they aren't your friend and you're taking your bat and ball and going home. I've said this before, and I'm saying it again: my definition of a friend is someone who cares enough about me to not be afraid to tell me when I am wrong, or if I am being thoughtless, or if I am being a bit of a twat. I might not always be totally receptive to criticism (quit it with that hollow laughter at the back there!) but I'll always at least try to hear someone's criticisms of me before dismissing them.

So next time you feel like saying but I was only joking!! when someone tells you you are being a twat, consider if that is the message you really want to send. If it is, then that's cool, you fill your boots. But if what you actually mean is I'm sorry, I didn't realise I was being hurtful, and I'll try to actually be funny next time I am attempting humour then why not say that instead? It'll cause a lot less strife.

Sunder on LC has spotted an interesting definition of Britishness being employed by the Daily Fail: you're only British if not only you, but your parents and grandparents were born here. This means that Winston Churchill (mother American) was not British, and nor are many of the royal family (because of Phil the Greek). Employing the Fail's definition, then, which of these options best applies to you?

Poll #1355849 Just as a matter of interest
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: None

Are you British?

As far as I am concerned, Carol Thatcher can use whatever racist epithets she likes, whether ironically or not. But that DOES NOT MEAN that her employer is not free to terminate her employment for doing so, especially if lots of her fellow employees were upset by it.

Easy, eh?

Next on "SB Solves it", the middle east... ;)

I was a bit traumatised just now by George Osbourne making a good point on Question Time, but then the Lib Dem Lady made an even better point, and got such a huge round of applause that Dimbledore struggled to make himself heard. So that's all right then.

ETA: oh, and she just did it again. Hurrah!

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If you needed a reason to choose AQA over 118118, aside from the many many tests showing that AQA is far more accurate and useful, how about this?

FWIW, Metro printed a picture of the phone on which you could just make out one of the jokes, which was

Q: what's the difference between ET and an Indian?
A: ET took the hint and went home

Now, I admit, my memory of ET is not that great because I haven't seen it since I was much younger, but this isn't just racist but lazily inaccurate about films... OK, that was an easy jab, but I honestly can't believe that some pleb working for 118118 thought that this was an appropriate answer to send!

And as for the spokesman's comment that obviously, certain sections of the community might find this offensive bordering on racist in itself. I note that although this appeared in the print edition, it has been excised from the website...

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Seems fairly accurate.

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Anecdotal evidence = journalism the Graun will pay for. Do you want definitive proof that girls are crap at science and don't want to do it? Don't click here. Unity discusses it on Lib Con too. There seems to be a prevailing wind that gender segregated science lessons are the way forward. I wouldn't have minded that at school myself, if I could have opted to go in the boys class. Unfortunately, I suspect that i would have been forced into the girls' class, and my male-learning-style brain would have suffered as a result.

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Via Robert Llewellyn's Twitter: New Dwarf is being filmed in January! YAY!

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I looked at the sociosexual test I referred to earlier. I reckon my score is somewhere in the late fifties...

Note to self: when the point comes when you are generating more heat than light, step away from the computer. I have taken the dogs for a walk and calmed down significantly now: my apologies to endless_psych who was the focus of my ire.

The crux of the disagreement is his view that statistics are inherently value-neutral, and anyone picking up an implication of value judgements from statistics is misguided at best. The problem with that approach is that although statistics in and of themselves may be value neutral (and I don't actually believe it is possible to have an unbiased and objective statistic, but I shall resist the tangent), the way in which they are used and interpreted is vanishingly rarely value neutral. This is because of our society's expectations of conformity to the norm. A certain degree of variance from the norm is allowable, even expected, but the more an individual varies from the norm, the more society will shun them. This is not just a human trait, but recognisable across many animal species (chickens are a well-known example).

The word "abnormal" might be value-neutral to a scientist, but in everyday conversation it is definitely not value neutral. When you apply it to a population set in a data table, you might not be intending to imply any judgement on the members of that group; but when you apply it to a person, you are telling them that by the terms of general society they are worth less than a person who is "normal". Despite attempts to rob the word of its power, people are hurt by this implication. When you apply the supposedly value neutral term to a population group, it is only to be expected that the members of that group will react as though you had applied the term "abnormal" to them, personally. Even more so with the term "natural". Can you imagine a situation in which you could say to someone "your behaviour is unnatural" and they wouldn't take it as an insult? And this is despite the fact that those of us who have some passing knowledge of science know that 1, natural has a specific meaning in science 2, we know that things like eating with a knife and fork and the internet are not natural and 3, nature contains lots of variations from lots of norms.

Lets look at me as an example:

Attribute	Normal	Abnormal
Physical Gender		✓
Mental Gender	✓
Number of feet	✓
Sexuality		✓
Diet	✓
Relationship status		✓

(BTW, physical gender is marked as abnormal, because although women are the majority, our society is patriarchal, and therefore geared to masculinity as the norm. My mental gender does tend towards the male, though, hence the apparent discrepancy)

I could go on, but I think you get the idea. I'm pretty abnormal, huh?

Now, theoretically, a scientist looks at that table and sees a data set. But a scientist is also a member of society, and will have all sorts of privileges and hang-ups about their gender and race an so on. So a female scientist might look at that table and go oh no, not another one of those male-brained women, I can't stand them! Mucking things up for us girly girls! or a heterosexual scientist might think bisexuals are weird without even consciously considering the fact that their prejudices have used the statistics to make a value judgement.

The absolute refusal to admit that scientists are biased, and do not interpret statistics in an unbiased way, leads to people taking it seriously when a racist arsehole says that black people are stupider than white people, instead of looking at the data and thinking hang on, all this shows is that people who are educated in a western education system perform better at IQ tests that are set by people who were educated the same way than those who were educated differently. Divorcing anything from it's context robs it of some, if not all, or its meaning. This makes it less, not more, objective.

Do feel free to pick holes, people.

I have less than no money. Several of my friends are having crises (special hugs for theoldcatlady and missdiane). And lets not forget that we're all doomed and the world is going to hell in a handcart. And yet...

This morning I feel incredibly peaceful, happy, and contented. I had a really good time last night; I had a good night's sleep; I have a wonderful fiancé; and I am lounging naked in bed with my laptop and a bowl of cereal, listening to the awesome Sandi Toksvig on the news quiz. Life really doesn't get much better than moments like this.

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Various people have been talking about the fact that Andrew Neil is being rumoured as a replacement for Dimbledore on Question Time. My personal feeling is that Neil's style is better suited to the more informal format of the stuff he already does, and he wouldn't fit with QT. Neil is irreverent, but rambly. This is grand on This Week, when you're winding down from QT, but I don't think QT needs Blue Nun jokes. QT needs someone with the presence to control an unruly panel and a frequently unruly crowd, as well as a quick, sharp wit.

* eyes radio *

Hmm, I wonder...

Poll #1280876 Question Time
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

Who would make the best Question Time Presenter?

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Via andrewducker, Rape Crisis Scotland has an excellent series of adverts aimed at the very things several of us have been discussing of late: This is not an Invitation to Rape Me. More adverts like this, please, and less of the victim-blamey kind.

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Via mooism, it's not often someone who uses racist language warms my heart, but this little gem from 538 made me smile:

So a canvasser goes to a woman's door in Washington, Pennsylvania. Knocks. Woman answers. Knocker asks who she's planning to vote for. She isn't sure, has to ask her husband who she's voting for. Husband is off in another room watching some game. Canvasser hears him yell back, "We're votin' for the n***er!"

Woman turns back to canvasser, and says brightly and matter of factly: "We're voting for the n***er."

Bless 'em.

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The Torygraph is continuing its Vince is better than George meme. They say it like they are trying to jolly George along, mind, but the fact that they are saying it at all, is interesting to say the least.

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The government is continuing it's stupid anti-immigration schtick, despite the fact that immigration is a net benefit and all the studies show it. Why do they have to PANDER to Paul Dacre and all his little minions, instead of showing them they are wrong? Fuckwits.

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Hilarious article on Con Hom about how to beat Lib Dems in elections. Among the dirty tricks we stand accused of engaging in are being seen as working hard for their neighbours, joining residents associations and other community groups and being honest - people know what they are getting when they vote Lib Dem - oh NOES!!

There ARE some useful campaign tips for any politician in there, though. So here's another dirty trick - read those Tory tips, inwardly digest, and use, my Lib Dem brethren and sistren ;)

I got some interesting comments on the Facebook feed of this post. Apparently, the reason that equality isn't front and centre on the Lib Dem website is because it's not front and centre in policy development. So, you know, can't really blame the website folks: they just put up there what they are told to put up there.

The policy departments are:

# BETTER GOVERNMENT
# COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY
# COMMUNITIES
# CULTURE, MEDIA AND SPORT
# ECONOMY
# EDUCATION AND SKILLS
# ENVIRONMENT AND RURAL AFFAIRS
# HEALTH
# INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS AND DEFENCE
# JUSTICE AND CRIME
# PENSIONS AND BENEFITS
# TRANSPORT

The web monkey I was talking to said that he didn't know where equality was on the agenda, but it might be in "better government".

Fail, party. Epic fail. This is NOT GOOD ENOUGH. Equality is not just a matter for the Campaign For Gender Balance, or DELGA, or Ethnic Minority Lib Dems, or any of the other in-party pressure groups. It's not just a women's issue that nobody really wants to deal with. It's not just something that can be brushed under the carpet of better government as if government is the only area where equality is an issue. Equality is something that affects us all, in every walk of life and every workplace. We are all discriminated against to some extent for irrational reasons - for being female, or black, or bisexual, or in a wheelchair, or being a bloke with long hair, or dressing in non-standard clothing... I'm going to quote the preamble to the constitution of the party again, sorry, but it's important:

The Liberal Democrats exist to build and safeguard a fair, free and open society, in which we seek to balance the fundamental values of liberty, equality and community, and in which no-one shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity. We champion the freedom, dignity and well-being of individuals, we acknowledge and respect their right to freedom of conscience and their right to develop their talents to the full. We aim to disperse power, to foster diversity and to nurture creativity. We believe that the role of the state is to enable all citizens to attain these ideals, to contribute fully to their communities and to take part in the decisions which affect their lives.

We look forward to a world in which all people share the same basic rights, in which they live together in peace and in which their different cultures will be able to develop freely. We believe that each generation is responsible for the fate of our planet and, by safeguarding the balance of nature and the environment, for the long term continuity of life in all its forms.

Upholding these values of individual and social justice, we reject all prejudice and discrimination based upon race, colour, religion, age, disability, sex or sexual orientation and oppose all forms of entrenched privilege and inequality. Recognising that the quest for freedom and justice can never end, we promote human rights and open government, a sustainable economy which serves genuine need, public services of the highest quality, international action based on a recognition of the interdependence of all the world's peoples and responsible stewardship of the earth and its resources.

You CANNOT DO ANY OF THIS WITHOUT FOCUSSING ON EQUALITY. So why are we not doing so?

I think it's because, as members of the party, we have all signed up to that constitution, and we all believe it in our blood and our bones, and we are therefore prey to the fatal assumption that everyone else naturally thinks this way too. But you know what? They don't. After 18 months in my workplace, challenging every instance of racist behaviour, I still get expressions of surprise when people tell me a racist joke and I tell them that it's not funny. I still get treated like a piece of meat by various male customers. People still openly denigrate homosexuals.

Most people, and probably quite a lot of Lib Dems, have some innate, ingrained prejudices which need to be challenged and fought against. And Godsdammit, we should be at the forefront of the fight! Why aren't we?

Who do I need to rant at to get something done about this? Because right now, I am SPITTING RAGE. alex_wilcock, you're on FPC, can you do something about this?

... or ibarw for short. Hence my new default icon, featuring the awesome Brigadier Winifred Bambera. Doctor Who seems to specialise in awesome Brigadiers, and Bambera is no exception. She's cool, calm, and collected. She's brave and resourceful, smart and assured in her command position. She can handle herself, and she can handle a variety of weapons. And she's black.

In modern Who, we don't blink at the thought that Martha can be promoted to a high position within UNIT (although, of course, her commanding officer is a white man in his fifties); in the eighties, the commanding officer was a black woman, and this was SHOCKING. In some ways, the eighties were much worse than now; in others, they were much better. Even though the situation in general was much more racist than now, the racism there was seemed much less insidious, much more defeatable. There was hope then, where there is often resignation now. There is pressure now that some advances have been made for people of colour to accept their position: a subtle implication that They should be grateful They have been "allowed" to progress as far as they have towards equality, but They can never have true equality.

Needless to say, I abhor this. And I will be adopting the theme of racism for the week - for one thing, it'll be a change from sexism for you all. For another thing, as a white person, racism is my responsibility. It's not enough for white people to not be racist, we need to speak out against racism too. In that spirit, I give you this video, with a hat-tip to innerbrat



If you want to participate in ibarw, the info is here.

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In other news: Kiera Knightley is awesome and Michael Gove is unintentionally hilarious.

G'night, all.

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It's a bit of a hot topic at the moment, isn't it? I've made fairly clear that I vehemently disapprove of it on several occasions, but I don't think I have ever really, clearly, set out why. Some people think that it is odd that I, as a self-proclaimed feminist, am so against it. stephashley_fd asked me to start a debate on this earlier (see comments here). So here goes:

1, The argument from individuality. PD treats all women and all men (or all whites and all blacks, or whatever) as representatives of their group first, and individuals second. You don't have to have known me for very long to know how far I am from the average for women in many, many, many areas. I firmly believe that it is perfectly normal to deviate from the average. I am an individual. I am not there to be a tick in the box of a diversity agenda, and I believe that each individual has experiences and needs which are individual to them and not predetermined by what genitals they have or what colour their skin is.

2, The argument from equality of opportunity. If you discriminate in favour of some groups, you necessarily discriminate AGAINST others. This is manifestly unfair.

3, The argument from mediocrity. If you discriminate in favour of one group, you are promoting people who may not be as well-qualified or capable simply because they belong to the group in question; I thought this was what we were fighting against? Positive discrimination has led directly to Hazel Blears being in the cabinet. Is anyone apart from Hazel herself really convinced that this is a good thing?

4, The argument from perpetuation. Using discrimination to fight discrimination is like using violence to fight violence. It might stop specific instances, but it doesn't get to the root cause. It's salving a symptom, while leaving the disease utterly intact. We need to fight discrimination, not foster it.

5, The argument from resentment. Every person who gets a job due to positive discrimination has to fight the perception that they only got the job because of the group that they belong to, however well-qualified and good at the job they turn out to be. They are hamstrung before they even begin, and face resentment that no person should face.

6, The Sins of the Fathers argument. Positive Discrimination means that some people will suffer through no fault of their own, but because they were born to a privileged group. This is manifestly unfair.

7, The argument from commonality. Just because someone has the same genitals as you does not mean that they will be of the same views as you, have the same experiences as you, or understand you any better. I believe that Evan Harris understands me better and does a better job of representing my views than Nadine Dorries.

Really, it all boils down to the fact that if you use positive discrimination, you are accepting that the ends (greater diversity) justify the means. By that logic, you should also accept torture, pre-emptive invasion of other countries, etc.etc. I also hate the slippery euphemistic re-naming of it as affirmative action or positive action, like that changes what it is. I don't think that one needs to have the same genitals as someone else to be able to have empathy with their situation, and I don't think that one needs to be black to understand that racism is bad and wrong. I don't think that diversity is an end in itself, either. I think it's a means to an end of fairness.

Still, now I have set out my stall, I'm interested in what you guys think:

Poll #1231884 Positive Discrimination
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

I think that Positive Discrimination is:

Am listening to the Woman's Hour item on black fathers...

Has anyone actually done a study on white fathers of similar demographics? Because I bet the rate of absentee fathers has much more to do with poverty than race, just like the prospects of your child have much more to do with money than whether or not you are married. We all know that single mothers are more likely to be poor, after all...

Just a thought.

(via Amused Cynicism)

Five Chinese Crackers have carefully deconstructed the way the Fail report matters, and revealed a nasty undercurrent of racism backed up by blatant lies.

The Enemies of Reason have a related deconstruction with similar conclusions.

The Daily (Maybe) has photographic evidence that the Currant Bun is much less subtle than the Fail.

UK Liberty reports on the government banning a teenager from studying sciences because they are a suspected terrorist. Not a convicted terrorist, mind you, but a suspected one. If you've done nothing wrong you've nothing to fear? As long as you're white indigenous British, maybe. For now. Lee Griffin has good comment on this, and Chicken Yoghurt is his usual incisive self also.

The BBC report on a mother being stopped for "trafficking" her own son because he is clearly nothing to do with you. The reason it was so obvious the boy was not hers? He's mixed race, and his skin colour is different from his mum's.


See? And people wonder why I get depressed.

Kira Cochrane in the Graun has noticed that there appears to be something of an anti-feminist movement at the moment. I'm with those who take this as encouragement; as it says in the article, you only get resistance when there's something to resist against.

Ever wondered why there are so few interesting female characters in movies, and even when there are (Ripley and Sarah Connor being the oft-quoted examples) they still are very dependent on male characters in some way or another? BetaCandy has the skinny. Reading this? Made me want to go out and make films, lots of films, with all-female casts.

This is another profoundly depressing post. Why is masturbation STILL something for boys to boast about and girls to be ashamed of? We all do it, FFS! Why can't we just accept that and move on?

William Sanders has offered to remove the stories of writers offended by his bigotry... For $40 a pop. I have no words for this. No words. If you don't like me being racist, I want money? What a wanker.

Something that worries me is the conflation of religion with race. There is an assumption that white people are Christian (when in fact they can be any religion or none), that black people are probably Christian (when in fact they can be any religion or none), and that brown people are Muslim (when in fact they can be any religion or none) which makes me very angry.

I am bang alongside the idea of criticism of religion, because (weird Muslim ideas about what should be done to apostates aside) religion is a choice, a choice to follow a given set of ideas. I abhor racism, sexism and homophobia because your gender, sexuality and ethnicity are not choices, they are things which happen to apply to you whether you like it or not. The conflation of religion with race is a terrible thing for us all, because it means that racists can now say "Muslims" and pretend they don't actually mean "brown people" and also that anyone who criticises religion and some of its crazy edicts is now accused of being racist.

Of course, it's easy to make pronouncements about principle, but much harder to apply such to real life. So lets look at a real life example.

William Sanders is the editor of Helix magazine. Apparently he has something of a reputation in SF fandom - for either telling it like it is and refusing to bow to political correctness or being a misogynistic, bigoted arsehole, depending on who you believe - but nearly_everyone was completely unaware of this man's existence until a writer called Luke Jackson got a rejection letter from him for a story about a Muslim extremist and posted it to a friend's LJ, in the way that rookie writers do, when they want to ask what they did wrong.

NB: The original comment on ladislaw's journal has been removed by Luke Jackson, because William Sanders told him he'd Never Work in This Damn Town Again after telling someone else what Sanders said and that scared him, but as is the way of the internet it's been reposted, here. Can't put the genie back in the bottle, Mister Sanders.

Sanders uses phrases like like all his kind, he's incapable of honesty, the worm-brained mentality of those people, and sheet heads which have the unfortunate effect of being red rags to a certain sort of bull. He really ought, as an editor, to have chosen his words more carefully, because he CLAIMS to be anti-racist but using such sweeping generalisations makes him sound awfully close to being a racist to me... You see, people assume that, as an editor, you HAVE chosen your words carefully, and you therefore MEAN to sound like you are a racist using the smokescreen of legitimate criticism of religious fundamentalism to hide your fear and hatred of brown people. Your comments in follow-up have not done anything to change this impression.

Tobias Buckell has a fabulous deconstruction of the implications of Sanders' behaviour here.

I find it worrying that most of the comment about this incident is about whether or not Luke Jackson was right to repost the rejection letter, rather than whether or not what Sanders said is evidence of racism on his part. I think it's very important that racism is challenged rather than kept behind closed doors and allowed to fester. Such things only wither if everyone is forced to examine them.

But the thing is, I can't help but have a feeling of there, but for the grace of Cthulhu...

You see, I have made sweeping generalisations about religious folk before. We've discussed it on this journal before. People who know me know that I am talking about a certain sort of religious person when I say that religious people make me go nuts, but people who don't? They might assume that I am another William Sanders. They might assume that I am using religious people as shorthand for people not of my ethnic group. Hell, the person who brought this sorry little tale to my attention (ginasketch) has a habit of using the term fundies as shorthand for religious people who are wrong, and therefore fair game for mockery. There have been times where both of us have come close to crossing that line between criticising the idea, the belief, the actual wrongness and criticising the person as if they are synonymous with the idea...

The thing that gives me comfort? I know for a damn straight fact that if someone said to me (or, for that matter, Gina) you've said something racist, we would both respond Oh shit, have I? and apologise, before proceeding to try and examine where the inadvertent racism came from and take steps to do something about it. Neither of us would squeal you've taken my remarks out of context; and anyway, you had no right telling anyone else that I said that; and anyway, I was criticising religion not race; and anyway, I can't be racist because my blood is partly *insert ethnic minority here*; and anyway, you're being oversensitive! and refuse to admit that there is a scintilla of possibility that we might be wrong.

So if you see me saying something racist? Or for that matter sexist or hetero-normative, or anything else which displays privilege and prejudice? Call me out on it. I can't promise I won't defend myself, I can't promise that I'll always unequivocally accept criticism, but I can promise I will listen, and not dismiss your comments out of hand or threaten you with legal action. I don't want to be another William Sanders.

Y'all may recall that I wrote to the Beeb about the article on The Sunday Show in which they unjustly described all Goths as neonazi satanists. I got a reply yesterday.

We were sorry to read that you felt that the item on Goths was inaccurate. We raised your concerns with Amanda Hancox, Series Producer of Sunday Life. She asked us to pass on the following:

The feature on the Sunday programme was commissioned following a significant rise in the number of desecrated Christian graves in France. Our reporter was told by the Miviledes, the French Government’s anti cult task force, that they had identified a sub group within the Goth Community in France who they believe were responsible for these attacks. This sub group was found to have been heavily influenced by Satanism and Neo-Nazism.

The reporter interviewed a young man who described himself as a Neo Satanist Goth and his experiences were heard in the feature. The other people interviewed were all recognised experts in this field and one in particular is consulted regularly by the French Police on crimes with religious overtones. All the statistics were provided by the Ministry of Youth from their recent report into youth culture.

The presenter made it very clear in his introduction that the feature was about the Goth Community in France and about ‘some’ Goths who were influenced by Satanism. The programme was very careful not to link the story in anyway either to the Goth Community in Britain, which is a very different culture to that in France, or to the death of Sophie Lancaster. As all the interviewees were French and the feature was linked to a very specific event in France, we didn’t think it would be necessary to remind listeners throughout the feature that we were not talking about the Goth community in Britain.

Amanda Hancox
Series Producer
Sunday

So, let me see if I have got this straight... SOME of the desecration of graves is THOUGHT to be committed by NeoNazi, Satanist Goths, whom you now admit are a subset of the French Goth community (and not the whole of it, as you made out in the report) but you think it's OK to have broadcast the unbalanced, sensationalised report because it was about FRENCH Goths, and it's OK to present one-sided half truths and prejudice as fact if it's about French people?

Oh. Dear.

What has brought this on? Yesterday was the 30th anniversary concert for Rock Against Racism. I am ambivalent about RAR and it's legacy. Eclectic music is one of my things, and I approve of the stated aims of RAR, but its execution left a lot to be desired: the repeated ignoring of Asian acts being top of my list. There is, of course, also, the association with the Socialist Wanker Party, and the profligate misuse of such words as "Nazi" and "fascist" which continues to this day, and has resulted in both becoming generic terms of abuse rather than the more precise terms they once were...

The thing is, a dismissive handwave and a bald statement that RAR and its successors were/are just a front for the SWP sounds to me counterproductive at best. Who cares if the Socialist Wanker Party are involved, as long as the aims remain true? Obviously, the more people who refuse to join a movement because of the involvement of the SWP, the more control they will have over the movement... Yes, they are dogmatic sanctimonious tossers, but so are the people they are fighting against, and maybe the rest of us could do with trying, at least, to talk to them a bit and understand WHY they become dogmatic sanctimonious tossers?

Racism in this country will not be defeated by people shouting "splitter" at each other like the Judean People's Front and the People's Front of Judea. Refusing to have anything to do with something because a sizeable minority of the members are in the SWP seems to me to be doing exactly that; but, of course, this applies to SWP members too: people don't HAVE to join the SWP/ANL to be anti-racist, any more than they have to join the BNP to be racist. Those of us who oppose racism need to do it together. The smaller and bitterer the divisions become, the more leverage we give to the racists. And is there not a bitter irony about preaching togetherness and tolerance while infighting like fools? Being tolerant is not just about smiling benevolently upon those with a different skin colour to oneself, it's about allowing people to differ from you in opinion as well.

So, yeah, I added a Love Music Hate Racism banner to my profile. Because, at the end of the day, I think the message is more important than the messenger.

Why is rape and sexual assault seen as a women's problem? I mean, yes, women are disproportionately the victims, but not by any means exclusively so. It must, therefore, be because men are consistently the perpetrators. Jim C Hines (yes, he's a man) has some thoughts. Some of the comments I found rather triggery, so proceed with caution, folks.

It works well as a general principle, though. Not matter how much the victims of a problem protest, it won't stop until the perpetrators stop doing it. The oppressed can only do so much; sooner or later, it's the oppressors who have to take action. Sexism will only cease when misogynists and misandrists die out. Racism can only be stopped when privileged races stopping being racist. And yes, rape will only stop when the perpetrators of rape stop raping people.

All of us are privileged in some regard. All of us have a duty to not abuse that privilege. For example, as a white person in a country where the majority indigenous population is white, I have privilege by dint of my skin colour. I believe I have a duty to try and stamp out racism, even though I am not myself racist (at least, I try my best not to inadvertently do something I consciously abhor; I'm not perfect, but I try). I also have class privilege, hetero-normative privilege (to an extent), and various others. I consciously try not to let these affect my attitudes to others.

If you're a man, reading this, I think you have a duty to try not to dismiss rape and sexual assault as "not my problem" because you've never raped or sexually assaulted anyone. I bet you a tenner you know someone who has been raped or sexually assaulted. It's a healthy possibility you know a fellow man who has been raped or sexually assaulted, even if the subject has never come up among you and your group of friends. If it has happened to someone you know, it is your problem, it has affected your life, and it won't even begin to stop being a problem until everyone acknowledges that it IS a problem.

purple_hez, uglybuffy, you want to shed some light on this? Why don't women play guitar?

In a similar vein, I've seen the suggestion in several places that Noel Gallagher is racist for suggesting that Jay Zee doesn't fit with the ethos of Glasto.... Well, no, Noel Gallagher may be racist for other reasons (like supporting the BNP), but I don't think it's racist to suggest that Jay Zee doesn't fit at Glasto. He doesn't. And the implication that it's racist to say that Glasto is all about guitar music I find to be insulting to the many fine non-white guitarists and other musicians who play in rock-type-bands; the implication seems to be that they should get back to undiluted hip-hop and other "black" music, where they belong?

Remember the Tory councillor who said on his blog that poor people should be sterilised because they're all just sponging off Hard Working Families^TM? He's now resigned, after trying to claim that he didn't really mean it. And you know what my reaction was on reading the news story? Shit, is Iain Dale such a well known person that even the BBC won't correct his grammar, now? I mean, I know I quite regularly make errors, but srsly? A your/you're error on the BBC... The world is coming to an end, AMIRITE?

I have to resist the urge to label this next item "James, get your arse in gear". Ooops. It seems resistance is low today. But seriously, my friend James works for the Asylum and Immigration Service, and works very very hard, and is continually frustrated and occasionally heartbroken at the decisions he is forced to make by the system. He never gets a decent amount of time to assess each person, and is always being pushed to work faster, harder, harsher. The current government's pandering to the frothing Daily Hate reader on the subject of immigration is NOT a good thing for the people on the sharp end, and I glad someone is finally taking notice. Did anyone else hear the thing on radio four the other day about the panic that's starting now all the Polish builders have started going back home again? Can't help but feel a bit of Schadenfreude over that one.

Crossing the Atlantic for a moment, my good buddy raven_oreilly found an article from the horse's mouth about senator Obama's comment on typical white people. Who'd want to be a politician in today's America? Poor old Obama just wanted five minutes to chill and talk sport with somebody, and he can't even have that. Actually, our TV political coverage is less like that, but our print media are worse. Who'd be mental enough to be a politician over here? Over to you Cllr. Ball... ;)

And, segueing lightly on to religion, elephantfeed has some harsh words for the leader of Catholicism in our fine country. You'll be unsurprised to hear I agree with every last CAPSLOCKED multi-coloured one. When are the sane, moderate majority of Christians going to wake up to the fact that this tosser is giving the rest of us such an unfavourable impression of their sanity? To the extent that even though I know several sane, moderate, intelligent Christians, my first reaction to this news was sadness for the poor man. I mean, if you're going to give up one fairy story for another, at least pick one a bit less depressing than Guy Gets Nailed to A Cross For Saying Wouldn't It be Great if We Were All a Bit Nicer To Each Other (c) Douglas Adams...

And, because any excuse is a good excuse, here's that Marcus Brigstocke vid that a certain person whose name is apt to send the religious into fits of apoplexy by it's mere mention has been using on his recent lecture tour:



Link here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UY-ZrwFwLQg

I do like the they're your rules, so why don't you bloody stick to them? bit...

Can anyone stop Nick Clegg from going down this really really stupid road?

Liberal Democrat Leader Nick Clegg has written to Keith Vaz supporting his 10 Minute Rule Bill to allow for the creation of shortlists on the grounds of ethnicity in the selection of parliamentary candidates.

He has also said that the Liberal Democrats may have to consider all-minority shortlists in the future if the party cannot increase the number of MPs from ethnic minorities.

Any, and I mean any introduction of positive discrimination is counter-productive, leads only to heel-digging by the priveledged majority, and also leads to the "you only got that job because you're black" mentality that we already see in the "she only got that job because she's a woman" stuff I have to listen to about my local MP on an almost daily basis.

Speaking personally, I would not want to be selected as a token female, and I can't understand anyone who would want to be selected as a token black either. It would completely bugger up my self-esteem and confidence to do the job. That the only reason I got it, and not anyone else, was because I was female would eat away at me.

But then, maybe I'm just weird.

I note there's no comment on Lib Dem Voice about this as yet. But then they're too busy arguing about whether economic liberalism is a good idea or not...

ETA: Cthulhu bless dear old Don Liberali, though. The crack about Lembit made me do the Full Sid James.

When did the BBC turn into the Daily Hate?

I have several questions about The NHS spending £200 million more than ten years ago on babies born to foreign-born mothers

- how much did they spend before? Is this a percentage rise in line with inflation?
- how much are they spending on "native" babies, and has that risen or fallen (especially given that the "native" birth rate has fallen)?
- How big a percentage of the overall NHS budget is this? I'm betting tiny

I never expected the beeb to propagate this kind of right-wing reactionary bollocks, that immigrants are to blame for all our ills. Still, the beeb is run by a Liberal Conspiracy, isn't it?

* headdesk *

At least Ros Scott is talking sense in her very thoughtful post on the Human Tissue and Embryology Bill. If only all politicians were as willing to research, evaluate and consider as she is. I know I tend to see things as a bit black and white, but sometimes it's good to see that some people can see the shades of grey.