Rolta

Who said anything about ships.

But none of them look idential to another team's badge in the division.

They're both circular, but everything inside that outer circle is completely different—and I imagine it doesn't look almost exactly like another team's badge in the same division.

I think you answered your question in the very same sentence! It's not about people changing.

Just do the gaslamp one. It's the only one that looks modern, good, and futureproof. It stands out, looks great. It's right under our claret and blue noses. (I've said this a few times now so now I'll be quiet!)

You're making a lot of statements here as fact that you don't really know. And telling people not to point out exceptions to the rule is just silly. As for Konsa—well, it'll have to be Mings or Konsa who drops out. And If Mings is more the destroyer then he's the one who would complement Torres, not Konsa. Managers like to have a blend of different types of cenre back, and please no exception to the rule replies.

I don't get why Mings and Torres couldn't play together.

Having been here a while, I think this example in the King's parade is just more of a naive throwback, and that won't exist soon enough. As mentioned, Madrid doesn't do it any more, but that's only happened in the last few years. Thousands and thousands of people come to watch these parades year on year—putting someone in blackface as Balthazar has existed for the entirety of people's lives—everyone grew up with it without exception. Maybe I should say millions of people—everyone experienced it, not just the racists. It's normal here, and the origin for it is 100% more innocent than minstrel shows etc. Spain were a white nigh on mono-culture under a dictator for fifty years while we were developing into a more multicultural society, learning and adapting along the way. Spain never went through that process, and there are clearly going to be consequences and differences. For me it's understandable that deeply engrained cultural touchstones like the king's parade might have a couple of details that need to evolve, but societies as a whole move very slowly. I genuinely don't think we can use our frames of reference for blackface when it comes to the King's parade. It'll work its way out. People hold on to tradition tightly clearly. Still plenty of racists here though—I just think it's a separate issue.

I think I've said it before, but to add to this I have never been in a country with so many openly racist people than in Spain. Tbh, at times it's a bit like 14 year olds (they're the worst) and 30 year olds and 55 year olds were all born in the 1930s. The country still has a lot of growing up to do on that front. Sometimes it comes across as a collective machoism (for want of a better word), the very definition of toxicity—like with the kids I teach. They show off via being racist and sexist and homophobic. There's a big emphasis on confidence and cockiness, like anywhere, but sometimes I wonder whether here the rolemodels seem to be the worst possible examples—controvertial bullshitters who gain kudos from just showing off in dumb ways. I wonder sometimes whether Madrid is giving me a skewed impression as it's basically still got one foot in Franco's shadow. The other example of racism is from the snobby, paranoid middle classes who are not happy with non-white anything. But there are scales to this, as has been mentioned. Some people here don't think about blacking up as controvertial, particularly in the Kings parade. But I've never been anywhere where people are so tribalised and think en mass the exact same things (and yet then I think of England and I realise we just have our own flavour. Yet, although we have racist people, I don't think the spread in the UK is so widespread across all different crisscrossing strata), which makes it difficult to really pinpoint true, deeply held racism. As I said in the Monchi thread, I think it's easy to look past the Kings parade example, appreciating that most of Spanish society has never ever even once batted an eye, that they haven't been multicultural for very long, that they were under a dictator until the late 70s, so they're possibly 'a bit behind on that front' and balance it out with the strong words he's said speaking out against racism.

I believe he said it because Meunier sounds like manure.

She seems to have forgotten the name of her own country in there too when she says the bit about Great Britain not recognising the regions. Maybe she feels a deep connection to the island of Great Britain and knows things we don't.

This post is woke. It's the definition of woke. I think 'the woke movement' is mostly probably in your head. There's no movement. To me it seems as if some people in the media/public can't filter, or find it useful overrepresenting what a minority of people say on Twitter. I'm sure it feels like a 'movement', especially if people keep going on about it around you, in the media or whatever. It's certainly seems easy to wind up the people who fall for the 'fear the woke' narrative. But pigeonholing a billion things as woke or imagining pretend movements is equally cringeworthy. Yes there are annoying people out there. They always were there. Just now with social media we get to hear everyone's opinions, especially the loudest ones. That goes for the stressed-about-the-woke as much as the people they're upset by. Different people are right at different times as far as I can see. But you preaching complexity to the situation in your post is woke. Just in this instance you're on the 'right' side—you just consider yourself to be right. Maybe another day you might be wrong and the person you think is woke is right. Maybe another day neither of you are. I live in Madrid and I appreciate the culture is different here so I agree with you. But in the singing show Tu Cara Me Suena they did give the blacked up lady playing Tina Turner a crazy big nose prosthetic too. But then maybe I shouldn't over represent the decision of about two people to do it as if it has a bigger significance.

This time last year, this would have been sadly a bit depressing. Now it's a delight. What a turnaround. The previous manager did McGinn no favours—he's been so good since Emery came in, and all there is is love.

To be fair, like every kit it's growing on me. The only one I never came round to was the one with the weird twisty shoulders. It looks OK—better on Ollie and Kamara, where it's a little looser, than on McGinn though. I think the worst thing is the sponsor. It just doesn't fit the delicate lines of the rest of it—it's just a splodgy ugly bubbly bit of stupid pap.

They know this was the one that should have won.

I'd agree if this was the case. The new badge is so boring. And it hardly looks original or establishes a unique brand identity. It's also a bit dull on the kit imo. It's OK. Better than what we have, but also duller too.

I'd list them both as underwhelming. Maybe the shirt less so.

I think it all gives a sense of credibility and upstandingness. Any human rights/murdering issues—by not being talked about in the 'collective uncoscious' or whatever—somehow don't seem to matter. I guess as human beings we're tribal and are guilty of a lot of groupthink. And it can be generational too—I now know 14 year old Spanish kids who know the names of a group of the Saudi teams. These kids see footballers going to Saudi Arabia and suddenly they're interested, and any suggestion there might be concerns about Saudi Arabia's regime don't seem to have any credence while there are so few critical voices in their lives. All they associate with Saudi Arabia at the moment is exciting footballers and them being legitimate players in the football world. I wouldn't be surprised to see a few shirts from these teams in Madrid next year—although now I've said that Madrid might be the place most in thrall to money and power that I've ever been.

This is very woke of you. (I'm joking, but also not because this is what woke means!)

How many people are actually imposing that on you? I'd wager you haven't met a single person. Yet woke as a catch all pejorative hammered home article after article, day after day, by presidential wannabes and cabinet MPs, and a vast, broad, biggest section of the media. It's incomparable, for me, and I'd even argue this very false equivalence shows how powerful a thing the word 'woke' has become in winding people up and dividing people. I doubt you're against listening to other people's points of view, and I imagine most people who fear 'the wokening' would actually be pretty open to at least listening to someone who feels trans or gender neutral or whatever, in the name of understanding. But that's not on the cards, first because the relative population of trans or non binary people is very low, and second because nobody in the media, the loudest part of it, the part the makes the most issue out of this topic (and makes the most money and sway from weaponising it), are remotely interested in listening to anyone who it actually affects.

The wind up press love a go-to phrase. SJW/woke/snowflakes. It feels as if the most bad faith of this particular group have gone into overdrive recently, but then it was probably always so. It's a great way of dismissing outright anyone who doesn't conform to what used to be a bit of a fringe hard right outlook, and it's only growing in reach. And before I go on, I know a lot of people who use 'woke' aren't hard right by any means—but the phrase is pushed most rabidly and most constantly by that group. I'm talking about their influence on popular culture. The power of it spreads out into the more general discourse. I should define hard right too—I mean people from the right who aren't interested in compromise, in 'one-nation ideas', who don't see value in discussing centrist or centre-left positions. Sure, I know there are equivalent words on the other side of the political spectrum, but there's nothing comparable about the reach of the vague catch-all term 'woke' from this hard right—peddalled by presidential candidates, promising to crush 'wokism' (whatever the f that means) for example, British MPs from a very non-moderate Conservative party, relentless posts from high-profile Twitter people for example, and absolute swathes more of it online and in 90% of the right wing press—you could practically say that the Mail, Sun, Express, Telegraph, GBNews, and TalkTV or whatever it's called barely have much else to offer than constant outrage porn against anything 'woke'—and by 'woke' they mean anything that doesn't conform to their outlook. Ironic, because that's probably one of their definitions of 'woke'. Ironic but not surprising though. Over-simplification and undermining people who have different ideas makes money, furthers careers, and wins power. Outrage is always a vote winner. It always has been. This is the relentless othering that, for me, poisons the discourse. We can disagree—right, left, centist or whatever—we are always going to disagree, and everyone is capable of over-generalising and over-simplifying and throwing insults no matter who they are, but there is no more heinous example out there than the absurd overuse of that word, and there is no other group with such media reach in order to make such a phenomenon possible. There are equivalents, sure—gammon for one, but come on you don't get politicians and pages of newspapers dedicated towards and demonising gammons. The scale is incomparible. I find it ironic that today, with the Monchi debate, the couple of people who were accusing people of being woke seemed to be the actual ones being 'woke' in the way they were pleading complexity to the situation (as I did from my position of living in Spain), that the situation itself, and people's opinions on the Monchi stuff, weren't as black and white as they seemed—that responses should be more nuanced. That's being woke. That's actually what it means.

I like the Monchi video where he says some pretty strong anti racist statements. Living in Madrid, as far as I'm aware the actual blacking up in the three kings Christmas parade has stopped now. Maybe it was an honour though when it was more common. And it was common until very recently, and people didn't even bat an eye. It probably does still happen elsewhere in smaller places than Madrid. The thing is there's no historic minstrel culture or history of that kind of thing here like we have in the USA or the UK. It is different. Going back to the video, he didn't have to say that. He didn't have to put his face and name to standing up to racism. His words in this case really do seem enough to dispel this conversation and put his role as Balzazar down to a bit of a quirk of Spanish culture, which is different and has always had differences to our own. That's not to say things aren't changing in Spain though. I have a lot of stories of genuine racism from my time here, and anyone can see there's quite a visible problem in stadiums and among football fans—and I could tell some tales about undoubtedly racist successful business people too—but, yeah, the video...Monchi seems to have put his name explicitly behind being part of the solution and not the problem.

On Friday nights here in Spain there's a TV show called Tu Cara Me Suena. Your face reminds me of something. It's a primetime family show, basically stars in their eyes, and in it any white contestant doing a song by a black singer blacks up. I was shocked when I saw it. I talked to my students about it, very open minded and very liberal students, and they didn't see why I would think it was a problem. I make no excuses as it's cringeworthy to the max, and I don't think I've heard as much casual racism anywhere as I have in Spain, but they have very different parameters than we do. I explained it away as something like this: while countries like the UK modernised and became used to the idea that blackface was embarrassing, Spain were still living under a 50ish year dictatorship and were mono-cultural. I've lived here for eight years and I'm often so shocked how naive this place is. The shockwaves of the dictatorship are abundant. Spanish people live in a world of their own, as we all do I guess, but they happen to have some real big in your face dubious habits.

It would be odd if all you needed to make a decision on the signing was the opinion of two people on a forum. On the other hand, we have a great manager worth a lot of faith, and Nico Williams is very highly rated for a reason. Neither Traore nor Bailey would be getting in the Spain squad—and neither of them are that quick either.

Repeated Post Edited. No need for me to say the same thing twice.