bickster Posted March 11, 2020 Moderator Share Posted March 11, 2020 On 04/03/2020 at 22:06, tonyh29 said: I might file this next to your prediction that he won’t become leader of the Conservative party Nadine Dories might have done for him already Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
veloman Posted March 12, 2020 Share Posted March 12, 2020 Do people think it was a good move or indeed necessary to suspend Trevor Phillips from The Labour Party ? His ' crime', I believe was "Islamaphobia". I have a good friend who is a card carrying member of the PLP (and Villa season ticket holder) who reckons he is something of a complex character but is pretty high profile and probably did a lot of useful work combating racism . Opinions ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted March 12, 2020 Share Posted March 12, 2020 I think he’s right on two counts. I was listening to him a few days ago and he was trying to explain that Muslim / Islam is not a race. They are a group that can be victimised or scapegoated or hated, but not a race. Also think he’s right that it’s difficult to even talk about the subject without somebody somewhere condemning a pro noun or picking up on bad grammar or seeing shadows where there are none. Him as an individual, no idea, not ever really paid him much attention. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowychap Posted March 12, 2020 Share Posted March 12, 2020 11 minutes ago, chrisp65 said: he was trying to explain that Muslim / Islam is not a race Did he try and explain what a 'race' is? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted March 12, 2020 Share Posted March 12, 2020 7 minutes ago, snowychap said: Did he try and explain what a 'race' is? Nope. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowychap Posted March 12, 2020 Share Posted March 12, 2020 16 minutes ago, chrisp65 said: Nope. Sounds like a fundamental problem with his attempt at any sort of 'explanation' then. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted March 12, 2020 Share Posted March 12, 2020 Which brings us to point two... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HanoiVillan Posted March 12, 2020 Share Posted March 12, 2020 3 hours ago, veloman said: Do people think it was a good move or indeed necessary to suspend Trevor Phillips from The Labour Party ? His ' crime', I believe was "Islamaphobia". I have a good friend who is a card carrying member of the PLP (and Villa season ticket holder) who reckons he is something of a complex character but is pretty high profile and probably did a lot of useful work combating racism . Opinions ? Once upon a time, it seemed like it might be possible for people to be told they had overstepped the line in handling race-related issues in the Labour party, and that they might be able to apologise and then carry on. Those times are not any more. Would it be better if the last two years hadn't happened in the way that they did? Maybe. But they did happen, and the Muslim community are watching now to see whether they are held to be less important than members of other minority groups. The guy was busy making jokes about how he wanted to win 'Islamophobe Of The Year' at an event at the Conservative party conference. He can hardly claim this was inconceivable. By the way, as a general point to the thread - 'it can't be racist, because Islam isn't a race' is a straight-up Tommy Robinson talking point, and zero tolerance for that shit. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowychap Posted March 12, 2020 Share Posted March 12, 2020 1 hour ago, chrisp65 said: Which brings us to point two... No, Chris, that's rubbish - especially if he's opened with the 'Islam is not a race so...' line (see the point in @HanoiVillan's post above). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted March 12, 2020 Share Posted March 12, 2020 9 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said: Once upon a time, it seemed like it might be possible for people to be told they had overstepped the line in handling race-related issues in the Labour party, and that they might be able to apologise and then carry on. Those times are not any more. Would it be better if the last two years hadn't happened in the way that they did? Maybe. But they did happen, and the Muslim community are watching now to see whether they are held to be less important than members of other minority groups. The guy was busy making jokes about how he wanted to win 'Islamophobe Of The Year' at an event at the Conservative party conference. He can hardly claim this was inconceivable. By the way, as a general point to the thread - 'it can't be racist, because Islam isn't a race' is a straight-up Tommy Robinson talking point, and zero tolerance for that shit. 3rd paragraph is interesting context, I know next to nothing about him 4th paragraph, saying it isn’t racist isn’t the same as saying it wasn’t wrong or wasn’t some form of hate crime. This is where my language gets clumsy, but if someone was ‘anti christian’ or whatever that term might be towards me. If they saw me and came out with some anti Methodist god bothering nastiness, would that be racist? Or is it a sort of singular direction thing? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted March 12, 2020 Share Posted March 12, 2020 2 minutes ago, snowychap said: No, Chris, that's rubbish - especially if he's opened with the 'Islam is not a race so...' line (see the point in @HanoiVillan's post above). Not going to defend him! Really don’t know his track record. I’m genuinely fascinated by it and I do my best not to be too clumsy with language that could upset people. From someone that’s been told you can’t be racist against the Welsh, I find it fascinating that you can be racist towards a religion. I’d be fairly confident no genetic test would identify me as Welsh, so I can see that argument whether I agree with it or not. But then, I’d also feel confident seeing someone’s religion written down wouldn’t help me identify their race / colour / country of birth / place of parent origin etc.. So if I irrationally hated everything about the pale ginger pure Swansea for a thousand years guy next door just because he was a muslim - would that be racist? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HanoiVillan Posted March 13, 2020 Share Posted March 13, 2020 24 minutes ago, chrisp65 said: 3rd paragraph is interesting context, I know next to nothing about him 4th paragraph, saying it isn’t racist isn’t the same as saying it wasn’t wrong or wasn’t some form of hate crime. This is where my language gets clumsy, but if someone was ‘anti christian’ or whatever that term might be towards me. If they saw me and came out with some anti Methodist god bothering nastiness, would that be racist? Or is it a sort of singular direction thing? No, in that case it wouldn't be racist, but it would be unlawful discrimination under the Equality Act 2010 anyway. For a long time, British courts denied that bigotry against Muslims could be seen as race-based discrimination. Initially, no religion was considered a race. Then a Sikh student at a private school was told to remove his turban to comply with the school's dress code; his father sued, citing the Race Relations Act. The case (Mandla) was lost by the father, but as a consequence the House of Lords wrote a set of definitions as to what constituted shared 'ethnic origins', and the resulting definitions were shown to include Sikhism and Judaism as peoples that shared 'ethnic origins'. This did not include Muslims. They were protected from religion-based discrimination by the Equality Act, but these protections did not accord with the experience of Muslims who experienced bigotry that was clearly based on racial prejudice (e.g. Arabic women wearing hijabs being called a 'paki', for instance), and so a definition of Islamophobia has been sought for some time. Probably the most important is the one proposed by the All-party parliamentary group on British Muslims, which gives the definition 'Islamophobia is rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness', and for which examples are provided, which crucially include abuse of people who aren't Muslim because of their perceived 'otherness'. An example may be a man receiving anti-Islamic abuse for wearing a turban by a racist who doesn't understand that Muslims don't wear turbans. Since this abuse cannot be based on religion, it is therefore based on racism, through attacking a racialised 'other'. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowychap Posted March 13, 2020 Share Posted March 13, 2020 45 minutes ago, chrisp65 said: I’m genuinely fascinated by it I'll leave the direct response to some of the questions you've posed to HV as above. My point was that in order for Phillips to say that Islam is not a race ergo Islamaphobia is not racism, he really needs to say what he sees as (a) race - and for that matter he needs to explain what he thinks Islamaphobia is and, if he thinks it is wrong, how he thinks it materially differs from what he would happily term as racism. Otherwise, his comments aren't much more than grist to the mill for racists. As a relevant aside, I found Adam Rutherford's recent book (How to Argue With a Racist: History, Science, Race and Reality - Amazon link) fascinating. Listened to it on Audible. Quote Race is real because we perceive it. Racism is real because we enact it. But the appeal to science to strengthen racist ideologies is on the rise - and increasingly part of the public discourse on politics, migration, education, sport and intelligence. Stereotypes and myths about race are expressed not just by overt racists, but also by well-intentioned people whose experience and cultural baggage steer them towards views that are not supported by the modern study of human genetics. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post ml1dch Posted April 1, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted April 1, 2020 1 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Davkaus Posted April 1, 2020 Share Posted April 1, 2020 It's a fitting end to his pathetic tenure. Thank **** he's finally **** off to ****. 3 years too late. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LondonLax Posted April 1, 2020 Share Posted April 1, 2020 The worst thing that happened was that his loss in the 2017 election was much smaller than expected. It meant Labour didn’t think about changing direction (despite all evidence saying it was required) until now when the damage has well and truly been done and the horse has bolted. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted April 1, 2020 Share Posted April 1, 2020 I’d have presumed that letter was a crap fake if it wasn’t on his verified account. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bickster Posted April 2, 2020 Moderator Share Posted April 2, 2020 Sit down, before you read this. You've never heard this from me before My MP (Bill Esterson) is actually doing a very good job during this, he seems to have taken the bull by the horns and is questioning the government every step of the way. He actually appears to be the opposition right now. The cynic in me says he's expecting Starmer to win and (given his role in Starmer's campaign) he's expecting a bigger Shadow Cabinet role but I'm not arsed about that right now, he's actually doing the job he's paid for and hopefully this is him hitting the ground running for when the leadership race is settled. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cyrusr Posted April 4, 2020 VT Supporter Share Posted April 4, 2020 Labour leader results are due today. Surprised they haven’t delayed it so they can fudge the results so RLB wins because of the Coronavirus. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ml1dch Posted April 4, 2020 Share Posted April 4, 2020 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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