Racism Part two

[chrisp65]

2 minutes ago, bannedfromHandV said:

Odd, so cultural appropriation at best then, pretty sure there’s bigger issues at hand currently, although I guess the RFU are sat twiddling their thumbs  at the moment.

 

If it leaves to rugby being defunded at least some good will have come from all this.

[villa4europe]

It's a slave song from way back when 

Its obviously flavour of the month to go after these sort of things but I'm genuinely surprised they've not gone for it years ago

[Keyblade]

17 hours ago, icouldtelltheworld said:

Vast majority of our fans are a good bunch, but there were some seriously bad takes on the club's FB post about the players taking a knee yesterday. Noticed one or two mentioning they won't support BLM as it's being funded by George Soros/new world order etc... "I'm not racist, here's some antisemitic tropes to prove it"

lol that 4th post literally sounds like this thread circa about a week ago almost verbatim.

[KentVillan]

4 hours ago, chrisp65 said:

I think there is a perception that rugger types decided to Increase and focus the singing of an African American spiritual song to celebrate Martin Offiah.

The english rugger types say this is tosh and piffle and they embrace absolute equality and it never occurred to them there was any connection as they don’t see colour.

I personally have no opinion.

Are you suggesting they sang an African American spiritual at a black player because he was black?

From what I heard, the story is less controversial - his nickname was Chariots Offiah, after the film Chariots of Fire. The fans (white, Jeremy Clarkson jeans) probably knew the song through versions by Elvis, Eric Clapton, etc, and it had already been doing the rounds as a drinking song, so it’s unlikely they had much idea of its origins.

Be interested to read an informed perspective on why it is problematic.

[Enda]

16 hours ago, Davkaus said:

 

I struggle with BLM because there's an awful lot of the moment that's nothing to do with racism and all about an unrelated political agenda. The message "black lives matter" being so closely entangled with a fairly radical anti-capitalist movement is quite problematic in that criticism of Black Lives Matter as an organisation always seems to get taken as criticism of the message.

While you’re not wrong about the fringe elements, the BLM cause is absolutely justified and I’d encourage you to overlook the anti-capitalist element.

I’m a capitalist. Moderately right-wing. But I’ve joined BLM protests because black lives are under-valued, particularly in the part of the world I live in (the US). I don’t think anyone really disputes that black lives are under-valued compared to white ones, and that that’s an absolute injustice. If you agree with that sentence, I encourage ya to ignore the communist fringe.

[bickster]

8 hours ago, villa4europe said:

It's a slave song from way back when 

No it isn’t. It’s was written by a man called Wallis Willis in 1865. He was a freeman at the time

[bickster]

8 hours ago, chrisp65 said:

I think there is a perception that rugger types decided to Increase and focus the singing of an African American spiritual song to celebrate Martin Offiah.

The english rugger types say this is tosh and piffle and they embrace absolute equality and it never occurred to them there was any connection as they don’t see colour.

I personally have no opinion.

That maybe why the wrong sort of Rugby fans addled by chemicals or overstuffed with pies might have sung the song but that has no relation to why England Rugby Union fans sing it. Different Sports, totally different fans and as much as Offiah did return to the correct form of Rugby at the end of his career, he didn't play for England.

[Demitri_C]

17 hours ago, HanoiVillan said:

 

I have to say, that is not my experience of how most white Brits talk about those festivals. Try reading the comments of a local paper (especially in the East Midlands) around the time of Eid or Diwali and you won't find a deep well of tolerance, excitement and understanding.

Not sure the white people you know but the whites that i speak with embrace these celebrations.

So i dont share this opinion.

[bickster]

3 hours ago, KentVillan said:

Are you suggesting they sang an African American spiritual at a black player because he was black?

From what I heard, the story is less controversial - his nickname was Chariots Offiah, after the film Chariots of Fire. The fans (white, Jeremy Clarkson jeans) probably knew the song through versions by Elvis, Eric Clapton, etc, and it had already been doing the rounds as a drinking song, so it’s unlikely they had much idea of its origins.

Be interested to read an informed perspective on why it is problematic.

I agree with this apart from the bit in bold. The fans (White, Pie stained shirts) probably had some vague idea of the song from the Elvis imperonator at the Wheeltappers and Shunters Club (who was on after the bingo). They had no idea it had been doing the rounds as a drinking song as they were too busy learning to count to six on one hand.

But anyway, like I said that bit is true about Martin Offiah but as that is a completely different sport and a different set of fans to England / RFU

[chrisp65]

4 hours ago, KentVillan said:

Are you suggesting they sang an African American spiritual at a black player because he was black?

From what I heard, the story is less controversial - his nickname was Chariots Offiah, after the film Chariots of Fire. The fans (white, Jeremy Clarkson jeans) probably knew the song through versions by Elvis, Eric Clapton, etc, and it had already been doing the rounds as a drinking song, so it’s unlikely they had much idea of its origins.

Be interested to read an informed perspective on why it is problematic.

I’m not suggesting anything, it was one sentence for, one sentence against, and a third sentence saying I had no opinion.

I simply saw and opportunity to give rugby a very mild and even handed kicking.

[HanoiVillan]

7 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

I’m not suggesting anything, it was one sentence for, one sentence against, and a third sentence saying I had no opinion.

I simply saw and opportunity to give rugby a very mild and even handed kicking.

Probably with giving rugby an even kick is you've got absolutely no clue where it's going to end up. 

[bickster]

18 hours ago, HanoiVillan said:

Try reading the comments of a local paper

Nope, this is a massive error. Anyone actualy reading the comments section in online versions of local paers is actually mixing in the wrong gene pool

[HanoiVillan]

Just now, bickster said:

Nope, this is a massive error. Anyone actualy reading the comments section in online versions of local paers is actually mixing in the wrong gene pool

There's no point pretending they don't exist. The question is 'do white people generally voice positive opinions about minority festivals?' And a large part of the answer is going to come from reading those opinions in public venues like local newspapers. Having made the comment yesterday I went back to check they were as negative as I remember, and by far the most frequent comment on diwali celebrations was some variant of 'I hope it's a **** torrential downpour'. 

[snowychap]

59 minutes ago, bickster said:

But anyway, like I said that bit is true about Martin Offiah but as that is a completely different sport and a different set of fans to England / RFU

The most recent thing knocking around was that it was first sung at the Middlesex Sevens in 1987 where Offiah was playing before he went off to League.

This is from a BBC article a couple of months ago:

Quote

The mystery behind why Swing Low, Sweet Chariot was first sung at the home of English rugby has been solved, the Rugby Football Union (RFU) believes.

It has long been an anthem of England fans and is belted out lustily whenever the national team plays at Twickenham.

The African-American spiritual was not thought to have been sung there until 1988, when Chris Oti got a hat-trick.

But archive footage has now been found of it being sung at Twickenham in 1987 when Martin "Chariots" Offiah played.

...

The discovery of the archive footage, from the 1987 Middlesex Sevens tournament, was a surprise even to the rugby legend himself.

"People used to ask if it was a reference to me and I said, 'I don't think so'," said the 53-year-old Londoner, who is regarded as one of the greatest rugby league players of all time but who started out in rugby union.

"When the RFU told me they had found this footage I thought, 'Wow, so I have got some link with this song'."

 

[chrisp65]

Brian Moore’s twitter is worth a read on the subject.

Brian Moore wasn’t someone I ever expected to like, but I got invited to some talk or event he was hosting and I thought he was exceptionally good.

 

 

[bickster]

51 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

Brian Moore wasn’t someone I ever expected to like,

He was actually smeone I really disliked as a player but in recent years he's become a voice of reason in some areas

[tonyh29]

1 hour ago, HanoiVillan said:

There's no point pretending they don't exist. The question is 'do white people generally voice positive opinions about minority festivals?' And a large part of the answer is going to come from reading those opinions in public venues like local newspapers. Having made the comment yesterday I went back to check they were as negative as I remember, and by far the most frequent comment on diwali celebrations was some variant of 'I hope it's a **** torrential downpour'. 

I think we know the sort of people that use comments sections on newspapers tbh so it probably gives a skewed view , would be like asking me my views on cyclists ,  vegans  and the French

That said , I agree these people do exist  , i just think once you extract from the people with extreme views (left or right)  , the people remaining , who are the vast majority  , are happy to embrace these kinds of things .

[KentVillan]

2 hours ago, bickster said:

I agree with this apart from the bit in bold. The fans (White, Pie stained shirts) probably had some vague idea of the song from the Elvis imperonator at the Wheeltappers and Shunters Club (who was on after the bingo). They had no idea it had been doing the rounds as a drinking song as they were too busy learning to count to six on one hand.

But anyway, like I said that bit is true about Martin Offiah but as that is a completely different sport and a different set of fans to England / RFU

Offiah played both codes. It was sung at a sevens tournament (Union obviously), before Offiah was signed up to play League.

[Stevo985]

On 18/06/2020 at 09:51, icouldtelltheworld said:

Vast majority of our fans are a good bunch, but there were some seriously bad takes on the club's FB post about the players taking a knee yesterday. Noticed one or two mentioning they won't support BLM as it's being funded by George Soros/new world order etc... "I'm not racist, here's some antisemitic tropes to prove it"

Going back to this, it's very disconcerting that so many people seem to think that because someone has once been convicted of a crime then their life doesn't matter anymore.

[bickster]

14 minutes ago, KentVillan said:

Offiah played both codes. It was sung at a sevens tournament (Union obviously), before Offiah was signed up to play League.

Offiah used to come to a club night I ran quite regularly but anyway... I really don't think the song was ever about him, like Brian Moore said, it was sang in Rugby Clubs years before Offiah was even a Rugby Player of any code. We used to sing it after games at our club and that was in the late '70s (Brian Moore made me remember that)