Tag: racism

The Rabbit Hole

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It appears our police tried a George Floyd. After embracing the Yanks and rejecting Huawei we’ve gone all out and taken the knee. Unfortunately that’s no joke as it involved another man’s neck. To add further insult said man was black. I have experienced the British police, not on a regular basis, but I have, and certainly in no way people from poorer communities, be those black or white, have. They’ve been both friendly and truncheon friendly. I won’t defend them. Having been in foreign lands I’ve also experienced foreign police from numerous cultures and I will hold my hands up, the Brits are not the worst. They are not the best, whatever that is, but there are worse out there.

I’m not sure what I make of this kneeing incident. With everything going on this must be possibly the worst moment to do something like that. I wonder what he was thinking, was he conscious of the action or not. The man was handcuffed and restrained, only the policeman will really know whether he felt scared enough to feel it was warranted. And how often do police officers in this country feel it is a necessary action. I genuinely don’t know. How often do security guards or bouncers outside pubs do similar. What I don’t like about this, apart from the obvious, is how we now go about responding to it as a society.

Protests and riots in America were necessary after George Floyd. There was an outpouring of anger and grief. It was the only way anyone in power would listen and anything would happen. Long term let’s see if it all just get’s forgotten about but in the short it shook society to the core. I imagine there will be protests here, how big I don’t know. He didn’t die thankfully otherwise it would have kicked off already. Maybe it has. The police have already chosen their approach by seemingly condemning the act with the Deputy Met Police commissioner describing it as ‘disturbing’ while reiterating of course that it’s not standard police practice or part of training. There are a lot of things they do that aren’t trained, that doesn’t mean they don’t do them regularly.

But then there was a quote on the BBC by a witness; “I was worried he was going to get executed. That’s just how George Floyd got killed”. If the media could come up with a better quote it would win awards. He wasn’t being executed. Words like that are serious, people get executed by police every day around the world. This was not that and to throw something like that out is not only irresponsible, it’s sensationalist and stupid. It’s also how we appear to react to anything in this day and age of outrage. That’s not one spectrum or another, it’s seemingly everyone. I just hope this is debated seriously and we can have conversations which actually lead to something other than a carpet and a brush. I don’t trust the media not to go wild and sex it up for ratings but I just hope we can ignore that long enough to not use it as some kind of societal endorphin hit. I don’t know how much faith I have in this. We appear too far down the rabbit hole already.

“Quotes”

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“Of all sexual perversions, chastity is the strangest” said Anatole France the French writer. Someone said similar on a podcast a few days ago, incorrectly attempting to quote him. He may have said the wrong words but it was close enough to perk my attention and do a little research of old Monsieur France. He appears to be another of these intellectuals living around the turn of the nineteenth century. Involved in the societal issues of the day, he took on the state a few times, especially in regards the Dreyfus Affair. This was an incident when nationalistic and anti-Semitic elements of the French army made a scapegoat of a Jewish soldier and had him wrongly convicted of murder. France though seems to be an infinitely quotable person and while I was drawn in with the one above it is only apt to throw a few more in.


“Until one has loved an animal a part of one’s soul remains unawakened“

“If fifty million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing“

“It is human nature to think wisely and act in an absurd fashion“

Quotes are great things. It takes a tiny snapshot of a thought and imprints it forever. There is an intensity to them that allows people to feel they understand a whole concept or person with nothing but a short sentence. We use them to justify opinions of a person, to discredit a lifetimes worth of work with one passing comment, to immortalise a version of someone. I have wanted to tattoo a million moments of wisdom all over my body despite knowing better. I finally succumbed a few years ago in my own way and have “estas como una cabra” on my arm. It is a Spanish expression which translates as “you’re like a goat” and is intentionally the antithesis of tattooed wisdom. Yet we keep on coming back to quotes.

I used one recently when writing a piece on here bashing Winston Churchill. His quote was from 1937 and I used it to justify my accusation of racism. Yet I would be curious to hear his opinion in 1945 after the horrors of murderous racism became real to the world. Does that mean we form an opinion of his character at the end of his life, at a certain point in his life or try to balance out an impression of his character from squashing everything he ever said and did into one little box. We evolve over time in who we are and how we think but quotes freeze a moment in our lives and are used to define us for eternity. I suspect there won’t be many academics pouring over this body of work at any point but were they to I don’t doubt they could find enough ridiculous things I’ve said to justify creating an impression that I am three or four different versions of myself and morality. But then we live so many versions of ourselves in our lives that this must surely be inevitable. How then when quotes are everything can we ever let these parts of ourselves go.

“All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another” – Anatole France

The Coors Family

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Today’s discovery revolves around the Coors family. For those unfamiliar with shit beer, they’re the ones who invented ‘Coors’ back in the nineteenth century and who still insist on pushing it on ignorant confused people who presumably don’t know any better. This is an episode of the podcast The Dollop, which I think I’ve mentioned before on here, but it’s premise is two comedians, one telling the history the other with no knowledge of the usually bizarre subject, making jokes and taking the piss. They’re quite long episodes which can put people off, this one is over one hundred minutes, but there’s worse you can and will do with your time.

There are a few companies I’ve boycotted over the years, from Nestle to Coco Cola to Amazon, and now after listening to this I can add Coors to the list. Thankfully I wouldn’t go near it as a drink anyway but now I have an ethical reason not to. The problem with that though is like any of these mega corporations they also own virtually everything else and while a lot of their range is equally mass produced crap there are a few beers I have enjoyed over the years such as Caffreys, Staropramen and Cobra, and when desperate Blue Moon – Coors own the Blue Moon Brewery itself. They also seem to own the old Mitchell and Butler brewery but I can’t find confirmation whether they also own the pub chain by the same name or whether they’re now two separate entities. Admittedly they’re not always great pubs but they can serve a purpose. Over the years my boycotts have never been one hundred percent successful but my beer purchasing habits will certainly now be affected.

What’s he talking about I hear you screaming. Yes this is such a long winded intro into the Coors family but I don’t really want to give too much away. Adolph Coors emigrated from what was Prussia to America and set up the Coors brewery in 1873. The family itself seemed to be loveless and hateful towards each other, and once his son Adolph II took charge he ruled the family through dictatorial fear. Some members of the family suffered from debilitating extreme right wingness, while others found God and became Christian extremists, or Evangelicals if you so desire. They lobby vehemently against women’s right, racial equality, LGTB rights, workers rights and so on. William Coors who ran the company in the latter part of the twentieth century once gave a speech to a room full of black businessmen on how the black mans brain was inferior and that they should be grateful their ancestors were brought across as slaves as it allowed them to become civilised. His brother Joseph was the right winger who he described as “being slightly to the right of Attila the Hun”, which coming from a racist is quite the statement. Joseph was also a special adviser to and part of Ronald Reagans ‘Kitchen Cabinet’. They were even involved with Oliver North and the Iran-Contra scandal. The family currently fund right wing think tanks and other organisations trying to challenge equality in all those forms mentioned. There is more but I both can’t remember everything and don’t want to give it all away. There were murders, suicides and such hatred that it does suggest there may be some truth in the idea that right wingers are just projecting their own self-loathing and anger onto the rest of us. The Coors Family are just vile, unfortunately very powerful, people. I’m amazed that I have never heard about them and all they get up to. Clearly it was a very informative podcast.

Most of the juicy stuff mention above comes towards the latter part of the podcast with earlier stuff just discussing the internal workings of the family itself. They seemed mainly to just do damage to each other and themselves until about the 1960s at which point all the above happened. Seriously, fuck them. The world doesn’t need people like that. They make the human race worse.

Footballers Stepping Up

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There is something that has always been incredibly frustrating about footballers and the footballing world. I can only talk of modern times and my first club football memory was in 1992 when I was watching the news of Manchester United winning the Premier League for the first time, and the league title for twenty-six years. I’ve been a fan since. Total glory hunting six year old. I grew up in an era in which football was gentrified and became squeaky clean. This is all I’ve known. I have no idea of what depths it was at in the 1980s beyond the stories both damning and glorifying in equal measures. Even in the Premier League era there have still been numerous incidents, mainly from fans but from players too, and there has seemingly been a desire to at least on the surface stamp it out. I must also acknowledge that were the desire to expose inaction over the last twenty-five years this would be an easy thing to do. It has not always been a smooth journey as there will always be people whose existence depends upon the status quo remaining in whatever shape put them there to start with. I have been rather ambiguous so far over incidents because while I am going to focus on racism, it is important not to ignore homophobic attacks, Islamophobic anti-semitic, anti-traveller etc.

What is really interesting now though is how much the footballers are getting involved. I’m not talking about them all taking the knee before the game because I doubt any player would jeopardise their entire career by refusing to take part. That doesn’t dismiss the important message it is making though. Individually footballers are really stepping up. While racism is amongst many things a political act, in the world of football, in which footballers can be fined tens of thousands of pounds for political actions, anti-racism doesn’t fall into that category. The anti-racism movement in football did not begin in the last few months but has been around for years. The organisation Show Racism The Red Card was established in 1996 and there will most certainly be organisations fighting long before that.

There have also been footballers making anti-racism statements in that time but it does feel like they’re really getting acceptance and coverage in a way that would have been impossible in the past. Raheem Sterling and Marcus Rashford seem to get a large amount of the coverage, which is inevitable given they are such massive stars, but there are others like Liverpool’s Rhian Brewster, who is in the photo at the top, and who is only twenty years old. I remember when he was seventeen after England had won the under-17 World Cup I think it was, discussing the racism he has experienced growing up and in the footballing world. This was a seventeen year old boy discussing a serious issue in a way full grown men cannot. This was an interview hailed by many but in my memory it was still challenged, even subtly, by elements of the press as to whether it was acceptable or not. It’s amazing how people can react when being put in their place by a seventeen year old. These are young men who have a platform stepping up and finally being accepted unconditionally by those who matter. What comes next is anyone’s guess but it does finally feel there have been some real seismic shifts.

For those who enjoy podcasts and / or Louis Theroux, this is a link to an interview he made with Watford striker Troy Deeney recently. I have spent time disliking Deeney in the past, this is mainly down to him seemingly constantly scoring winning goals against my team but if I have to lay it all out I suspect there was some lingering unconscious bias which nobody likes to acknowledge but was interesting to see exist. Ultimately he is a man who has had to fight his way through life, and has a story and ideas worth listening to, Theroux does a good job helping bring it and them out.

Modern Morality & Historical Identity

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There is a common theme running through our historical education at school. It is usually the simple narrative that supports our national identity and message; that we as a country haven’t really done much wrong. We learn about the two World Wars from the British perspective, the industrial revolution, The Soviet Union and never in a favourable way and sometimes the Napoleonic Wars but are taught about it and him from a very different angle than the French are. Which means every country does it and that is why this isn’t a piece bashing the UK and suggesting we’re wrong in a world of right. There is currently much discussion about Churchill or the philanthropic slave trader Edward Colston and we as a populace are being forced to explore their roles in our national identity with a different set of eyes. This can only be a good thing because to describe someone such as Churchill as the greatest Briton of all time must only ever sugar coat the actions he took that led to people suffering. Equally not everything he did was bad so it’s important to examine him and his legacy from all angles and in a fair way. We live in an age of trial by social media but once the furore dies down I suspect their will be a few historic individuals with slightly different identities than before.

We are re-addressing our own history then and as long as that’s not with corrupted intentions it can only ever be a good thing. It is important to realise though that we are doing so with our modern take on morality and while it doesn’t absolve people of their wrongs it is still important to take into consideration the times in which they lived. That doesn’t entirely excuse them of course because there are plenty of examples of people in their time expressing beliefs more attuned to our contemporary ideals. Slave traders can not be excused when there are so many examples of people trying to eradicate the practice at the time for example. It can be used by apologists as an excuse but it is important to remember that we are viewing a different time when trying to understand previous takes on racism, sexism and power.

Which begs the question of whether we need to take into consideration how future generations may view us now. Will they understand our actions on race, sex, religion or economic productivity and think us simply abhorrent. On the other hand will they view all religion as abhorrent. I have called people fascists in the past in a derogatory way but had historical events turned out differently that word would have a different meaning. Ultimately we have no idea how our societies and our moralities will evolve and how we will be viewed in the future but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take it into consideration. Our behaviour in combating climate change is one such example. If we carry on like this I suspect it’ll be pretty clear how we’ll be viewed. It could be argued this will tie in with whether we manage to overcome neoliberal capitalism and what kind of society we manage to create in the next fifty years. It is easy to criticise people from the past and sometimes rightly so but it’s important now in understanding our own actions that one day we too will be someones past.

Let’s Dance

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Today got a little tetchy then. It seems like the far-right turned out to defend memorials, fight and prove something. I thought it might kick off this weekend, admittedly it’s still only Saturday so plenty of time, but I never thought right wing knuckle draggers would be the ones to do it. I’m quite pleased they did actually because it only makes them look bad and strengthens the moral arguments of the Black Lives Matter movement as well as other anti-racist groups. These people have gone out onto the street to defend memorials, got drunk and kicked off. I don’t know if they planned on kicking off in advance, there is talk of it being discussed on message boards, or if the alcohol took over. I have to be careful here though because there have been times I’ve defended violence from anti racists and anti fascists, and while I see a difference it’s possible that difference only exists in my mind because of the prism I like to view the world through. I’m sure there will be elements of the media who will try to portray it as such but is it the same.

I have mentioned that you risk losing the moral high ground when you commit violence in certain situations. This doesn’t necessarily mean I think anarchists throwing petrol bombs at riot police is morally wrong but certainly it can be spun that way by the media and lead the average person to see it as wrong. Yet I don’t condone these thugs behaving as they did today. I guess we need to try and understand why they were really there and what their aim was. I know why anarchists do it but I’m not quite sure why groups like Britain First and The English Defence League do, or why they really do. They suggest they are defending British or English culture but in reality I don’t know what that means beyond white protestants, which is not the entirety of British culture. If the anarchists intention is ultimately to liberate people these people are about subjugating them. How can you argue that with any moral validity. There were apparently a few Nazi salutes done when defending the Churchill statue which suggests they miss the point and have no actual idea who Churchill was and why he is revered. Football firms apparently came together and clashed with police which would suggest the intention was violence. I just don’t get what they were trying to achieve and I’m trying not to be a patronising arsehole who thinks he’s better than others but I suspect I’m also overthinking their thinking.

There has been a lot said about these protests being born in the perfect moment as everyone looks for something to do after being confined for so long. I don’t doubt there is sincerity behind these anti-racist protests but it’s possible there is such interest and energy because of what has happened over these last three months. Why would it not be exactly the same with the far-right. They feel they have an excuse to be outraged and they’re being outraged in the only way they know how. Perhaps that is why they behaved as they did, they don’t know any other way. If violence has solved everything before why would you try a different approach. But maybe I’m overthinking all of this, maybe I’m giving them too much credit.

Perhaps they’re just angry, ignorant and bored, add alcohol to the mix and it’s the perfect storm. But that could be underestimating them and that’s very risky. So no answers then. Not unless I’m willing to suggest they have an argument based on anything credible. If an idea is so flawed it’s impossible to debate constructively with; then it’s not an argument and their actions are not based upon anything defensible. They become the indefensible. Well it was hardly going to turn out any other way here let’s be honest.

A Tangent Of Change

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As I struggle to think about anything to write today, scrolling through Facebook and the news channels for inspiration I am left with the feeling the world is falling apart. We seem to have moved on from the virus pretty quick to the virus of racism. Prior to that of course we moved on from the virus of power and corruption in the form of Brexit. I wonder what we’ll move on to next, a second wave of infections perhaps? I know someone who drives a lorry and apparently the word going around is to prepare for a second lockdown in November, this is what they’ve been told and apparently lorry drivers know stuff so I should believe this. I have seen memes online suggesting this is the worst year ever and what terrible things are going to come next. It might be the worst year ever but that is simply because typical issues which many in poorer parts of the world have to deal with year after year are finally landing on our doorsteps. Face to face with the uncertainty of catching a virus, a hidden bullet we can’t see. Deaths we are impotent from preventing. Is this the new-normal the politicians were talking about.

The unknown is scary. We are scared of the dark because we don’t know what is there, all is unknown. We fear change because we don’t know what it is or what it could entail. We are quick to want to conserve our current way of life if we view it from the standpoint that it works for us and has got us this far. Why change it. Clearly something out there is not working though because we still have violent systemic racism, we still have ideological approaches to saving lives in a pandemic, we still have people manipulating a population for their own personal benefit and greed. So it’s time for society to take that collective step into the unknown and as one step out of that bubble we live in. We don’t know what is going to land on our safe little doorsteps next. We’ve flirted with working together throughout this virus which means we’ve shown we are capable of it. Much of what we’ve heard has been feel good propaganda but we’ve all seen people at some point at least thinking about others before themselves. Some change might need a few generations of social reeducation which sounds ominous, but some we’re clearly capable of. Maybe there is hope for deconstructing the state, decentralising decision making and creating the opportunity for people to achieve self-determination, autonomy and respect. Maybe that’s just me going off on a hopeful tangent but then that is all today seems to be, what life has now become.

When There Is No Choice

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It seems like everything is coming one after another at the moment. We’ve been obsessing about virus’ and pandemics for the last few months and now America is burning. I’m sure there was another crisis facing our health, happiness and prosperity before coronavirus came along too and not just another Tory election victory. Although that may just be a physical representation of the British peoples misdirected anger. I see the riots in America as quite a good thing although I am not entirely sure how I feel about the approach. I remember a few years ago getting involved in a little ‘comments’ argument with someone on a friends social media post about achieving things through violence. I took the stand that people always have the choice, they can choose to be peaceful and they can choose to be violent, violence just leads to further violence as well as giving the mainstream media the chance to take away any moral high ground you may have. I was told I was viewing this from a very privileged position and that if my own existence was constantly under attack and my life was in danger then it’s unlikely I would still have the same opinion or see it as a choice. I think that was the crux of the argument at least but it was a few years ago and memories change events.

I had no argument when I was challenged with that and really I still don’t. I still stand by people having a choice but I am painfully aware I come at it from an incredibly privileged position. I also imagine that constantly being attacked violently leads you to not really see non-violence as an option, it just becomes about defence. If we’re attacked we can defend ourselves. Ultimately I have no idea what is going on in black communities in Britain let alone in America, I don’t live with the daily institutional attacks upon my own self-determination and life. How can I possibly cast judgment on people for either being violent or not being violent. Like I said though I think it’s a good thing to see the state get a little back. It’s good to see them burn. Whether it’ll change anything is anyone guess but it’s interesting so many people around the world are uniting over this, even footballers are getting in on the act and they’re dangerously neutral to anything. I would be curious to see their responses had the police officer not been charged with murder though, had it been the same outcome but also the same old cover-up. I’m an ex-naive idealist who now sees the world through skeptical and slightly deflated eyes, but it’s always nice to get a little hope that something may come from all of this. I imagine at the very least a little less racism in the police force. What a sentence to still need to write in the twenty-first century.

State Sanctioned Distraction

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It is kicking off, reality television just got political. I saw something yesterday about Twitter fact checking Trump which was amusing and about time but didn’t check the news again until tonight. It is all going off. The real story must be about another killing by the police but it has become part of something else as Trump takes on Twitter. Originally he was accused of inciting violence, his post was moderated and he got a cyber slap on the wrist. Ultimately that is it. Trump then acts like a spoilt child being told off and is now getting some petty revenge. He’s getting payback. For better or for worse he is a fascinating man. Maybe more this is a fascinating situation playing out but someone like him just isn’t supposed to be that person.

There is the other side of this and that while he is going to war with Twitter and trying to repeal Section230 or 240, I can’t remember and I don’t even really know what it is. I think it’s something to do with regulating social media and whatever it is that allows the social media companies to get away with things. Anyway, he’s just proving he’s the master of distraction, there’s some sleight of hand stuff going on – as there always is with politics and power – but it does allow for a handy distraction from the riots and police violence. It’ll play out with nothing really happening and everything forgotten about after the bluster. The other side of the story which involves police killings and riots then is forgotten about too. For those not having to live it everyday that is. And I accept I am not one of them, and I will forget it because I am not living it everyday.

A rather crass leap to something else right now then, cats walking over loads of spread out objects and not knocking them over. It is quite impressive how they manage to just walk through them without any falling but what impresses me more than anything is that their back feet step in all the right places too. They’re not looking where they stand, they can’t see because they’re looking forward but they’re so aware they always step in the right spot. It is simply incredible. It also makes me realise the importance of cat videos online. State sanctioned what? I’ve forgotten what you’re talking about. Remarkable creatures.

Tin Tin the Racist

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Contemporary morality is an interesting beast. I was just discussing Tin Tin and looking at the chronological order of his stories, and while I enjoyed them as I child I have forgotten most now. In the process of this I discovered that his first story was about him traveling to the Soviet Union to take on some corrupt Soviets officials. Hergé it turns out wrote his Tin Tin stories for the children’s section of a conservative newspaper called Le Vingtième Siècle which at the time was attempting to gently align itself with the Nationalist cause, something far more shady and unsavoury than current versions despite all the protestations – although time will tell. Hergé himself was traditionally right wing and after the war was accused of being a collaborator for his participation in a nationalist newspaper in Belgium while under Nazi occupation. His first story was directly and intentionally anti-Communist, with his second even more controversial as he sends Tin Tin to The Congo.

There have been many calls to limit the production of this second story with it’s racist caricatures and stereotypes, not to mention the Belgian history of imperialism and genocide in the Congo only decades earlier. Looking at other stories of his it is likely his interactions with Native Americans would be politically incorrect, and most likely racist by modern standards and don’t even get me started on the horrors committed towards the Scots when Tin Tin goes north. The problem though is whether we should ban these stories. Were his trip to the Congo to be produced now there is no doubt it would be written with racist intentions and should be viewed and dealt with accordingly. Banned, I don’t know, because you enter a minefield of grey areas of hate speech and freedom of speech, but definitely a productive reaction would be necessary. Now it would be the same story with the same images, and it was written by someone with nationalistic and racially surperior ideals but the idea of banning it horrifies me. Perhaps I’m being an apologist for the times, as anti-fascism is not a new thing, but intentional or unintentional racism was arguably more commonplace now than then. The truth is we have no idea how people in the future will judge us for what appears normal and acceptable now as abhorrent in one hundred years. Winston Churchill is admired by many but he was a racist imperialist. The reality is many people were, and that isn’t an excuse because racism in any form is disgusting but Tin Tin was a man of his time. In many ways it is a fascinating historical document. Our morality is debatable, contemporary morality is evolving at ever faster rates, Tin Tin may have been a racist but he had a cool dog and a mate named after a fish, I’ll resist the temptation to throw him in the fireplace of time just yet.