Man sends banana to black mans table in Wetherspoons pub

[Dis86]

I disagree strongly with you on this and for probably the reasons you think so I'll save typing them out.


This I disagree with far less strongly, and was actually the reason for asking you for more detail on your views. When resources, time, and cost are all in play then prioritisation has to happen for things to run (semi) efficiently and this case has consumed all three of those things. I'm glad the idiot's actions did have repercussions but I'd hope that was in addition to other cases being dealt with, not instead of others.

Unfortunately that won't be the case. There are definitely finite resources at play in the criminal justice system in this country. It is most definitely a case of robbing Peter to pay Paul. Unfortunately because the police are so heavily politicised they put a focus on prosecution rates because it makes them look good.
This became incredibly easy with the introduction of so called 'hate crimes'. They're generally very easy to pursue and present the required level of evidence for prosecution, you can see then why they're a politicians wet dream for crime stats.
Forget the need to go after those pesky burglars wearing gloves, or the 'he said she said, nightmare of a rape case, you can go for the low hanging fruit of Dave saying he doesn't like black people because they're all thieves. A crime that might hurt a few people's feelings but is more likely to do nothing more than give Tony E an excuse to decry that we're a nation of racist monsters all over social media and ride that white stallion of his.

 

[Dis86]

Crikey. That's a leap.

Not my intention at all.

Who cares what your intention was? You're dealing with people who think it's good to run to the police over being offended!

 

[Yadda]

Too late, you’re already reported to Case King.

Looks like my attempt at corny humour could land me in the dungeon. Sheesh, some people.

I'll know better next time.

For the record, the joke was a surreal one and I'd have said it for fruit/peanuts/pickled onions/whatever.

That's me all out of ***** to give for tonight - bring on the castle guards!

 

[Dis86]

Looks like my attempt at corny humour could land me in the dungeon. Sheesh, some people.

I'll know better next time.

Just be a humourless drone and you'll be ok.

 

[NVP]

Looks like my attempt at corny humour could land me in the dungeon. Sheesh, some people.

That'll be £1.2k in fines and court costs

 

[Tefal]

Crikey. That's a leap.

Not my intention at all.

Is it?

What was your intention?

 

[Yadda]

Is it?

What was your intention?

I've explained it once.

You're making a mistake here, Tefal. Calm yourself down FFS mate.

 

[NVP]

Is it?

What was your intention?

Implying the pubs (which in discussion were of an old school racist nature) were also homophobic.

That was my take, anyway.

Edit: oh, I was wrong then haha I think I confused his joke about the star wars cantina as the same discussion

 

[Dis86]

Tefal, perfectly supporting my point on the patheticness of these types of situation.

 

[Yadda]

Implying the pubs (which in discussion were of an old school racist nature) were also homophobic.

That was my take, anyway.

Edit: oh, I was wrong then haha I think I confused his joke about the star wars cantina as the same discussion

It's what runs through my mind whenever I hear "Do you serve X?" instead of "do you sell X?". It's just how my brain works.

 

[chef-borjan]

You neglected the fact that slavery has been prevalent throughout human history and enacted against all races. I notice you never mentioned that 3 African cities alone were responsible for the enslavement of over a million white Europeans from 1500 to 1810...

Additionally, since you were harping on about black African slavery you claimed it was within living memory. It's not. At all. It was abolished completely in the UK in 1833. There are no known people alive who even knew someone who was a slave, let alone someone living who was a slave.

Finally it was not racial discrimination. I suggest you look up the meaning of that term.

There are some important things to notice about Dis86's response, even though it is quite short. These points below can also be made against other comments in this thread, but I don't have the time to explain each and every one of them.

I have no interest in changing your mind Dis86 because I honestly think you are not a decent person and furthermore it is a lost cause persuading you over an internet forum. But to those that are reading this that are on the fence... If you are undecided on what is 'right', please pay attention to how these responses are constructed in a way that normalises harmful behaviour. All I would say is that we all have the chance to be better people to each other and its all someone we should want to do.

My main post was about how this 'joke' was disgraceful behaviour and a symbol of racism and oppression. I have given a logical progression explaining how such thoughts occur.

1. Racism is an awful thing and it has enabled a lot of suffering.
2. Racists find ways to dehumanise others.
3. In this case by saying that black people look like/are a bit like apes.
4. Hence bananas are thrown at them or sent to them in a pub.
5. These kinds of 'jokes'/symbols are an insidiousness as it means the above mentality can creeps into the mindset of people and they let their prejudices cause harm to others.

Now, lets get back to this response.

1) Bringing up unrelated things to show 'both sides'. Racists will often say 'well A is not a problem, because B happened as well'. Look carefully about the first line about African cities. Let's even take it as true, as I have no specific reason to doubt it. But how does any of this negate my logical chain as just presented above? Surely it must do otherwise why it is being used in this response? I will spare you the answer. It doesn't. It does open up other discussions about the global histories of inequalities and oppression, but that isn't what we are talking about. So WHAT if there were historical black slave owners over white people 500 years ago? In the context of this discussion, a white person has dehumanised a black person by using bananas to symbolise that they are sub-human, which I am saying is a bad thing. Do these three African cities or that it has happened since the dawn of time hence it's okay? Or something about black people... deserving it?

What was done here was an attempt to appeal to everyone's innate desire for fairness by bringing up other 'bad things'. But it simply doesn't work here. Appalling things like racism have no place in a decent society, it doesn't matter what was done when etc etc. end of.

2) Reduced to picking apart semantics, in an effort to appear educated and come from a position of authority. If the base argument I was making (the 1-5 steps) were wrong, it should be very easy to break apart this chain in a logical sense. But instead, this response is using 'evidence' to undermine some specific examples or facts I have attempted to use to back up the logic. This is a laser focus on semantics, picking tiny holes again to make it seem like they are in the right. But it's a complete failure when you look at it with scrutiny. Firstly because it doesn't break apart my core reasoning (which really is the main test, and this is also a good point, racism doesn't stand up to any logical scrutiny), but even against the semantics there was a poor attempt. Firstly, re: slavery in living memory. Let's scroll up.

White civilisations have historically enslaved and oppressed darker skinned people. Also importantly, this happened within a relatively recent time and within living memory. Th effects are directly being felt today with regards to the inequalities. So, black people (and other ethnic minorities but we will stay on topic here) were treated as a sub-class of people. Slavery and many other forms injustice and oppression.

While it is true that slavery in the UK was abolished a longer time ago... who here can sit back and categorically state that my intention with this sentence is to talk about slavery and slavery alone? I talk about other forms of oppression. Black people have had an extremely hard time in recent living memory at the hands of white people, who have been in a dominant position of power across the world for the last few centuries generally speaking. Its similar for the final sentence, focusing on the wording rather than attempting to understand the message.

I am not saying this banana 'joke' is racial discrimination.

What I am saying is that a person like you Dis86 would dismiss any form of racial discrimination they see in front of their eyes as 'whining'.

I'm not sure any form of 'looking things up' will change that for you.

 

[Yadda]

Ok. I've had time to reflect.

The word "fruit" does have homophobic connotations. It's not a word I've head used in that way for a very long time - I never think of "fruit" in that way, ever. That usage didn't enter my mind at all.

However, the connotation is there and it's my fault for not spotting it, and for that I apologise.

@Tefal Sorry fella, no offence meant.

 

[FoxEye]

We've been over this in this thread. No one has been enslaved or generations of their families persecuted because they were short or ginger.

How long, tho?

Slavery was ended in 1833. We're not far out from the 200th anniversary of that event. That's ~10 generations in the past.

How long do we keep harkening back to the slave trade?

I get that some say modern-day black people are still impacted by the slave trade. They say it, anyhow.

So I ask, how long? How many more generations need to come and go before people will say, "Modern-day black people aren't impacted by the slave trade, abolished in 1833."

Or are we basically saying, "It will *always* be worse to be racist than to persecute gingers or short people. Because, slavery. Hundreds of years ago."

PS I'll happily re-iterate my belief that the guy who sent the banana was being a dick, for the avoidance of doubt.

 

[Diddums]

There are some important things to notice about Dis86's response, even though it is quite short. These points below can also be made against other comments in this thread, but I don't have the time to explain each and every one of them.

I have no interest in changing your mind Dis86 because I honestly think you are not a decent person and furthermore it is a lost cause persuading you over an internet forum. But to those that are reading this that are on the fence... If you are undecided on what is 'right', please pay attention to how these responses are constructed in a way that normalises harmful behaviour. All I would say is that we all have the chance to be better people to each other and its all someone we should want to do.

My main post was about how this 'joke' was disgraceful behaviour and a symbol of racism and oppression. I have given a logical progression explaining how such thoughts occur.

1. Racism is an awful thing and it has enabled a lot of suffering.
2. Racists find ways to dehumanise others.
3. In this case by saying that black people look like/are a bit like apes.
4. Hence bananas are thrown at them or sent to them in a pub.
5. These kinds of 'jokes'/symbols are an insidiousness as it means the above mentality can creeps into the mindset of people and they let their prejudices cause harm to others.

Now, lets get back to this response.

1) Bringing up unrelated things to show 'both sides'. Racists will often say 'well A is not a problem, because B happened as well'. Look carefully about the first line about African cities. Let's even take it as true, as I have no specific reason to doubt it. But how does any of this negate my logical chain as just presented above? Surely it must do otherwise why it is being used in this response? I will spare you the answer. It doesn't. It does open up other discussions about the global histories of inequalities and oppression, but that isn't what we are talking about. So WHAT if there were historical black slave owners over white people 500 years ago? In the context of this discussion, a white person has dehumanised a black person by using bananas to symbolise that they are sub-human, which I am saying is a bad thing. Do these three African cities or that it has happened since the dawn of time hence it's okay? Or something about black people... deserving it?

What was done here was an attempt to appeal to everyone's innate desire for fairness by bringing up other 'bad things'. But it simply doesn't work here. Appalling things like racism have no place in a decent society, it doesn't matter what was done when etc etc. end of.

2) Reduced to picking apart semantics, in an effort to appear educated and come from a position of authority. If the base argument I was making (the 1-5 steps) were wrong, it should be very easy to break apart this chain in a logical sense. But instead, this response is using 'evidence' to undermine some specific examples or facts I have attempted to use to back up the logic. This is a laser focus on semantics, picking tiny holes again to make it seem like they are in the right. But it's a complete failure when you look at it with scrutiny. Firstly because it doesn't break apart my core reasoning (which really is the main test, and this is also a good point, racism doesn't stand up to any logical scrutiny), but even against the semantics there was a poor attempt. Firstly, re: slavery in living memory. Let's scroll up.



While it is true that slavery in the UK was abolished a longer time ago... who here can sit back and categorically state that my intention with this sentence is to talk about slavery and slavery alone? I talk about other forms of oppression. Black people have had an extremely hard time in recent living memory at the hands of white people, who have been in a dominant position of power across the world for the last few centuries generally speaking. Its similar for the final sentence, focusing on the wording rather than attempting to understand the message.

I am not saying this banana 'joke' is racial discrimination.

What I am saying is that a person like you Dis86 would dismiss any form of racial discrimination they see in front of their eyes as 'whining'.

I'm not sure any form of 'looking things up' will change that for you.

Somebody buy this man a beer.

Ok. I've had time to reflect.

The word "fruit" does have homophobic connotations. It's not a word I've head used in that way for a very long time - I never think of "fruit" in that way, ever. That usage didn't enter my mind at all.

However, the connotation is there and it's my fault for not spotting it, and for that I apologise.

@Tefal Sorry fella, no offence meant.

I honestly had zero clue that "fruit" could be a derogatory term. I may well have offended people with it in the past and not even known it

 

[The Running Man]

How long, tho?

Slavery was ended in 1833. We're not far out from the 200th anniversary of that event. That's ~10 generations in the past.

How long do we keep harkening back to the slave trade?

I get that some say modern-day black people are still impacted by the slave trade. They say it, anyhow.

So I ask, how long? How many more generations need to come and go before people will say, "Modern-day black people aren't impacted by the slave trade, abolished in 1833."

Or are we basically saying, "It will *always* be worse to be racist than to persecute gingers or short people. Because, slavery. Hundreds of years ago."

PS I'll happily re-iterate my belief that the guy who sent the banana was being a dick, for the avoidance of doubt.

Maybe they are looking at africa where the slave reader continues ? Except it's not white people leading the trade.

 

[FoxEye]

While it is true that slavery in the UK was abolished a longer time ago... who here can sit back and categorically state that my intention with this sentence is to talk about slavery and slavery alone? I talk about other forms of oppression. Black people have had an extremely hard time in recent living memory at the hands of white people, who have been in a dominant position of power across the world for the last few centuries generally speaking. Its similar for the final sentence, focusing on the wording rather than attempting to understand the message.

I am not saying this banana 'joke' is racial discrimination.

What I am saying is that a person like you Dis86 would dismiss any form of racial discrimination they see in front of their eyes as 'whining'.

I'm not sure any form of 'looking things up' will change that for you.

You know something funny (not funny). Was watching the recent BBC programme, "Echoes of Empire."

They showed that in several places/countries, when the Brits left, the systems that the Brits created continued to be used. So where there was "British oppression," that turned into just "oppression", from one native against another.

And several people said, "That is the legacy of the British Empire. The persecution that they began continues today."

So, instead of blaming their own governments for the continued oppression (now at the hands of "their own people"), the blame is still laid at the feel of the British.

But it shows also that the natives, "their own", when given the chance would act in exactly the same way as the Brits before them.

And we all know in many places they were selling "their own" into slavery, having spent centuries brutally massacring each other in endless tribal conflicts.

This is often portrayed as the shame of white men horrifically abusing the innocent (black people). And of course slavery and the slave trade was horrific. But the idea that black people weren't capable of being every bit as horrific both before and after Empire is shown many times to be false.

Also slavery itself long pre-dates the Brits. The Egyptians and pretty much every civilisation before them made use of slaves. The Brits and Europeans just applied industrial scale to this practice.

Long story short - all humans are awful. Black, white, spotted, striped. Everything the Empire did was done long before Empire existed.

 

[chef-borjan]

You know something funny (not funny). Was watching the recent BBC programme, "Echoes of Empire."

They showed that in several places/countries, when the Brits left, the systems that the Brits created continued to be used. So where there was "British oppression," that turned into just "oppression", from one native against another.

And several people said, "That is the legacy of the British Empire. The persecution that they began continues today."

So, instead of blaming their own governments for the continued oppression (now at the hands of "their own people"), the blame is still laid at the feel of the British.

But it shows also that the natives, "their own", when given the chance would act in exactly the same way as the Brits before them.

And we all know in many places they were selling "their own" into slavery, having spent centuries brutally massacring each other in endless tribal conflicts.

This is often portrayed as the shame of white men horrifically abusing the innocent (black people). And of course slavery and the slave trade was horrific. But the idea that black people weren't capable of being every bit as horrific both before and after Empire is shown many times to be false.

Also slavery itself long pre-dates the Brits. The Egyptians and pretty much every civilisation before them made use of slaves. The Brits and Europeans just applied industrial scale to this practice.

Long story short - all humans are awful. Black, white, spotted, striped. Everything the Empire did was done long before Empire existed.

What does ANY of this have to do with a white guy sending a banana to a black person to de-humanise him?

How can you just ignore what I just said? Do you understand that you have perfectly illustrated my point about trying to normalise it? I get that bad things have been caused by lots of people around the world for a long time. It’s awful, and none of it should happen going forward.

Don’t bring up this stuff to obscure what is happening in the present though. It’s harmful because you are normalising it. “Everyone does it” etc etc.

 

[FoxEye]

What does ANY of this have to do with a white guy sending a banana to a black person to de-humanise him?

How can you just ignore what I just said? Do you understand that you have perfectly illustrated my point about trying to normalise it? I get that bad things have been caused by lots of people around the world for a long time. It’s awful, and none of it should happen going forward.

Don’t bring up this stuff to obscure what is happening in the present though. It’s harmful because you are normalising it. “Everyone does it” etc etc.

I'm not trying to normalise anything. I don't go around randomly insulting people or gifting fruit.

The point was, we're told that, "Racism is much worse than oppressing gingers or people with facial scars or whatever. Because of slavery."

So then you start having to seriously look at slavery, and how that isn't just something white Europeans did.

So given slavery has been around since forever, why does slavery make racism inherently worse than any other form of discrimination?

It's not "obvious" as some people like to say. "Like duh, of course racism is worse. What's wrong with you? Slavery and stuff."

 

[chroniclard]

Ginger lives matter.

 

[FoxEye]

Ginger lives matter.

There's no need to be a dick to anyone.

It's just strange that some people get to be protected by law and some do not. You have to be the right kind of minority. Heck, minority isn't even the correct word anymore. You have to be in the right group. Then you get protection from discrimination; you get the full weight of the law.

If you're not in the correct groups, however, you just have to man up. E.g. nobody can ever be racist to a white guy. If I went to the police after being called a cracker or whatever, I'm sure they'd have a bit of a laugh about it after I left, and of course nobody would care. You wouldn't care.

Everything today revolves around identity politics.