Loopy Logic: Racism 3

Everybody should have equal rights – apart from THEM.
Everything would be all right if only THEY would go away.


The Labour Party's disciplinary guidelines are explained here. Some of these comments are anonymous, but they are a paraphrase of views I've seen or heard expressed. Again, I don't agree with any of them.

Every time I speak up for the Palestinians, or criticize the Israeli government, I get told I’m anti-Semitic. Therefore there is no anti-Semitism in the Labour Party. (Argument sometimes continues “These complaints are just a plot to attack Corbyn”.)

There is no anti-Semitism in the Labour Party because there is anti-Semitism in the Tory Party.

I don’t understand anti-Semitism because I really don’t understand who Jews are – there’s no such thing as a “race”, and they don’t all belong to the religion. 

If you accuse me of anti-Semitism you are really anti-Semitic because [reasons].

Complaining about anti-Semitism is anti-Semitic because it’s exploiting the suffering of Jews for centuries.

Anti-Semitism is OK because Jews think their religion is better than all the others.

Anti-Semitism is OK because Israel.

All Jews are responsible for the actions of the IDF/Israeli government. All Muslims are responsible for knife crime and paedophile gangs.

It appears that you cannot deplore Israeli treatment of Palestinians without being labelled 'anti-semitic', which is odd, since Palestinians are semitic. (Via FB)

Making false allegations of antisemitism is in fact antisemitic in itself, by belittling a very serious matter for political purposes. (Via Twitter)

Israel has nothing to do with Jews, Ben Gurion forced Jews to go there, Jews have no history in the land, Hitler persecuted Jews because they were money-lenders. (Mahmoud Abbas, paraphrase)

Split hairs. Debate etymology. Gloss over the abuse of your fellow citizens by attacking the actions of another country's government. Would your response to any other form of racism or bigotry be to squirm, deflect or justify? (JK Rowling)

"The thing about racism is, it's not racist when I do it, because I'm anti-racist. I make racist things unracist by doing them. What's outrageous is not what *I've* done, but that anyone should dare accuse me of racism over it." © every "Rothschild"-ing "Zionist Lobby"-er ever. (@DavidBennun)

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights. (The American Declaration of Independence did not include women and slaves in its definition of "men".)

WE don't have labels, THEY have labels. All labels are pejorative. I’m not a racist/bigot but...

Guys it is never OK to call people racist or to use swear words at them. These thing are worse than any actual racism... (Rachel Shabi She claimed she was being sarcastic, but many agreed with her.)

Bahar Mustafa, Goldsmiths welfare and diversity officer, explained that she could not be guilty of sexism or racism against white men "because racism and sexism describe structures of privilege based on race and gender and therefore women of colour and minority genders cannot be racist or sexist, since we do not stand to benefit from such a system." (Independent)

Lefties all live in gated communities and so won't have immigrants "imposed" on them; or else they live in mixed areas and have become "used to" different people. Hence it's unfair to house huge numbers of immigrants in rural villages (as if that was likely), planting them next to people who have neither gates nor acquired immunity. These country folk aren’t racist, it’s just that they live in a more mono-cultural area and have had less opportunity to mix with brown people and discover that they are people (or “all right really”). And their feelings must be respected. And don’t forget that there are more of them than there are metropolitan latte-sipping quinoa-munching Corbyn-worshipping blah blah blah like you.


I’m just trying to have a rational debate about...
We can’t be too nice to immigrants or there'll be a racist backlash.
A racist joke isn’t racist, because it’s a joke.
There are some situations where it is socially acceptable to use the N-word.
I’m not being racist, you’re being ultra-sensitive.
Neo-Nazis: The alt-left (which I have hastily made up) are the REAL bullies! 
Yes, but that was the past. (I was talking about MODERN fascists.)

By calling people racist, you've introduced the concept of race, but race doesn’t really exist, so YOU’RE the racist.

Americans are racist because of “economic uncertainty”, not because of slavery, the KKK, Biblical justification, “scientific” racism, decades of propaganda about white races being superior etc.

Someone suggests that the way to deal with bigots is to be “civil” to them, June 2018. They’re only bigoted because we’re so rude to them, you see.

This is what happens when people’s genuine concerns are not addressed and called fascism, you get real fascism. Happy now luvvies? (Via Twitter, in response to the resurgence of fascism in Italy. The concerns are genuine, but they are based on prejudice, not fact.)

Don’t tell me that your racist relatives are “the product of their time.” If they’ve figured out how to use cellphones & the internet, they can figure out how to not be racist. (@harikondabolu)

‘I’m not prejudiced, I really am not prejudiced. It’s just that I can’t help noticing that all Roman Catholics are the most terrible liars. It’s not prejudice, it just is so.’ (Agatha Christie, parodying prejudiced acquaintances in her autobiography)

Allow me to clarify: [name redacted] is a vicious racist who deserves to be pilloried as such. As a refugee from a totalitarian country, and a student of its authoritarian heir, I find the mob unsettling even if it’s a mob whose motives I agree with. (@juliaioffe)

“Racism? Oh, that’s a thing in the heads of black people!” “Oh, that’s just another form of mimimi (whining) by blacks who don’t want to take personal responsibility for their situation”. “We Brazilians aren’t racists.” (Black Women of Brazil website)

POC: Hi guys, erm, sorry to bother you but can you please stop shouting Paki at us and beating us up? 
Columnist: Snowflake culture will be the death of millennials. 
POC: Haha gammon memes! How funny.
Columnist: 4000 words explaining why left wingers are the REAL racists.
(Kavya @Kav_Kaushik)

There's a belief here – a dangerous and pervasive one, I think – that any racial prejudice tamer than snarling dogs, fire hoses, and "Whites Only" signs isn't really racism, but something ingrained in a lost culture, something not malicious or active, but embedded, covert, and therefore forgivable. (vice.com on South Carolina)

School PE is racist because it celebrates “white privilege”, a study claims. Traditional school sports uphold elitist ideas that were an extension of nationalism and the British empire... giving advice about fitness could be racist by imposing cultural norms. (Times 2018. Lord Ouseley, former CRE chairman, says the study is “crazy”.)

More here, and links to the rest.

Received Ideas in Quotes 10

In Ireland, it's said that you leave a bit of your soul trapped in everything you crochet. So to avoid this, you should always work in a hidden mistake so that your soul can escape. (Liza Frank @lilithepunk)

The Earl of Morton was executed in 1581 on a guillotine he had himself imported from France. (Twitter)

NEWSPAPER is the abbreviation for *NORTH , EAST , WEST , SOUTH , PAST And PRESENT EVENTS  REPORT. (Twitter)

"Pinny" comes from pinafore, referring to the old method of pinning an apron into place on the chest. (Lucy Adlington, Stitches in Time)

By 1868 the design [of the Plimsoll shoe] included a horizontal line around the sole, reminiscent of the lines newly marked on British ships, thanks to the 1876 Merchant Shipping Act (these were to show the limit of displacement, following scandals of overloading)... The Act had been introduced by Samuel Plimsoll, who therefore indirectly gave his name to the shoes, now affectionately known as plimsolls or plimmies, regardless of whether or not they have the line. (Lucy Adlington, Stitches in Time)

There is a widespread belief that "daps" [for Plimsolls] is taken from a factory sign – "Dunlop Athletic Plimsoles" which was called "the DAP factory". (Wikipedia It also says that they’re called “sand shoes” because wearing them is like walking on sand. And they are really "plimsoles" because you wear them on your soles.)

The two-tone co-respondent shoes of the 1920s and 1930s were so named because they were associated with the sort of person who would be named as a co-respondent in a divorce petition. Divorcee Wallis Simpson, future bride of Edward VIII, wore them – and that was enough to give a taint of scandal to the style. (Lucy Adlington, Stitches in Time)

‘Reticule’ is supposedly a contraction of ridiculous, which was the alleged male response to this frivolous accessory. (Lucy Adlington, Stitches in Time It's from Latin rēticulum, diminutive of rēte, says the dictionary. Reticules were sometimes called “ridicules”, but that was a joke.)

Haversack, which was originally a soldier’s bag to carry haver-cakes – oat rations. (Lucy Adlington, Stitches in Time It does derive from "oat bag".)

The first cravats are widely supposed to have been introduced to France and England by dashing Croatian mercenaries in the early 17th century, but there are other less romantic etymologies that suggest mangled forms of Turkish and Hungarian words – kyrabacs and korbacs – both of which mean a long, slender object. The French cravache, or horsewhip, is another source given for the English term ‘cravat’. (Lucy Adlington, Stitches in Time Croatia is Hrvatska.)

She had read somewhere that if you ate pigeon every day for forty days you would die. (A Tale of Two Families, Dodie Smith)

Beau Brummell spent nine hours a day in the preparation of his toilet, sent his laundry to France, and wiped his razor on pages from first editions of the classics. (Cecil Beaton, Glass of Fashion)

Digestive biscuits are called “digestives” because it was believed that the large amount of baking soda they contained would act as an antacid. (Passport.topix.com They contain bran and wheatgerm, and large amounts of baking soda would make them inedible.)

Barbers used to double as surgeons, “which is why surgeons today take the title Mr rather than Dr - being a doctor used to be a much more respectable profession than a surgeon.” (RM)

Aldi checkouts are the fastest, but “How does Aldi propose to hurry up those dozy shoppers who take an age to produce their wallet/purse/card at the end...? It’s almost as if having to pay shocks some people anew each time." (Carol Midgley in The Times lifts an old slur from Bill Bryson's Notes from a Small Island, 1995.)

The story is widely told that the borough council demanded that Wren should insert additional columns within the covered area [of the Windsor Guildhall], in order to support the weight of the heavy building above; Wren, however, was adamant that these were not necessary. Eventually the council insisted and, in due course, the extra supporting columns were built, but Wren made them slightly short, so that they do not quite touch the ceiling, hence proving his claim that they were not necessary. In fact, the gaps are filled with tiles smaller than the capitals. (Wikipedia)

That story is told of St Paul’s Cathedral too. (HC)

The London Underground was deliberately designed to bar the disabled. At the time of its Victorian design there were great numbers of disabled soldiers and there were concerns that their invalid carriages would clog the carriages and tunnels. (Via FB, source possibly Londonist)

The name HAND OF GLORY comes probably from French "main-de-gloire", a corruption of "mandragora" (ie. mandrake). (JN)

More here, and links to the rest.