His career is the latest victim (although it sounds odd using that term about ultra-rich and famous soccer players) of the football world and authorities' obsession with racism. Another victim is English football itself, which has lost a valuable player - and God knows they could do with people like that.
Former England manager Fabio Capello acted with much integrity when he stood by Terry and resigned over the FA's decision to strip Terry of his captaincy before his trial.
The absurdity of the accusation of racism moved by the Football Association against him was revealed during the trial, when one after the other several black or half-black colleagues of Terry's testified that he never displayed any racist behaviour, quite the contrary.
What does then "racism" mean? Even if somebody - and I don't know if Terry did, actually he was accused of just saying "black" which can hardly be considered an insult - but even if someone, in a moment of anger during an altercation, especially in a heated, adrenalin-supercharged situation like a soccer match, used a racial epithet that wouldn't mean he is a racist.
If a man's whole behaviour, ideas and attitudes are non-racist, saying "nigger" does not make him a racist.
"Racism" is a much-overused and abused word which, like many others - like "family" - has come to mean whatever anyone wishes it to mean. And I'm not saying that, it's the Macpherson's Inquiry into the death of black teenager Stephen Lawrence on 22 April 1993 which enshrined that, opening the door to the abuses we witness today, with these words: "A racist incident is any incident which is perceived to be racist by the victim or any other person".
That literally means that a racist incident can be anything, without restriction.
What about this? (Only in Sweden?)
ReplyDelete"Tintin comics 'too racist' for Stockholm library"
http://www.thelocal.se/43428/20120925/
It took a few hours of protests on twitter until they changed their decision, so now the Tintin comics isn't banned.
One person (actually the husband of a Minister in the government), who works within an anti-racist think-tank, was appalled when also the left protested against the ban, where he described the protests as apartheid, and "white rage" (so obviously he, who use that language, is a racist).
His article in Swedish:
http://debatt.svt.se/2012/09/25/vit-vrede-tystar-diskussionen-om-tintinalbumens-rasism/
First I thought we are Soviet now. Fortunately not so (since at least non-immigrated leftist protested against the ban). Somehow funny :) (But not so funny that an organization supported by our government wrongly labeled me islamophobe. What they've done (also other things) must be criminal. McCarthyism and/or DDR totalitarianism.)
Oops! An error in my text! The activist who says Tintin is apartheid, and to refuse to ban Tintin is "white rage" isn't husband, but brother of a Minister in our government.
ReplyDeleteAbsurd. They try to brainwash both children from a very young age and adults through libraries as well. I don't think it's limited to Sweden, unfortunately.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, it seems a sign of sanity that people demonstrated against the library's decision and a sign of democracy that the library reversed it.
Interesting information.
What happened to you is terrible, albeit predictable.
Racism, the word, is still very powerful. Go to work and call a muslim something that hurts his , her feelings. See what happens to you. Today we have moved away from fact based discrimination to feeling based discrimination. Once we discriminated and the outcome could be measured- someone did not get a job. Their chances for healthcare, jobs, housing were affected by discrimination. Now we are slowly moving to thought crimes. First we have your words hurt my feelings- you are a racist. Then your ideas hurt my feelings- you are a racist. Finally it will be you are not a muslim- you are racist. Bingo we have sharia.
ReplyDelete