sadoldgit

Ben Kingsley has an Indian father. His birth name is Krishna Pandit Bhanji. As I said about Nelson Mandela, there are some historical characters whose lives are shaped totally by their ethnicity. I think you would agree that Martin Luther King would be in the same bracket as Nelson Mandela. A white person playing the part of a black activist is ridiculous. A black person playing a white English Queen is just an actor playing a role. There is a big difference isn’t there? We have had decades of white actors playing the roles of black people and using make up. I am not going to get my knickers in a twist about a few black actors playing white roles and not using make up.

The government have announced a multi million pound investment in repairing potholes in Kent over the next eleven years. Anyone would think there was an election coming up! The trouble is that it is too little too late. There has been so little investment in the infrastructure over the last decade that the problem isn’t just potholes. The road surfaces are all crumbling and breaking up. You won’t find many B roads that don’t need complete resurfacing and rebuilding of the road edges in Kent. As for taxes, I think any reasonable person doesn’t mind paying a reasonable amount of tax so long as it goes on the things we all need and not into the pockets of the present government and their cronies. It seems ridiculous for the present government to be talking about tax cuts when the infrastructure of the country is in such a mess. The only way they can deliver on that promise is to cut public spending further. That won’t bother the selfish amongst us though who don’t give a toss about anything or anyone else as long as they are ok. Ring any bells? It seems that plenty of people in the UK are public spirited though. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/04/17/half-public-pay-more-better-nhs-treatment-savanta-poll/#:~:text=Close to half of Britons,enthusiasm for health service reform.

Hardly my own line is it. It is the production team from Wolf Hall who are responsible for the casting isn’t it? Look, it is just an opinion but I can see that it wouldn’t work in certain cases for what are clearly obvious reasons. Would it be better if the actors played it in white face? It wasn’t a big deal when Olivier played Othello in blackface was it? Of course it would happen now but haven’t we grown up a bit and can make the distinction where it would be inappropriate and when it isn’t for certain actors with certain skin tones to play certain parts? Maybe not, but Jodie Turner-Smith (a black actor) played Anne Boleyn in a miniseries and there were no riots in the streets. She said that the aim wasn’t historical accuracy but the telling of an emotional human story.

It’s nonsense. Cultural appropriation has been going on as long as migration. I enjoy eating and making curries, so what? We are all human beings and we all interact and share experiences. When I was a kid everyone wanted a Mop Top cut to look like The Beatles and no mention the cultural appropriation from the Merseybeat scene. If you were white and supported a ‘fro because you liked black music why is that any different? If you are running a drama department in an inner London school, what do you do if you want to put on a production of Henry 1V part 1? Exclude half of your team because they do have not have the culturally appropriate skin colour? I just hope that any future actors who want a roll in a Tudor production take their family trees going back to the Middle Ages along to the auditions so that us viewers can rest easy in the knowledge that the cast is culturally authentic. 😉 It was mentioned earlier about Daniel Craig playing Nelson Mandela. His ethnicity was a central part of who and what he was as a character and shaped his life so no, I don’t think a white person should be playing that roll. A few black actors playing supporting roles in a dramatisation of an historical event from the Tudor era isn’t really comparable but if it upsets people, they don’t need to watch it. Where do you draw the line? You can’t play Shylock if you are not Jewish? One of the actors made a very valid point. She said it is not about her skin colour but what she could bring to the roll as an actor. I look forward to the day when we stop talking about what divides (some of) us and focus on what we share in common. Basic humanity.

What is more concerning to you? The possible religion of a psycho 15 year old or the possible genocide we are witnessing in Gaza? If this boy is found to be a Muslim, does that mitigate the IDFs actions against tens of thousands of innocent civilians?

TBF the point being made here is that some posters have an unhealthy obsession with immediately picking up wrong doing by Muslims whilst completely ignoring it when others do the same or similar. Batman being the main culprit. Who can forget his obsession with Asian rape gangs yet never a peep from him when white people were/are involved.

Not only were the Sydney police quick to dispel any idea that the motive of the attack was extremist terrorism (if anything he was targeting women) but here is the kicker, the one male killed was security guard Faraz Tahir. Faraz was a Muslim immigrant from Pakistan. You won’t hear that from Batman though.

Given Ducky’s usual behaviour in an ale house and the assumption that he packed the Snapdragon off to play with the sharks so that he could eye up the local Sheilas, I’m guessing 9 pints?

This 100%. Barely a day goes by when someone hasn’t been stabbed to death in the UK but not a word from the usual suspects about domestic knife crime. Any hint that an Islamic terrorist has killed anyone though and they are all over it like a rash. We have all seen how these things play out. It doesn’t take much for a few random people to take matters into their own hands. Irrespective of the motive behind the murders in Sydney, it is quite likely that someone will be triggered by the events in the Middle East and we will see something similar again on the streets of the UK. If that thought isn’t depressing enough, the need to use these events to score points on social media says a lot about the society we live in.

Probably because the government is scared of Putin but is happy to back Israel (despite their use of Western purchased weapons to kill thousands of innocent people and lay waste to Gaza) because they tar all Palestinians with the same Islamic extremism brush. Surely no moral ambiguity here?

It was something else Batman. You must be gutted but maybe shed a few tears for the victims even though they weren’t killed by an Islamist terrorist eh.

What MO would that be? Calling out people who resort to throwing childish jibes around when tens of thousands of people have been and are being killed and maimed. Calling for an end to hostilities and the start of a process to find a lasting peace? There is nothing “hippyish” about wanting the death and destruction to end or for the efforts of all parties to be directed to finding long term solutions to long standing problems. Not only is it in the interests of the Israelis and Palestinians to stop killing each other, it is in the interests of the Middle East and everyone else for this to end. This has nothing to do with being a hippy and everything to do with being a normal, decent, rational human being. And if you are struggling with the concept, these people tend not to use laughing emojis under posts talking about loss of life or serious posts trying to address a serious situation as well as not using childish name calling to try and belittle serious posts.

And there were many people in Gaza who didn’t have a problem with Israelis but are now buried under rubble or are starving to death. Even for you that was an extremely stupid and crass response but then you have made it perfectly clear what you think about Muslims.

The saddest thing is that there are vast amounts of Israelis and Palestinians who probably would be quite happy to live alongside each other but can’t because of their extremist nationalistic governments.

I mention “Jewish people” specifically because you specifically have said that anyone criticising “Jewish people” is antisemetic”. It really isn’t hard to understand unless you are being deliberately obtuse. No one is above criticism. So no slipping mask. Just a case of stating the obvious. *Your exact words were, “I call people who criticise Jews antisemitic”.