Whitey Grandad

Because they think that they should based on their guidelines.

Just because the police are treating it as such does not of itself mean that it was done by a racist. Jus that someone, anyone, anywhere, has considered it to be such a thing.By their definition such person could be anywhere in the world, of any political persuasion, and could be seeking to foment disruption.

On a wider perspective, do you think that bringing such debates onto the 'front page' is going to improve matters? Or will it be counter-productive?

I'm afraid that's not enough. If anybody anywhere thinks that thsi defacement was racially motivated then truth or evidence goes out of the window.

The plod don't need any eveidence they just need to find some opinion from somebody. Anybody. Even one of their own officers. Welcome to the modern world.

There doesn't have to be any evidence for it to be considered a hate crime. The definition below is from The Metropolitan Police and was controversial at the time this policy was introduced. What is Hate Crime? Hate crimes and hate incidents In most crimes it is something the victim has in their possession or control that motivates the offender to commit the crime. With hate crime it is ‘who’ the victim is, or ‘what’ the victim appears to be that motivates the offender to commit the crime. A hate crime is defined as 'Any criminal offence which is perceived by the victim or any other person, to be motivated by hostility or prejudice based on a person's race or perceived race; religion or perceived religion; sexual orientation or perceived sexual orientation; disability or perceived disability and any crime motivated by hostility or prejudice against a person who is transgender or perceived to be transgender.' A hate incident is any incident which the victim, or anyone else, thinks is based on someone’s prejudice towards them because of their race, religion, sexual orientation, disability or because they are transgender. Not all hate incidents will amount to criminal offences, but it is equally important that these are reported and recorded by the police. Evidence of the hate element is not a requirement. You do not need to personally perceive the incident to be hate related. It would be enough if another person, a witness or even a police officer thought that the incident was hate related.

From the Evening Standard link that I posted above. A mural in honour of Marcus Rashford was defaced within hours of his missed penalty in the Euro 2020 final in what police are treating as a racist incident. The word “F***” was scrawled over the huge artwork of the England footballer, painted on the side of a cafe in Copson Street in Withington, south Manchester. The words “shit” and “bastard” were also graffitied beside the word “Saka”, the 19-year-old player whose final penalty miss gave Italy victory.

I never said that it was and I have condemned the action. but to assume that it was racist is no better. Since skin colour wasn't mentioned then why do you bring it up in your question?

That's your assumption, not the actual case.

It's called jumping to conclusions, or confirmation bias.

If you go to the link that I posted just above you can see the actual wording and in this context it does matter. The reaction seems to be: Rashford has been abused. Rashford is a black man. Therefore any abuse of rashford must be of a racist nature. Such responses are demeaning to a fine young man of excellent character. I have no doubt that he has received racial abuse many times but from the defacement of the mural cannot be interpreted as such a thing.

I agree. This is the sadder aspect to all this. Instead of uniting the country these repsonses only seem to have made matters worse.

Oh really? Where did you find that quote? The GMP are treating it as a 'racist incident' despite not knowing who did it nor why. You might like to ask why they came to that conclusion.

Form two days ago, https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/marcus-rashford-greater-manchester-police-greater-manchester-euro-england-b945320.html The words, in themselves are not racist and without knowing the motives no conclusions can be made.

I agree, they are reinforcing prejudices. All discrimination is wrong.

Different people. There is no logic in such matters.

What exactly do you mean by that?

That maybe why he might consider going for something now. I expect all these factors are in his considerations. He might think that he is better off signing an improved contract with us. We shall see.

I have just paid for my two seats that I had previously reserved. I asked about the deadline and was told that it is midnight on Monday 19th July. I chose to make the payments by credirt card over seven months with the first being made today and the others being taken on the 31st August and the end of the subsequent months. I mentioned that the 'contact' link at the bottom of the supporters' account page was broken and I was told that they knew about this. For those like me who had to go hunting for it, here it is, 02381 780780

I would argue that the defacing of the mural is not of itself a racist act. I know nothing about the motives of the perpretators so I cannot jump to a prejudgment. I condemn the act for what it is, not because of what I might think the motives behind it to be. So why bring it up?

Good. Now you've got it. Not making jokes about black people when you would have made a joke about a white person is discriminatory. The sooner we can treat all people as equals the better. The more that the colour of a person's skin is raised the more that differentiation and discrimination will continue.

They are singling out the ones that didn't score in the penalty shoot out. The colour of their skin is not mentioned.

Weird, isn’t it? What do they know that we don’t?

Some anecdotal stories saying that vaccination ‘cures’ long Covid. If such a thing actually exists.

I’ll be there. That’s if I remember today for my season tickets before Monday.