hypochondriac

What do you think about that NHS link posted earlier?

Apologies I thought you were being sarcastic.

I think you'll have a real job on your hands to convince a majority of the British public that major UK institutions are systemically racist. Best of luck.

It was fake news.

Yes the police in general stop more young black men than other demographics. That doesn't make them institutionally racist.

Cool looks like we agree then. Its very small minorities that are racist as most people have said all along. Calling something institutionally racist is imo an excuse to tar every member of a group as racist and do a bit of guilt by association without having to give specific examples.

That's true but that depends what is meant by "certain factions." I don't believe that the UK is institutionally racist.

Needless to say I completely disagree with your assertion. I don't think we need to go into the minutiae of each example you've given but let's just say I don't subscribe to your theory of institutional racism. Britain is one of the most tolerant and accepting nations on planet Earth (hence why so many want to come here) and we should be proud of that fact.

Given his comment, I'd imagine that Turkish's view aligns quite closely with mine as outlined below:

Well it is less valid if we are discussing current systemic discrimination in the workplace and your evidence for its existence is some historic anecdote from presumably years ago. The only people who have ever claimed that there is no racism in the UK are those who like to falsely caricature their ideological opponents.

I hope you followed your work whistle-blower policy to highlight discrimination in the workplace? Be the change you want to see.

Did it? It's been a commercial gesture from the start or at least since football started doing it. The Nike ad with Colin kapernick predates the taking the knee at the football.

What's a friend of colour?

I'd like to see him do well at least in part because he's black because it would prevent race baiters like that bloke from the association of Black lawyers from calling everyone racist due to less black managers.

It made me sad seeing Sol Campbell doing the rounds the other week angling for jobs and implying racism is to blame for his poor performance and I despaired if this was the representative being used for a black person working in football.

I predicted a while ago that eventually they will announce something like a black inclusion task force or something like that and then use that announcement to end the knee taking whilst claiming victory. It's really the only way they can do it without letting the "racists" win.

It's equality of opportunity that's important not equality of outcome. I don't want to see tokenism in football but I'd love to see a black manager at one of the top teams arriving on merit and performing really well.

What's very sad is that well meaning liberal and compassionate people are co-opted into this cult-like way, of thinking and then are unwittingly used for insidious purposes. I have no doubt that most people who subscribe to this way of thinking believe that they are doing good and that's a tragedy. Of course there's also soggy types who use it as an excuse to feel superior to others, to upset who they see as their ideological opponents and who actually don't give a damn about others but just want to have their preconceived bias confirmed.

Think you got me confused with someone else as I didn't say that. With regards your point on players, that would be fine if I didn't know for a fact that some of the players don't actually want to do it but felt that it would cause a bigger issue not to do so. Of course its the players doing it but they are the representatives of the clubs so it's not just the players doing it in a personal capacity is it.

I wasn't going to bother reading this because it was addressed to an entire racial group but I skimmed through and goodness me that is absolutely appalling and on an NHS website as well. Shockingly racist but sadly when you promote these people you get this sort of thing to justify their salary.

I think it depends though doesn't it. "Improving things even further" for some people is where there is disagreement. Positive discrimination in jobs for example, or job applications where only those of a certain race can apply. Then there's the whole minefield of women's rights and abolishing women only spaces. Some believe this is simply improving things even further but for others it's an intolerable infringement on their rights. Same with gender issues and children. Some of the awful abuses from the Tavistock centre outlined in their recent court case loss were committed in the name of improving things even further. So there's a debate to be had there about what constitutes improving things further and it's certainly not a settled issue.

A boo doesn't really cost anything and I'm not sure it's really a sign of a real strength of feeling, it's more just a quick and easy response from some of those at the game to something they dislike. I doubt many think too deeply into it they just don't like the knee due to its previous associations whether the football authorities want to admit them or not.

The sad fact is that people will express frustration on social media towards high profile targets normally and out of tens of thousands of replies some of those people will be abusive and some of those racist, sexist, homophobic etc etc. The elephant in the room is that for all the good that social media can do, this is the bad and an inevitable consequence of allowing this sort of medium to exist in this format. Changing these platforms is unworkable due to their global nature and how they work so the general public and those in charge need to either accept social media for what it is and learn to block, ignore and track abusive comments without putting every comment on the front of a newspaper or they need to ban social media.

The flip side of that is it's 5 seconds of expressing your vocal opposition to the gesture before getting on with the game and supporting your team. It's not like it's a particularly onerous task to boo.

Well all of those things exist in society sure but I think it suits the agendas of some people and their politics to exagerrate the extent to which these proliferate in society. Like with hate crimes for example where annual figures show record levels of hate crime being reported and then we find out that actually its because the police have changed the definition of what a hate crime is and have been trained that it isn't acceptable for hate crime to go down. So yes homophobia, sexism, racism and m discrimination all exist in the UK but in reality it's a minority of incidences, the country is getting more tolerant and accepting over time and we should celebrate being one of the most tolerant and accepting nations on the planet. Deal with those idiots who are overtly racist, and discriminatory of course but let's not pretend that we live in a systemically and irredeemebly racist, homophobic and evil society because that doesn't help anyone.