hypochondriac

I see soggy has gone off the deep end again. Saying someone is living "rent free in his head" is calling him mentally deficient! You couldn't make it up!

Exactly. It's like he can't trust himself to simply see the poster and then just skip over their posts. No willpower.

Why would you stick someone on ignore and then keep mentioning it? They're clearly still living rent free in your head regardless of any ignore list so it seems a bit redundant.

You forgot about when he labelled Nazis Christians because of their belt buckles and when he called people rape apologists for calling into question the verdict of a man who was ultimately acquitted (and then refused to apologise.)

Don't get me wrong I think the racism moral panic from the media and particularly on social media has been laughably overblown and mostly exacerbated by the pandemic. I'm just saying that I can see why the players would be annoyed about direct racist abuse from social media users. That doesn't excuse it being continued for what seems like weeks now after the final or as you state to basically not mention some of the other burning injustices when this feels rather minor by comparison but I do see their point of view.

TBF you can oppose all of these things at the same time. On another note, I see that saka is going to become the youngest recipient of the freedom of Ealing award for his "courage." I mean ffs isn't this getting a bit much now? The team lost, can't we celebrate properly when they actually win something?

That's very sad that you got beaten up. I would say though that isn't a universal experience. My wife is also Asian and has been called a "paki" twice in her life which I would say was racist but otherwise has not encountered any racism like you describe. She's never been beaten up, never been served last, never been spat at or been refused a taxi. She has just been offered a new job from people who were happy to have her and her weird sounding name and if she was asked where she was really from she would reply that she was born in England but her father is from Iraq and think nothing more of it. I'm sure those things do happen but its not something my wife or any of her friends have ever had to deal with and most of them live in Southampton or London. Thanks for the post though it was interesting to hear what you had to say and I'm sorry you've had some terrible experiences by the sounds of it. I hope the people involved got their comeuppance.

Is that a crossword clue?

It's fascinating how you can tell the colour of someone's skin based on what they post on here. Remarkable.

Would mean we could bring in a half decent keeper hopefully so I'd be happy with that.

So weird that you can tell the colour of someone's skin just from what they write on a message board.

Thank goodness sue whistle is here to misrepresent everyone's views again. I'm disappointed though that the post made no mention of playing football or alcohol as I'd come to expect those topics from a sue whistle post.

Stand down lads. They've got him.

That channel is a joke. Why anyone thought a TV channel would work in this era I have no idea. They should have launched it as an online streaming service on YouTube or something like that.

Good because I haven't booed them so we are in agreement with that. I disagree that the gesture is "doing something about racism" as I believe it harms more than it helps and the fact you think the link is tenuous is ridiculous and says more about you and your wilful blindness to be honest but we've discussed that issue a number of times. You're welcome to believe that the link is non existent or tenuous and I'll continue to see the evidence in front of my eyes that the link is clear and obvious and was only distanced by football governance once they realised the controversy. It doesn't really matter anyway as the point being made is that regardless of what you believe the gesture is divisive for a number of people who hate the gesture but don't support racism and it should be changed for something that virtually everyone would support.

Hold on I thought we have been told repeatedly that BLM has nothing to do with the BLM that called for the abolition of the nuclear family and defunding the police?

That's what I've been saying from the start. It's totally intolerant to say that you have to accept this symbol and actively support it or you are just happy for people to be racist.

I didn't say that the players are saying defund the police and that they are anti-capitalist. I've never said that.

Taking the knee doesn't help people to know that racism exists. There's never been any disagreement about the existence of racially motivated abuse, it's only ever been about the response and about the taking of the knee.

Indeed and the same thing applies to those who aren't a fan of the taking the knee gesture. Perfectly reasonable and rational to believe racism is wrong but not to like that gesture.

An article on the guardian said 143 I think but they included "criticism of taking the knee" in that.

Well done sir you put it much better than me. You are entirely correct.

Because its a hugely disproportionate response. A miniscule minority post horrible abuse on twitter and there's calls to change the entirety of the Internet on an international level and to end social media, for GCHQ to get involved etc etc. It's also unhelpful to the issue to not be honest about the extent of the problem on social media. It's rather like how twitter blows up certain issues in the uk and it looks like these are giant issues and driving the political agenda, only for elections to come around and remind us that the reality is that twitter is not real life and the majority of people in the country do not give a toss about what social media thinks about certain things. There's nothing wrong with the things you outlined above but those aren't the things that people are objecting to.

The division is what I've already outlined in my previous post. Racist abuse should be harshly dealt with as it is already. If people can be identified then they will be and will suffer serious consequences. It simply isn't socially acceptable to be racially abusive to anyone in the UK and the vast vast majority of people consider it to be completely wrong and most studies into it show that Britain is the most tolerant it has ever been and getting even more tolerant all the time which is fantastic news. I think that focusing on what we have in common and what united us will help hugely. Over the past few years we've sadly imported an insidious type of culture over from America that seeks to divide people along racial lines, seeks to tell others what is an acceptable way to think based on skin colour or sex (look how people are denounced as not really black or not really female based on their opinions) and a horrible type of victim mentality that tells people they are either perpetual victims or irredeemably evil based on their skin colour (see the Robin deangelo best sellers for more of that type of thing.) The last thing I want is for these racial divisions perpetuated and sustained by this sort of thinking to continue because it will only make things worse, resentment will grow on both sides and it will lead to a more racist and intolerant society.

Only a total moron would go out of their way to bang on about the shades of skin of the players in a national football team. Players are there because of their ability and how white or otherwise they are should have zero bearing on it. Certain people have been harping on about it over the entire tournament just as they did during the world Cup. It's so boring and divisive to separate teams in that fashion. Same goes for idiots on the right who were suggesting that there was some conspiracy from Southgate by picking black players to score and potentially win the shootout for England. Its all pathetic.