hypochondriac

Thata not bad. Think we will miss Armstrong who has been great this season.

You said "it's not terror related so it's of no interest to the usual suspects." surely it's pretty likely to be of less interest to a group of people participating in a thread specifically about terrorist attacks? I would have thought that was stating the obvious.

I agree with you that many/most will be unaware of the deeper meaning to a lot of this which if anything makes it worse. It's not about agreeing with "every policy" though but these are a couple of fundamental planks of their reason for existing as stated on their website, in their fundraising and across social media. It does seem that some people are attempting to exploit the goodwill and the obvious agreement of the vast vast majority for something that shouldn't have to be stated like black lives mattering in order to push their own particular brand of far left politics. That worry is only confirmed with things tweeted by the black lives matter UK twitter page and all the rest of it. It's a bit difficult to say that black lives matter is only about black lives mattering and nothing else when all of the available evidence suggests otherwise. I certainly don't want the black lives matter organisation to appear to have the illusion of more weight behind their views than the reality when figureheads purporting to represent them point to the numbers supporting them and then call for far left policies or things such as abolishing capitalism or condemning Israel. People are attempting to utilise that ambiguity for their own ends and its why its dodgy ground for people like the Premier league to be so puploc in their support but opposition would have been met with such a level of criticism that it isn't worth it.

OK then so let's imagine a hypothetical scenario here. Let's suppose that Japan had a large group of Caucasian Western Europeans in their country for some reason and they'd lived there for a number of generations. Let's say that those Western Europeans were killing or being violent towards each other and the Japanese at an alarmingly high rate. In your mind, it wouldn't be possible to look into this issue to see if there are reasons for this phenomenon because that would be racism, even if by looking into it we could make specific plans tailored to best meet the problems within the Caucasian Western European community living in Japan. Even if the violence from these Europeans was causing a spike in violence nationally, rather than looking for causes we would have to treat all violence exactly the same way? Even allowing for the ridiculous hypothetical can you see how nuts that sounds? Also "we should treat everyone equally" by specifically singling out black identity and uplifting their voices in particular? Or taking time to support a business owned by someone with black skin? Or having a quota system so that you have a minimum number of black people employed at your business? I've been calling for individuals not be grouped into boxes based on their racial identities since the start of this thing and it seems like you agree.

You mean people had any doubts that they were the exact same people before this?

Why are all these posters telling us definitively what black lives matter is all about when what appear to be official mouthpieces for black lives matter are all over the radio and accross social media saying something different?

Homeless white male lives matter? Fat (overactive thyroid) white male lives matter? A mate of mine has been in a mental health facility for four years due to a psychotic breakdown and he's white. Is "white males with significant and debilitating longterm mental health problems lives matter" offensive?

Sounds perfect for us to be honest. Hope it happens.

"White trans lives matter." is that offensive?

Sounds like that could suit both parties.

You've chosen to be obtuse and engage in pedantry then. Everyone else knows what he meant. To deliberately exagerrate things to make the point clearer: if a thief broke into your house and said give me your watch or I'm going to burn your house down, technically you had a choice there and technically no one forced you to give him your watch but the dire consequences of choosing not to effectively gave you no option.

Sorry but I don't think either of us will find common ground here I'm afraid but at least we can have a civil discussion about it. I consider there to be a multitude of factors which cause disparities in outcomes and that even with equality being assured you'd still end up with big inequalities eventually because that's human nature. It's a bit like when people continually complain about the much higher number of females who do jobs that require care.Female, male, cultural norms, testosterone levels, intelligence, strength, personality, biology and yes discriminstion and in some cases racism, all of these factors will have an impact on outcomes and its not controversial to say that where issues exist within various communities, it is helpful to look at the responsibilities they have for sorting issues alongside looking at how wider society etc can assist. I used the lower working class example earlier because I have to deal with a lot of these people all the time. Many white working class families have poor outcomes for their children because they do the wrong things, do not parent correctly and end up with messed up offspring as a result. Society can help to an extent, but the most successful are those who engage with help, take some responsibility for their lives and do what they need to do to improve the life chances of themselves and their children. In a number of cases- not all but a number- blaming some sort of racist system or all white people being racist and keeping all differently coloured people down is an abdication of personal responsibility and an easy way to avoid taking responsibility for your own failings.

Things have progressed to the point that legal rights are now equal and mistreatment by police - especially the UK- is dealt with harshly regardless of the skin colour of the victim which is exactly how it should be. So now because there's no overt examples of racism that aren't challenged and cracked down on immediately (as it should be) campaigners have to go searching for covert forms so any disparities between black and white people is due to racism and discrimination, unconscious bias theory has popped up which is essentially the original sin of white people that can only be cleansed by obvious outward signs of your opposition to racism, public atonement for your transgressions and the castigation of dissenters who are not as vociferous as you are in their condemnation. Individuals are no longer condemned for what they say because everyone knows that racism is unacceptable so now you have to read intent into what someone has said so what someone says is racist anyway even if it was not designed to be and even if they repeatedly call for equal rights for all because everyone knows that's what real nazis want. It's no longer good enough to call for a time where skin colour is not an importance like Dr King, its now very important to prioritise black businesses and make the colour of your skin your defining characteristic because white silence is violence and a constant awareness of your skin colour at all times is a requirement for living in modern society.

Absolutely. The lower class labourer just scraping by and disproportionately affected by the Covid crisis is hardly going to have endless levels of sympathy for multi millionaires like Anthony Joshua or Lewis Hamilton who seek to lecture others about the ills of their ancestors whilst signing up to the latest Tommy hilfiger or Nike campaign and instructing their followers to prioritise black owned businesses.

Couldn't disagree more. "white people" are not some homogenous group, we are all individuals and all have been subject to various biases to differing degrees throughout our lives. No random person can point to another random person with a different skin colour and say with any certainty that they have been subjected to a greater or lesser degree of discrimination purely due to their skin colour. You have no evidence to say that high levels of fatherlessness in black families "stems solely from inequality". Are there not cultural factors to consider that would have an independent effect on people's outcomes regardless of some inequality? The way you talk it's as if inequality is the only factor to consider and is the root of every problem or disparity between racial groups. Also unconscious bias is a load of pseudo scientific guff.

I'll be charitable and assume you mean on average rather than every case. High levels of fatherlessness has a huge impact for people's outcomes regardless of race but it just so happens that this level is disproportionately high for black families. Sorting that issue and the allure of gang culture and violence levels would lead to higher employment rates, increase levels of education, improve health (which incidentally would have massively decreased the risk of covid for many black people), and would have an indirect impact on relationships with the police because you would ultimately see lower levels of crime, less police encounters, less stop and search etc etc. Its simple to blame every difference on racism or white supremacy and much more difficult and less black and white (excuse the pun) to talk about the multitude of reasons for it.

You see and some of your critics would stereotype you as a boorish Englishman stuck in the past. Your ancestors would never have gone to the trouble of learning the local dialect to tell a Spanish waiter to fuck off.

If we were to look at stats I'd imagine that a very high proportion of stop and search candidates would happen to be male. Does that make the UK police force institutionally racist?

It's black lives matter supporters asking for BAME people to be treated as a distinct group. I'd prefer that we concentrated on shared values and the content of one's character rather than what shade their skin happens to be but apparently we can't do that anymore. If we are hellbent on seeing colour and making it a factor then if we want to solve problems we need to look at it in all caees and not just when it's convenient. There's large amount of black on black crime in the UK and particularly in London. There's high levels of knife crime committed by black UK citizens. There's high levels of fatherlessness and single parent households in bame families. Pointing out that these things need sorting and that if it were successful it would lead to vastly better outcomes for black people isn't racist it's a statement of fact. Unless you're suggesting there isn't what could be referred to as a black community in the likes of London?

Incredible. So presumably no community has any sort of role in sorting out any problems within their own communities? So in your mind it would be racist to state that there is an issue of class in British society where some lower working class white individuals are discriminated on due to their status but also that this same community have a role to play to sort out lower levels of parental engagement with their children's education which undoubtedly contributions to a problem of lower achievement. That's the same logic.

I hope not. No keeper should be dropped for one poor performance and its a good opportunity for him to bounce back quickly.

It's not debatable that white lives matter doesn't share the same cultural and historical baggage that white power does.

I think you are intelligent enough to realise that no one is being physically forced to kneel and you know what he meant. I expect you wouldn't even get 100% of BLM supporters to agree with footballers taking a knee so football would be quite the outlier if every single footballer who plays agrees with taking the knee. The point is that thebcknseqienxesnofnnotndoibg so are so unpalatable that effectively they don't have a choice.

So you don't think there's any sort of political and societal pressure to conform? Do you think if a player decided not to their decision would be met with a shrug and no one would care? Or do you think they would be vilified accross social media and probably be prevented from playing again?

Have they been overlooked? If anything they've all been reported on and condemned by opposing side with neither side stopping to consider it ironic that their tolerance for gatherings in the current climate is directly proportional to how much they agree with the politics of the people involved.