Verbal

Where have I said that it's 'alright' that Ferdinand said it? It seems to me that you get yourself into such a purple rage that you can't actually take in what I'm saying. Oddly, you're also guilty of a classic left-liberal category mistake - categorising any oblique reference at all to ethnicity as 'racist'. Racism is intimately tied up with two things: the denigration of an ethnicity other than your own and almost always a socio-economically weaker one; and with the desire for or prelude to violence. How does the black millionaire Rio Ferdinand calling the black millionaire Ashley Cole a 'choc ice' qualify? I don't condone it, I don't like it, but racism it ain't, clearly. What is racist is the behaviour and ingrained attitudes of whites in the southern states who organised to attack and lynch (murder) young black men; or the skinhead gangs in the seventies (sometimes associated with football clubs) that sought out any Asian man, woman or child and beat and sometimes kill them; or the sadistic racists who killed Stephen Lawrence just because he was black; or slightly less seriously, the 'banana' and 'monkey-chant' abuse that used to be directed at black footballers here, and still is at games elsewhere. So yes, racism is 'extreme' - it is violent, intimidatory, and directed at people whose skin colour, being different to yours, is an irrational source of rage. You'd have to be an idiot to classify the choc ice remark in with this.

I don't understand the point you're trying to make, or, given what I've said, why you're quoting me talking about context.

As I said earlier, you've actually helped demonstrate that such an 'insult' hardly even qualifies, and makes the accuser - in this case, you - just look a bit pathetic. Thanks.

'Context', as you put it, makes your case look not just feeble, but seriously and morally vacuous. Contrast the 'contextual' language of "what, what ni**er", as the racist attackers stabbed, beat and murdered Stephen Lawrence, with the sad but trivial spectacle of one millionaire black man accusing another millionaire black man of being a "choc ice". They're equivalent - the same?! I can't imagine anyone wanting to live in your world, or your head, if you genuinely think that.

That is a club heading for the rocks - I bet they're in administration, probably before the end of the season.

From whose point of view? Is your race mine?

Wouldn't it have to be something in a tub?

Well done. You've done something useful on here for a change: proved that calling people various kinds of frozen dessert is not exactly heart-bleedingly offensive in the bigger scheme of things.

How does this supposed 'context' alter a word of what I've said? Are you really saying that Westwood being accused of acting black is racist? Again, I can't tell, because of your habit of arguing both ways at the same time. Could you read your second sentence again and see if you can edit it into a single point rather than two contradictory ones?

How so?

Very dry.

Suppose you are a white man. You see another white man - let's call him Tim Westwood - acting in a way that makes you accuse him of 'acting black.' Is that racist? Hardly. It may not be kind, but to call it racist is frankly dumb. But it IS playing identity politics. Tim Westwood is being castigated by you for acting in a way that resembles the supposed characteristic behaviour of another ethnic group. Sergei, go and read up on Franz Fanon, who kind of invented this form of identity politics in his writings during the Algerian revolution - especially "Black Skin, White Masks". You might learn something about the origins of this idea. As I say, I'm not giving it the verbal seal of approval - far from it. It's just a good idea, sometimes, to know what you're talking about.

I'd call it weird, wouldn't you? Hard to see rasism (for your benefit) in that.

I think it's reasonable to ask for at least a basic standard of non-thickness before discussing something you clearly feel so strongly about you can't even bring yourself to spell it correctly.

And that's how you spell it even AFTER you've edited your post?

You're really working yourself into quite a self-righteous lather over this. It is identity politics: that is, you act white but you're actually black. It is an accusation, in this context and in this instance made by one black man to another. Now go and google anything more than a half-baked definition of 'racism' and tell me how that possibly works. Having said that, I don't believe identity politics serves anyone well, as I said earlier. It's an excuse for not thinking, and can be far worse.

More hopen than proven is my guess.

Deppo was Johnny Depp.

If you take offence, it's possibly offensive.

This is still a bit of a mess, I'm afraid, Sergei. You define 'choc ice' as racist because it is 'unpalatable name calling and deeply divisive'. However, that is not even close to an adequate definition of racism. How is 'choc ice' racist, as opposed to insulting?

Could you PLEASE have a go at editing this so that you don't end up arguing in exactly the opposite direction to the one you started out on? Then I could possibly (if you're lucky) answer, knowing what it is you're actually saying. It's either 'divisive and odious' and on a par with Terry's expressed bigotry or it 'is just basically name calling'. Sheesh!

Pip pip, Lord T!

You'd be surprised how often Pogrebnyak can look average.

Hard to tell. Daleks have a limited vocabulary.

He flogs fags for a living. Not much self-esteem there either.