Racism fascinates me, as do perceptions of racism and the
way different people perceive things as racist. As a white English male I
wouldn’t normally have been exposed to much prejudice, but as it happens I was
fairly severely disabled as a child.
One of the things I had was St Vitus Dance and if you can’t
figure out where I am coming from here you can put it into YouTube and get some
idea of why I developed an interest in various forms of prejudice as a
child.
The school http://www.treloar.org.uk/
I went to was for the disabled so I was able to see things from a broad
perspective and although there was a fairly broad prejudice in the 50s and 60s I
don’t think it really got to me.
and here is Simon's response in blue:
"It’s unfortunate but hardly surprising, that Prince Adebayo wasn’t shown the Tweet, which accompanied the picture he describes as ‘Racist.’
In fact, Christine Tongue, who made the video, hadn't seen the Tweet either and while happily ‘Tweeting’ that I’m annoyed, she didn't carry any of my responses to her questions on it. She writes to me: “What was the text of the original tweet? We'll happily include that in the magazine, too.”
So it appears the singer was simply shown a picture out of context and asked if it was racist and was he offended?
The caption was actually this:
“In the wake of the #ClactonByElection a comforting message from #Labour in #Thanet ?”
And this was in the context of another Tweet you may have read: “Unless the Labour left stop conflating immigration with racism UKIP will continue to build momentum among its disillusioned voters.”
So in the satirical style of “Have I Got News for You” what did it mean for those who failed to grasp the clues?
As I replied, below, to Thanet Watch when they asked me to explain:
1) UKIP wins Clacton = migrants unwelcome?
2) Our Labour PPC remarks on migration (BBC Politics Show et al that immigration is not an issue locally. Immigrants are welcome in South Thanet - A good thing perhaps?
3) Clacton is opposite Thanet which is of course opposite Calais (which as you will see from the news this week, is experiencing immigrant riots as 400 attempted to storm a ferry this week and at least 2,000 migrants camped waiting to get into England of which BBC SE report 1,000 are from sub-Sahara). This, quite coincidentally, is illustrated in the photo of a large group of north Africans crossing the water in two trucks.
So in reality this is a satirical observation directed at UKIP, Thanet's own tolerance and Labour's local indecision on a policy issue, which featured significantly on the news last weekend but was willfully distorted by John Worrow and Ian Driver, who pumped it up and re-tweeted to their followers, who re-tweeted it to their followers.
It was seen at total of 665 times, with 12 comments, which is less than my equally satirical UKIP armoured column outside Rochester picture, which had 742 impressions.
Where racism fits into this is a conundrum but it does illustrate once again the danger the more extreme left faces here in Thanet by insisting on remaining loyal to the idea that questioning of the discredited dogma of uncontrolled immigration and racism are two sides of the same coin and by doing so, play neatly into the much cleverer hands of UKIP"
Can one have a favorite piece of Thanet racism, if you can then this Manston article is mine http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/blogpicts2/id71.htm
On to the council I did genuinely receive an email from
their solicitor today telling me to remove a link from by blog to an Isle of
Thanet Gazette article about Pleasurama. Now from where I am sitting if a local
blogger can’t link to a local paper article without risking prosecution by the
local council, then one has to very careful indeed about what one can write on
the blog these days.
On to Manston and now we all know that the council’s expert
advice is not to proceed with the cpo, I will try to ramble on a bit about
where this leaves the various political groups.
I guess that virtually every council up and down
the land would give their metaphorical eye teeth to have the Discovery Park
people buy one of their huge brownfield sites and promise £1bn investment
coupled with thousands of local jobs.
I come from a well to do area in London and have grown up with many different people from many different nations, people who have just arrived in the UK and people who are 3-4th generation immigrants so their fathers fathers was born in the UK. London has a fantastic vibe and multicultural brilliance about the place. I have whiteness many people in Thanet being out right racist but being white English myself their are taken aback when I say "that's not cool" I just wonder in 100 years when all the races are mixed and we have no economic immigration, what will people think of their ancestors? Will they look at them as we look at slavery or maybe how gay people were treated? It clearly is a matter of the people who support racism are stuck in the past and need to open their eyes and embrace their fellow human being
ReplyDeleteSorry about this but I have just inadvertently deleted the last 100 comments, about four days worth, I ticked the wrong box on the computer screen and selected the whole page of 100 comments instead of just the one comment I wanted to delete.
ReplyDeleteMichael,
ReplyDeleteYou say, "On to the council I did genuinely receive an email from their solicitor today telling me to remove a link from by blog to an Isle of Thanet Gazette article about Pleasurama. Now from where I am sitting if a local blogger can’t link to a local paper article without risking prosecution by the local council, then one has to very careful indeed about what one can write on the blog these days."
I find your version of events difficult to accept. What you describe is an outrageus act on the part of TDC. I find it difficult to accept TDC would behave in such a way. There has to be more the story than you tell.
John I have forwarded you the email for your consideration
DeleteCome to any conclusions yet John on whether Michael's interpretation of the email was correct?
DeleteHere's one link they wont remove TDC press release