Racism and all the bad -isms

would love it if they sponsored me - its the only tea we drink in our home!

But in terms of for the club - I’d take it - Better than quorn!

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It seems to me that a lot of celebrities who complain about ‘cancel culture’ are actually complaining that you can’t just say stuff and have it not affect you in any way.

This isn’t freedom of speech. It’s freedom from consequence. Nobody has ever had this right. If you say stuff that is outside what society generally deems acceptable then there are obviously going to be consequences to your job prospects, the standing you are held in etc. Rosanne Barr had a track record of racist comments and tweets stretching back a long time before her show was finally canned. She had it coming. Ironically the comment from the manufacturer of the drug she blamed her racism on - that ‘racism’ wasn’t a known side effect of use - was funnier than anything she’s ever done.

There used to be a hairdresser in my village I took the kids to until I was sat there waiting one day and he started making jokes about ‘slitty eyed chinkies’ to the guy who’s hair he was cutting. Apparently, racist banter was quite common, and enough word got round the village in the end that he ended up closing. People went elsewhere. Is that ‘cancel culture’? Or is that people just don’t want to have their hair cut to a soundtrack of racist material?

Does this mean you can’t make jokes about race? Or gay people? Are some subjects just off limits? I think comedy can still approach any subject, and there is very little you can’t joke about. What you can’t do is just fire out unthinking one-liners, devoid of context and then claim the ‘it’s just a joke’ defence. You need to put the thought and craft into ensuring your intent and your target is clear. Twitter is obviously not the best medium for this.

This is one of my favourite bits of stand up. Stewart Lee and his imaginary black wife.

There are potentially offensive stereotypes of black people, gay culture, and the Irish. In the hands of a lesser comedian there would be problems. But because so much thought and precision has gone into this, and Stewart Lee has created a context to the comments and a stage persona that makes it clear that the butt of the joke is his own ‘patronising liberal delusion’, it lands beautifully. It’s the opposite of some hack comic firing out shots for cheap laughs.

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Don’t say that. I’d be dead without Quorn! It’s my only source of protein.

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Do you eat mushrooms, bread, asparagus, cabbage, brocolli, cauliflower, beans (any type) to name a few vege’s? If so you get plenty of protein.

I think you’re discriminating against vegetables :wink:

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There’s no protein in veg. Protein is meat, fish, eggs, cheese. That kind of thing.

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The good kind of thing… :wink:

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Ahem

Asparagus has 2.2g protein per 100g
Brocolli - 2.5g per 100g
cauliflower - 1.9g per 100g
Mushrooms - 3.1g per 100g

and so on. That’s before I get to beans, nuts and some grains like quinoa, buckwheat etc. Generally the numbers are quite low, but nuts are conversely quite high. Most people dont really need the amount of protein that they eat.

Apologies for drifting the thread off course.

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No need to apologise. Gotta keep these vegans in their box :laughing:

I’m a failing vegan. Do I need to get back in my box? Quite happy to maintain world peace?

Seriously though I’ve had to study up on this a bit. I’ve got dodgy kidneys and limiting protein intake is one good way of managing the condition. Limiting animal products is another - red meat in particular contains creatinine which is how they measure your kidneys performance.

Even though I follow a meat free diet for medical reasons I’m more than happy to preach for animal welfare and environmental benefits from my mini plastic free soapbox now. I’m plastic but proud.

From time to time I could kill for a bacon and egg sandwich though.

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I heard earlier that Nike have stopped sponsoring their kits. :nerd_face:

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season 3 GIF by Berlin Station

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Tongue in cheek mate. I’m all for everyone eating as they please and not telling people what they should and shouldn’t eat. Each to their own :grinning:

Ah that old chestnut again.

Where this argument fails so badly is when it is applied to subject matter that is not deemed unacceptable by society. Look at the Chappelle case in particular - a violent racist takes offense at comments Chappelle makes about the TG community. Immediately there is a call on social media by a group of people to have Chapelle censored. An action that was undoubtedly considered by Chappelle’s employers. Meanwhile, the rest of society is not offended, cannot see what the problem is, and are told that they are not enlightened enough to understand or fully grasp the complexities of the issues. Chapelle plays nightly to sold-out stadiums.

Society obviously does not deem his comments unacceptable. Hell, the TG community does not even deem his comments unacceptable.

Just because someone is disabled, or is of a different race, or has different sexuality does not exempt them from teasing and ridicule. They do not become a protected species never to be talked or joked about based upon their racial or sexual identity. There have been laws in place for over a quarter of a century to protect people when things that are said go too far and the motivation behind them is malice and bigotry. Only the lowest form of human could argue against the hate laws.

So who are these guardians of moral speech? - Who decides what is offensive and what is not? In the case of hate speech, it is the judges who decide. Who is the Judge Jury and Executioner deciding what is offensive and what is not? In Chapelle’s case, it would appear that it is a violent racist, a person that some are quite happy to support just because they are a person that belongs to one of the “protected” groups. Never mind about their individual racism or violent acts, it is her identity that matters not her character. The hypocrisy is astounding.

This idea that free speech should be curtailed, checked and judged by self-appointed, self-righteous individuals is deeply concerning - it is an insidious form of intolerance and bullying.

Is the expectation now that people should go through life without ever being insulted or offended? Good luck with that.

So attack the man, not the issue? The issue here is not whether Ricky Gervais will find work ( he will because he gives two fingers to the cancel culture mob). The issue is that he was censored for comments he made about Trophy Hunting. Most people would agree that this type of barbarism is abhorrent and wholeheartedly support Gervais. Others will remain silent on the actual issues - censorship, freedom of speech, trophy hunting and attack the person - I don’t understand why,is it because he is rich and successful?

Concerned individuals would question why Gervaise has been censored over what is clearly a disgusting and despicable act, just to protect an individual’s supposed “hurt” feelings. Concerned individuals would question why people are taking the side of a violent racist accusing Chappelle, when even the TG community are in part supporting him.

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The YCC Chairman has now resigned;

Michael Vaughan’s been dragged into it;

Its a really tricky one - the line between mates banter and what is offensive is very easy to cross without realising - not that I condone it therefore. Vaughan is really defending himself fully - but flippant comments, like that suggested in the article, are also not the kind of things that will be easy to remember in my opinion.

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Then what exactly is the problem here? You’re arguing that performers careers have been grievously damaged by cancel culture whilst in the next breath saying their thriving careers prove society doesn’t want them cancelled. That’s quite the contradiction.

And isn’t it interesting that these cancel culture flare ups always happen on Twitter - a cesspit of a platform in which participants are encouraged and rewarded to show their absolute worst selves.

I think what you - and many people are doing - is seeing a ridiculous pile in on Twitter and extrapolating that to a wider problem in society. It’s not society that’s the problem - it’s Twitter.

I didn’t know about the Ricky Gervais tweet, so I did some googling, and the only thing I can find is Facebook (not Twitter) very recently deleting a post in which he called trophy hunters cunts.

Again, we’ve got to be wary about leaping to conclusions about stuff like this. Throwing around words like ‘censorship’ and ‘cancel culture’, implying that he was censured as part of a woke agenda.

What appears to have happened is that Facebook pulled a post from 2018 that violated their T&C. Likely it’s was subject to a complaint from a single person or handful of people (I’d speculate probably trophy hunters themselves) and facebooks algorithms took it down (probably because of the repeated use of the word ‘cunt’) without a human being ever taking part in the transaction. It isn’t evidence of a society that values protection from offence more than animal cruelty. It’s evidence of facebooks algorithms being fucking stupid.

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By the way, I looked at Ricky Gervais’ tweet about this, and the replies are full of people giving examples of bizarre stuff Facebook algorithms have censored.

No

This was an organised campaign and a walkout by a number of Netflix employees ( one of whom made violent and racist comments about Asians) calling for Chapelle to be cancelled. It was not something that began on twitter. My argument was not initially about comedians careers - and there is no contradiction. Chapelles career is thriving despite a clamour for him to be censored and cancelled. This is because he basically tells those people to fuck off. Society, and especially performers are not willing to take this sort of intolerant censorious bullshit anymore. This applies not only to entertainment, but to all walks of life.

The exact problem is that certain people unjustly sought to have him cancelled and others, and without knowing the full facts, supported that action. It is not ok to attempt to deprive people of opportunities and income based upon a small and bullying minorities perception of being insulted. This has happened far too often and as I have said before thankfully the adults have re-entered the room and are pushing back against this bullshit.

I agree that twitter is a cesspool, along with much of social media.

So while we’re talking about knowing the full facts before jumping in, which seems like sensible advice, how does that square with you getting the Ricky Gervais story completely wrong, assuming it was another case of ‘cancel culture’ and using it to back up an argument that it had nothing to do with?

This happens an awful lot in these culture war stories. It’s the old ‘Local Authority cancels Christmas’ thing. There is often a much more mundane and rational explanation, and a fairly malign intent behind the misinformation.

I said earlier, everyone needs to calm down a bit - that means in relation to social media pile ins, people looking for offence rather than benefit of the doubt, but also - and I can’t stress this enough, given the stakes involved - people who are too far too quick to cry censorship and invoke this idea of a culture war.

I say the stakes are high because this is the kind of bullshit populist leaders like Trump and Johnson have hitched themselves to.

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I didn’t get anything wrong.
I used the Gervais story as an example of how his comments are deemed more offensive than highlighting the mutilation of a wild animal and that his comments warrant censorship by FB and/or individuals that complained about it. I stated what has happened - that he has been censored - and you have surmised that it is an over-zealous algorithm. A complaint was made against his post from 3 years ago - somebody has trawled through his posts hoping to find something they can be offended about. I did not attribute it to Twitter - you did.

It backs up the argument I was making that certain people are more interested in baselessly taking offense at prominent people and seek to have them censored at any opportunity. If you cannot see the connection - two high profile comedians who both have had attempts to silence them on baseless grounds - then I am unable to explain it any more clearly.

This is exactly what I wrote - how is any of it wrong or mis-stating the facts or muddying the argument about censorship and freedom of expression? It backs up my argument that some people intentionally and maliciously seek to be offended.

“A quote from Ricky Gervais - who incidentally has just had a FB post removed in the last day or so, concerning his strong opposition to trophy hunting, because his comments were deemed offensive by someone. The complaint is not that trophy hunting is offensive,but that what Gervais says about it is deemed offensive. JHC.”

People are quick “to cry censorship” because there is an adequate legal process to follow if real offense has been taken, it is not for a self righteous and self appointed mob to attempt to impose their prejudices and emotional frailty upon the rest of society. Shame on the companies and individuals that allow and encourage this behaviour.

I will take a step back - I’m done.

Yeah, you did.

You are directly attributing Facebook removing Ricky’s post with an idea of ‘cancel culture’. A self-appointed moral authority ruining poor multi-millionaire comedians and entertainers careers with their virtue signalling and wokeness.

It’s absolutely nothing to do with that.

This was Ricky’s post.

Quite clearly, someone has complained (most likely someone in the trophy hunting community) and the Facebook complaints algorithm has swept the post, clocked four instances of the word ‘cunt’ and just removed it. That’s the level of sophistication we’re dealing with.

If you look at Ricky’s Twitter feed on this, there is no-one saying ‘actually I was really offended by your egregious swearing more than I was by the barbaric slaughter of animals for sport’. It’s full of people sharing stories of ridiculous thing the facebook complaints algorithm has pulled, rooted in a complete failure of the AI to understand irony and humour.

This wasn’t cancel culture wading in and missing the point. It is Facebook putting a stupid AI algorithm in charge of its complaints, with predictable results.

I appreciate your points in this discussion, but you got this one wrong.