NPR

Saw the thread title and thought Nasser Hussein had come a cropper!

JM2K6 wrote: ↑Sun Jul 19, 2020 9:40 am

TB63 wrote: ↑Sat Jul 18, 2020 10:47 pm

Ali Cadoo wrote: ↑Sat Jul 18, 2020 10:08 pm We get it, TB - you think the N-bomb is a suitable word for black people and you can’t understand what all the fuss is about.

Er. No. Considering my ex is Jamacian, I never would consider using the N word in a derogatory fashion, I find it appalling. I also find this rewriting of history appalling, anything considered offensive is being removed. You can't change history, it happened, live with it. Brushing it under the carpet will only serve to remove learnings from the past, mistakes have been made, learn from it. Don't repeat those mistakes..

Mate, it's a fucking dog that had a racist name because its owner was a racist who was also a good pilot.

I'm sure you have evidence to support your claim that Gibson was a racist beyond the name of his dog.

JM2K6 wrote: ↑Sun Jul 19, 2020 9:40 am

TB63 wrote: ↑Sat Jul 18, 2020 10:47 pm

Ali Cadoo wrote: ↑Sat Jul 18, 2020 10:08 pm We get it, TB - you think the N-bomb is a suitable word for black people and you can’t understand what all the fuss is about.

Er. No. Considering my ex is Jamacian, I never would consider using the N word in a derogatory fashion, I find it appalling. I also find this rewriting of history appalling, anything considered offensive is being removed. You can't change history, it happened, live with it. Brushing it under the carpet will only serve to remove learnings from the past, mistakes have been made, learn from it. Don't repeat those mistakes..

Mate, it's a fucking dog that had a racist name because its owner was a racist who was also a good pilot.

Just off the top of my head I'd say he named the dog due to its colour, and N***er Brown/Black was a recognised paint of that era.

Gong wrote: ↑Mon Jul 20, 2020 10:00 am

JM2K6 wrote: ↑Sun Jul 19, 2020 9:40 am

TB63 wrote: ↑Sat Jul 18, 2020 10:47 pm

Er. No. Considering my ex is Jamacian, I never would consider using the N word in a derogatory fashion, I find it appalling. I also find this rewriting of history appalling, anything considered offensive is being removed. You can't change history, it happened, live with it. Brushing it under the carpet will only serve to remove learnings from the past, mistakes have been made, learn from it. Don't repeat those mistakes..

Mate, it's a fucking dog that had a racist name because its owner was a racist who was also a good pilot.

Just off the top of my head I'd say he named the dog due to its colour, and N***er Brown/Black was a recognised paint of that era.

Correct. I can remember this polish was in wide use when I was a child (long ago)



Even then I remember it left me with an uneasy feeling.

Growing up in a rural area of South Africa, the N word was never used, or even referred to. We all said Natives, which is probably racist now. And the bad one was Kaffir, even though the Transkei was called Kaffirland by everyone, even the Xhosas. That was changed a long time ago.

Biffer wrote: ↑Sun Jul 19, 2020 10:15 am People need to get over themselves. Street names have been changed throughout history to memorialise or mark things that society at that time wanted to mark. Statues have been replaced for similar reasons.

It's a current, vital society that is still doing things that are worth doing that keeps changing. One that looks only to the past for its public displays is a country on its way out.

Indeed. If the dog's name was EnglishAreKuntz we would see a different reaction. In Llanelli during WWI we changed a lot of street names that were Germanic - Manaheim to Prendergast etc. Even Ze Royal Family saw the benefit of that: Saxe-Coburg and Gotha to Windsor.

Yeeb wrote: ↑Mon Jul 20, 2020 8:00 am

Sandstorm wrote: ↑Sun Jul 19, 2020 8:31 am

Ali Cadoo wrote: ↑Sun Jul 19, 2020 12:35 am I quite like the idea of re-naming streets that were originally named after really bad people, maybe the kids will ask why it is happening and they can learn the lesson that being a really bad person will not bring you rewards.

I do agree that it might be hard to draw the line as to where this might stop, though. But let’s assume that racist murderers should not be commemorated.

South Africa has renamed whole provinces! And hundreds of streets. It’s not a problem, people just use the new names and get on with it.

Not in Durban they don’t, point Rd etc in the city, Kingsway in Toti (with the Alfred zondo official road names spray painted out) . Naming a road over a terrorist who used land mines to blow up shoppers was extremely poor judgement in the town he attacked.

It’s a bit different to a dog name though, which I have no problem being badly dubbed Digger in films if it gives certain people one less thing to be upset about. Assuming Gibson was racist because of his dogs name is risable, it was just a common term then and just not an acceptable one now. Times and values have changed that’s all.

I think its fair to say he was racist, but acknowledging they were different times, and so there is a cultural reason for it. People are more travelled and knowledgeable nowadays, so no excuse.

LandOTurk wrote: ↑Tue Jul 21, 2020 5:54 am I think its fair to say he was racist, but acknowledging they were different times, and so there is a cultural reason for it. People are more travelled and knowledgeable nowadays, so no excuse.

It's only fair if you have any evidence he was a racist. Again, as with JM, I ask you to provide proof of the accusation.

I've read a lot on Gibson (617 etc) and there's no doubt he was a difficult man but nothing to suggest he was a racist (taking the context of the times where now, by some virtue signallers' standards, we'd end up accusing the entire population).

My twopence worth is that context is everything here, by the standards of his time, no he could not be classed as racist, but by today's standards, absolutely its racist, BUT that does not necessarily make him racist, had he been alive today would he have done the same thing? i would highly doubt it. It is a completely different world we live in now where the standards we are judged by are very different.

Am I missing something here? Are people suggesting that you can't call someone racist because being racist was an acceptable standard of their time?

A hundred years before, owning slaves was socially acceptable - are we saying that wasn't racist because everyone was at it? "Lots of people used that word in general conversation at the time" because lots of people were racists.

There's Wally wrote: ↑Tue Jul 21, 2020 11:41 am Am I missing something here? Are people suggesting that you can't call someone racist because being racist was an acceptable standard of their time?

A hundred years before, owning slaves was socially acceptable - are we saying that wasn't racist because everyone was at it? "Lots of people used that word in general conversation at the time" because lots of people were racists.

Yes you are missing something, applying contemporary social mores and defintions to the past is an act of futility. You can say that everyone from the past is racist and... what? What does it do except affirm that how we think now was different to how they thought then. There's no issue with acknowledging that we think we've got a better set of values now, but when we start looking to individuals of the past accusatorily or punitively for acting in a manner or holding views normative for their era it's really not achieving anything except an opportunity to live up to the worst definitions of virtue signalling and it's worth bearing in mind that people will likely be speaking of us with scorn or disdain for one reason or another once we're dead and gone as the collective mores of society are usually in flux.

LandOTurk wrote: ↑Tue Jul 21, 2020 5:54 am

Yeeb wrote: ↑Mon Jul 20, 2020 8:00 am

Sandstorm wrote: ↑Sun Jul 19, 2020 8:31 am

South Africa has renamed whole provinces! And hundreds of streets. It’s not a problem, people just use the new names and get on with it.

Not in Durban they don’t, point Rd etc in the city, Kingsway in Toti (with the Alfred zondo official road names spray painted out) . Naming a road over a terrorist who used land mines to blow up shoppers was extremely poor judgement in the town he attacked.

It’s a bit different to a dog name though, which I have no problem being badly dubbed Digger in films if it gives certain people one less thing to be upset about. Assuming Gibson was racist because of his dogs name is risable, it was just a common term then and just not an acceptable one now. Times and values have changed that’s all.

I think its fair to say he was racist, but acknowledging they were different times, and so there is a cultural reason for it. People are more travelled and knowledgeable nowadays, so no excuse.

Gibson was pretty well travelled.











Germany mostly.

There's Wally wrote: ↑Tue Jul 21, 2020 11:41 am Am I missing something here? Are people suggesting that you can't call someone racist because being racist was an acceptable standard of their time?

A hundred years before, owning slaves was socially acceptable - are we saying that wasn't racist because everyone was at it? "Lots of people used that word in general conversation at the time" because lots of people were racists.

See sock's post but on another matter, slavery and racism is a blanket conflation. Having serfs, vassals or house servants can all be seen as forms of slavery and (mostly) they would have involved peoples of the same race.

I wonder what is considered acceptable language now that will in future be deleted, changed or hidden.

Plato’sCave wrote: ↑Tue Jul 21, 2020 2:28 pm I wonder what is considered acceptable language now that will in future be deleted, changed or hidden.

I can pretty much guarantee it will be gender related

Things could swing in directions opposite to what we'd expect, it's not written in stone that our trajectory will continue in line with 'progressive' thought. Puritanical conservatism could become resurgent and look back at us as civilisation destroying decadents. Our current definitions of child and minor are fairly broad and unusual viewed against most of history, we could end up being considered infantilisers who interrupted the natural order.

I can just imagine all those Romans looking at the changing attitudes towards paedophilia from ancient Greek times, asking themselves 'where will the madness end? soon, we won't be able to have orgies with vomitariums without people tutting in disapproval!'

Biffer wrote: ↑Sun Jul 19, 2020 11:05 am

Lobby wrote: ↑Sun Jul 19, 2020 10:58 am

Biffer wrote: ↑Sun Jul 19, 2020 10:15 am People need to get over themselves. Street names have been changed throughout history to memorialise or mark things that society at that time wanted to mark. Statues have been replaced for similar reasons.

It's a current, vital society that is still doing things that are worth doing that keeps changing. One that looks only to the past for its public displays is a country on its way out.

Indeed, Gropecunt Lane was a common street name in the middle ages, but fell out of use as social mores changed, and the existing streets had their names changed to something more innocuous. I doubt anyone would think it an acceptable name now.

I love that when you look at the wiki page on that, it says that gropecunt “appears to have been derived as a compound of grope and cunt”. Thanks guys.

But also look at the number of Churchill street/road/avenue etc there are now. What were they in 1930? And more recently Mandela place/way etc. This has happened throughout history as times change. I think it’s reflective of how backward looking britain is, desperately clinging to its history because it has no vision of the future.

There's been more than one famous Churchill.

The dog had a racist name - it was the codeword of an operation and any film or dramatisation loses nothing by changing the name and we gain nothing by keeping it. We can clearly see that by today's standards what Gibson did was racist whilst also understanding it was probably nothing that remarkable at the time - doesn't excuse it, doesn't mean we need to repeat it either.

Ali Cadoo wrote: ↑Tue Jul 21, 2020 3:45 pm I can just imagine all those Romans looking at the changing attitudes towards paedophilia from ancient Greek times, asking themselves 'where will the madness end? soon, we won't be able to have orgies with vomitariums without people tutting in disapproval!'

You don't get into Westminster much, do you?

Torquemada 1420 wrote: ↑Wed Jul 22, 2020 5:49 pm

Ali Cadoo wrote: ↑Tue Jul 21, 2020 3:45 pm I can just imagine all those Romans looking at the changing attitudes towards paedophilia from ancient Greek times, asking themselves 'where will the madness end? soon, we won't be able to have orgies with vomitariums without people tutting in disapproval!'

You don't get into Westminster much, do you?