Stephen Lawrence

I've been thinking about why I hate the words b------s and scum or scumbag. For b------s I think of it as a very unfair word probably because years ago when it was still a stigma a family member had a child out of wedlock and he was called that in a horrid way by other children. As for the word scum, I think, as has already been suggested, that we only apply it to certain people. You probably wouldn't call racist police, or racist elderly people, or racist middle class people scum. People who are called scum are usually from the underclass of our society. Again, I think that's unfair. In fact I think it's a form of prejudice, it's 'classist'.

Hadn't thought of it like that, petallus. There's something in what you say. However, I would call an overtly racist policeman or teacher or doctor a scumbag because to me racism is just scummy. It's the pits, and well-educated intelligent people, which one would hope proessional people are, cannot get any lower if they are racist. Definitely scum. But I do understand what you're saying and why you don't like the expression.

PS I don't think of poor people or people in the so-called underclass (there but for fortune....) as the scum of the earth. It's people who should know better but who keep their stupid prejudices who are scumbags in my view. So, no, not classist.

Bagitha Well said...

And....

I think the word bastard has lost its original meaning. My grandson is a bastard in the old technical sense. So what? It doesn't mean a thing. He has loving and good parents. It is irrelevant whether they are married.

So, in my view, both bastard and scumbag mean the same as despicable person. Despicable person may be 'polite', but I wouldn't like to be called a despicable person any more than I'd like to be called a scumbag or a bastard in the modern sense of the word!

And...

My late Mother was a bastard in the strictest, old-fashioned sense of the word. My Nana had her out of wedlock and suffered mightily for the error of her ways...raising her child without support from family or State. My Nana was POOR, uneducated and she worked hard all her life. She was also the kindest, most generous-hearted lady that I've had the good fortune to know.

My words aren't necessarily adding anything fresh to this thread. I simply wish to print them.

When I put b-----s I meant buggers. Not bastards. I should have typed it in full.

Was considering sensbilities.

I am a bastard.

Oh jingle GOOD for you...and WELCOME back from wherever you've been...

I am afraid we are being distracted from the Stephen Lawrence case. I am sure nobody gives a toss about children being born out of wedlock - four of my grandchidren and all my four great-grandchildren were.
I called the murderers racist scum- there can surely be no argument that they are racist. I make no class distinctions in my use of the word scum - I am just as happy to apply it to bankers who knowingly sell unrepayable mortgages and members of both Houses of Parliament who steal from the taxpayer.

Thank you Super.

Sorry Greatnan. Shouldn't distract.

Bagitha, going back to your posting immediately after my last posting, we go round in circles. The reason I brought up the Yeates case was because I was comparing the emotions behind the Gransnetter who used language like 'racist scum' for the men now on trial for Stephen Lawrence's murder and the same emotions driving the vilification of Chris Jeffries, which can be blamed on the media yes, but they were often reporting what was said of him by other people like us living in the area - and this applies to those now on trial, what we know of them comes from the media. That could be as wrong and as biassed in their case as it was in the case of Chris Jeffries

The real point I am labouring is that in this country people are innocent until proved guilty and this applies as much to the men on trial now as it applied to Chris Jeffries. I think this should be reflected in comments people on Gransnet make about the current case .

You are asking the impossible FlicketyB.

Everyone knows they are guilty.

Point taken, flickety. Media bastards! Who'd a thunk it?

No FlicketyB (I use your name as a matter of courtesy , perhaps you could extend the same to me), we saw them smirking and gesticulating on television so we were able to reach our own conclusions about what kind of people they are. I find it hard to believe that anyone can cling onto the belief that they might be innocent, and I repeat that they are only presumed innocent.
You do not know me and can have no idea what emotions made me use the phrase 'racist scum' but they certainy were not the emotions driving the villification of Chris Jeffries, in which I took no part.

I wonder who tipped off the media about the police interest in Joanna Yeates' landlord?

Fl

I know it's deviating from the thread topic, but I do wonder what the evidence was they thought they had against the landlord.

Suppose we shouldn't bring it up though, now we know for sure he wasn't guilty.

But it is interesting.

Well, I shoudnt be and we dont. In my lifetime there have been so many miscarriages of justice in high profile cases where men and women have been hounded and condemned by the public and media that 'knew' they had done it before the trial 'rightly' convicted them and then years later their lives and families destroyed, the evidence is found that proves their innocence.

Although Colin Stagg was never convicted of Rachel Nickell's murder everybody, including the police, 'knew' he had done it and for 15 years or more he was hounded by the press and reviled by those around him. Every trick and deception going was used to get him to confess to the murder. Years later they found the real killer by which time a psychologically fragile man had had his life completely destroyed.

As far as I am concerned I await the outcome of the trial and will not defend or condemn until it is known.

Fair enough Flickety.

I didn't see the accused men on TV because we don't have one, but if they behaved like racist scum in front of cameras then I think it's fair for them to be called racist scum, whether they are murderers or not. People say don't judge by appearances but by what else are we supposed to make useful judgements about people? Besides, as a social species which picks up the majority of its clues about others from their behaviour and their body language, it simply is how we judge others. There's no point pretending otherwise. And, yes, I do think that knowing a member of a social species which does not benefit from racism is likely to be offensively racist is a useful thing to be able to judge.

The murder issue is separate and I accept flickety's point.

I accept Flickety's right to make her point.

Of course we all know that innocent people have been convicted, but we are talking about one specific case - perhaps we should revert to this thread once we have the verdict.
I still find it offensive to be told that my genuine rage at the way these men have evaded justice for so long, thanks to police racism and corruption, puts me on their level.

Jingl I don't seem to mind bu----s at all oddly I agree with FlicketyB that regardless of how loathsome suspects appear to be, smiling, smirking or whatever, they should still have a fair trial and people should wait untill they are convicted before pronouncing them guilty. Greatnan have you ever served on a jury? I did a fews years ago and we were warned not to be swayed by how the person looked or what we had heard (nice or nasty) but to go solely by the evidence. Not easy!

Me again! I've become really interested in this case and just did a bit of googling. In the Daily Mail it says that when the judge addressed the jury after they were sworn in he told them to ignore past publicity and approach the case with a clean slate. He said they were not to research the case on the internet because 'much of what is on the internet will, in fact, be completely irrelevant to this trial but, even worse, quite a lot of what is out there is either mistaken, unreliable or consists of unproven rumour' I find that quite reassuring but don't know if many others here will.

No, I haven't served on a jury but I don't think that makes me unable to recognise the guilt of these men. We shall see.

I would guess that most, if not all members of gransnet are strongly anti-racist and their feelings are, quite rightly, hugely intensified by racism made manifest through murder. For some, there is a release of these powerful emotions by posting comments about this trial – sometimes quite forcefully expressed, sometimes more moderately but with the same degree of disgust and horror. There are others, whose anger, distress and shock about this appalling crime is just as great, who feel that they have nothing to add and who simply await the outcome of the trial – with or without a trust in our legal system – and equally desperately want justice done and some kind of "closure" (for want of a better word) for Stephen Lawrence's poor parents. There is nothing wrong with shouting, as it were, your anger but, equally, there is nothing wrong with quiet fury either.