Well done Lawrence Fox!

Actually...."behinderten" means "disabled" not really "retarded"

pinkquartz you quoted some of my post in yours. As stated in my post it was addressed specifically to jura who mentioned handicapped people in her post which was I used the same word. I apologise if I offended you in any way.
I was trying to suggest that we shouldn’t have fixed ideas about which people were more able to have empathy with others just because of the way they look or the colour of their skin. A wheelchair user or a blind person is more likely to be identified as incapacitated (sorry searching for a better word) than say someone who is deaf or has an non visual problem like some forms of autism which brings them abuse from some unkind and unthinking people.

ladymuck my friends working in disability rights sometimes ask to be called impaired. They use the term disabled to describe the restrictions society puts on them. Some use disabled because they choose to.
Many disabled people have felt empowered by the ideas and language of the Disability Rights movement. This language, endorsed by disabled people, focuses on respect and self representation.
For many the term ‘disabled’ has become positive and empowering, as it denotes the recognition of oppression and affiliation to a movement. Used as a verb - I am disabled by attitudes; he is disabled by systems, he faces disabling structures - it recognises disability as a social oppression - something external to the person. Significantly, it also acknowledges something that can be changed.
The word handicapped has been unacceptable for quite some time.

The summary that Eloethan requested. It,s rather long but I wanted to be thorough.

I shall refer to the writer as P.

The sub-title of the article says that "blaming Meghan's flight on prejudice is absurd and simplistic in a nation that stands out for its tolerance and diversity", so that is the basis of her thesis in the article. Her premises are that the UK is a tolerant nation when compared to others and that our current online conversations about racism (e.g. on Twitter, I suppose) is terrible and neurotic. P thinks in 50 years' time this will be obvious.

Then P describes what happened between Rachel Boyle and Laurence Fox, quoting what each of them said. With regard to Fox saying "we're the most tolerant lovely country in Europe", P says apparently Finland is but we come second.

P says Fox deplored 'real' racism on QT and said that anxiety about it means "things like the Manchester grooming scandal get ignored". [I understand that this means police didn't deal properly with the abuse white girls were getting because they didn't want to cause "community tensions". This has been acknowledged elsewhere].

The article then says Fox was being a prat mocking woke culture but the Twitter pile-on culminating in him being called a disgrace and calls were made for his work to dry up was over the top.

P calls this nonsense that needs unpicking, that our dialogue about racism has become absurd and counterproductive (see the paragraph above) — a bigotry about bigotry. P says two 'racist' examples are cited among the coverage on Meghan which was mainly "fawning and fascinated" or "routinely snarky". [I think Kate Middleton had to put up with similar amounts of snark].

The two 'racist' examples most cited are: (1) a reference to M's mother's slave ancestry, yet M "proudly mentioned her mother's freed great-great grandfather". P mentions also at this point Michelle Obama's description of her black daughters playing on the lawn of the White House built by slaves.
(2) Rachel Johnson's piece (P calls it a "moderate-to-bitchy" piece) mentioning "exotic DNA". P says this was actually RJ's only positive point: strong new blood for an inbred royal family. [In biology this is referred to as "hybrid vigour", i.e. something good].

Moving on, I quote P's words: "That the newest duchess is of mixed race is merely interesting, like Diana's Elizabethan Spencer ancestry. If you assume that mentioning it is an insult you admit your own covert assumption that non-Caucasian blood is somehow shameful, and that really is racist".
P then talks about some more about the sickness in perception and determination to be offended that are causing serious problems in our society and says we should be ashamed that conversations about racism have become "more quarrelsome and emptier even while legal protections have increased.

P admits we are not perfect and refers to the identical CV study that Eloethan mentioned above. She talks of young black men in prison in too high a proportion and of deaths in childbirth disproportionately affecting black women.

Final paragraph talks of "self-promoting activists [endlessly] repeating that Britain is racist. That anyone with white skin carries, in the US metaphor, 'a knapsack of invisible privilege' and despises you" and how this is not helpful to black people. P admits we have bigots, vandalisers of mosques and temples, "national embarassing uncle in Piers Morgan" but that "murderers and burglars do not make us a criminal nation, nor do thugs and rude boys."

She says "most people are disgusted by racism" and "millions adore Stormzy, Sheku, Lenny Henry, Mo Farah, jazz, grime, rap."

There is work still to be done legally and culturally but we are not smug, P says, and "self-flagellating doesn't help".

Thanks for your effort -

surely, idiots like Fox don't help, at all- he did not attempt to discuss or debate - but put out a rude and irritated blank statement that 'no racism' was involved.

A young friend shared this article with me today- a white British woman who is widowed from her African born, black, husband. I'd say her experience is worth much more than mine. My OH is VERY mixed race, 3 racial groups- it just does not show, btw.

''For example, the press has talked about her “exotic DNA”; described her as “(almost) straight outta Compton”; attacked her for the very things that Kate Middleton, Prince William’s white wife, has been praised for; and compared the couple’s son to a chimpanzee. But in TV studios around the country, commentators seem to have peculiarly missed all of this. The coverage of Markle has been welcoming and warm, they say. And when confronted with the evidence that shows that certainly hasn’t always been the tone of reporting, they ask: Is it really racism, though?

Not all racism is overt. Much of it is subtle, quietly shaping the way people are seen, talked about, and treated. Some, like Piers Morgan, have argued it’s not racist to talk about Markle’s DNA as “exotic,” but this term has colonial roots, long working as a form of othering. Acknowledging this would mean really grappling with the insidious ways racism operates in the UK, undermining the notion that it is fundamentally a “tolerant” and “progressive” country.''

Full article here

www.vox.com/first-person/2020/1/17/21070351/meghan-markle-prince-harry-leaving-royal-family-uk-racism?fbclid=IwAR3xuLm2lhU_RWIqpy_ys9kLcoLeZ0mEgzoB-3QS1AEMhpBhSm1o2jNxIUM

For me though, the main question remains. Why would anyone feel so threatened by the acknowledgement that racism exists, and was certainly felt by Meghan and Harry? What makes someone feel that way? Why is it some of us do, and some don't?

Then P describes what happened between Rachel Boyle and Laurence Fox, quoting what each of them said. With regard to Fox saying "we're the most tolerant lovely country in Europe", P says apparently Finland is but we come second.

Is this really what was said?

Because Finland is the least tolerant of countries in Europe

We are second to Malta for being the most 'tolerant lovely country'

www.newshub.co.nz/home/world/2018/11/finland-shamed-as-the-eu-s-most-racist-country-in-new-report.html

trisher when jura used ‘handicapped’ I assumed it was because her first language is French and disabled people translates as les gens handicappe( with an accent which I can’t do on my iPad) so I forgave her. I think widening out the debate to include anti-semitism and disability is very useful - I don’t think non-Jewish people denying tgat something was anti-Semitic would get the free pass that LF has. And as a disabled person, I would say without hesitation that my judgement as to whether something is ableist or not has much greater weight than the judgement of a non- disabled person. I wouldn’t expect for one moment that all disabled people would share all the same judgement re these issues but I would listen to and respect their views as they have skin in the game

Sorry jura I missed out on a page of posts where you had explained about using the word ‘handicapped’

Yes, thank you suzie- and I have apologised and done some research this afternoon on the origin of the expression, etc- and will go to bed tonight just a bit less stupid, as a Canadian friend says.

''For some, the word handicapped evoked the idea of a beggar with cap in hand, though this was not the original source of the word. And disabled at that time was attractive for its rather cold, clinical connotation, meaning that it lacked euphemism or patronizing attitude, things that were also a problem for terms like special or differently-abled. The main problem with handicapped, though, was simply that it had not been chosen by the people it was supposed to describe.''

Although I speak, listen to, read and write English every day- it has been just over 10 years since we moved here- and I can feel that fluency is not what it used to be. As you say, in French we still very much use the word 'handicappé' - and sometimes my brain does go for direct translations. Apologies, again.

So according to trisher we can use the word 'impaired' but not 'disabled' or 'handicapped'. I always associate the word 'impaired' with weakened or damaged so it's not my choice of word and I find it rather offensive when applied to people.
The word 'disabled' means having a physical or mental condition that limits movements, senses, or activities. That sounds much more respectful to me.

Chestnut if you are interested look up the social model of disability it is now considered more acceptable then the medical model

In response to the traditional medical model of disability, disability activists and scholars have offered a social model of disability [8], which relies on a relatively sharp distinction between impairment and disability. Within the social model, impairment is understood as a state of the body that is non-standard, defined as “lacking part of or all of a limb, or having a defective limb, organ or mechanism of the body” ([8], p. 22). As such, impairment may or may not be met with a negative evaluation by its possessor [9]. People who are blind from birth, for instance, often understand their blindness as a neutral way of being, rather than as a deficit or a problem. Consider Deborah Kent, who reports that “…from my point of view, I wasn’t like a normal child – I was normal. From the beginning I learned to deal with the world as a blind person. I didn’t long for sight any more than I yearned for a pair of wings…I premised my life on the conviction that blindness was a neutral characteristic” ([10], p. 57–58). Similarly, and even in regard to acquired impairment, Oliver notes that “impairment is, in fact, nothing less than a description of the physical body.” ([8], p. 35) Disability, by contrast, is the “disadvantage or restriction of activity caused by a contemporary social organization which takes no or little account of people who have physical impairments and thus excludes them from participation in the mainstream of social activities” ([8], p. 22). The point of making and emphasizing this distinction is to show how much and sometimes all of what is disabling for individuals who have impaired bodies has to do with physical and/or social arrangements and institutional norms that are themselves alterable (e.g., stairs vs. ramps; presentation of data using only auditory means vs. universal design for communication, restrictive definitions of job requirements vs. expansive accommodations for different modes of performing work, etc.). People with impairments of a particular kind may be in a minority [11], but they are typically not thereby rendered incapable of work and social relationships. They need a more inclusive framework in which to participate
It basically means moving away from the idea that someone needs to be fixed and instead adapting society to their needs.

Today I read that someone has said Lawrence Fox needs to be shot in the face. It seems if you disagree, and hold a different opinion of events to the screaming brigade who are looking for racism, looking to be insulted, and trying to stir up anything they can to shut up any other opinion, then you need to die. or at the very least to be stifled, after apologising for holding any opinion of your own. What a point we have reached when free speech is only for some sectors of society.

Chestnut I don’t think trisher actually said that. She was quoting others. The development of the social model of disability in the 1980s away from the individual model of disability was seminal in the history of disability rights. The really important thing is that you do not focus on what is wrong with the person and try to put that right but what is wrong with society that impairs the individual and try and put that right. I share many of pinks frustrations.

and I totally respect that.

Same indeed for racism, in many ways.

Cross posts trisher.Nice final sentence - the crux of the issue

That's just from a paper, trisher.

It's not gospel

It's not the norm

I am disabled.

I am not impaired

I would never want to be seen as impaired

Just because some people say they are impaired, others will prefer disabled.

We're just getting ourselves in knots with all this

Some black/mixed race people don't believe that Meghan was racially abused

Some do

Some white people don't

Some do

It's an endless conversation.

You are never going to make everyone happy

And I'm not sure who has been using the BAME acronym on here but that is insulting to many people who are black/mixed race/Asian

Rosina, the abuse since last week's QT has gone both ways - tragically. The young woman who disagreed with Fox has had the most disgusting and foul abuse and threats.

Thanks suziewoozie
Rosina I don't think most people who oppose racism would say such things, any more than I think most people who may have opposing views would. Extremism is something we all recognise as unacceptable. It should be condemned by all and that condemnation should not be limited to a particular section of society.

oopsminty quoted part of my post, the bit about Finland being, apparently, the most tolerant European country:

P describes what happened between Rachel Boyle and Laurence Fox, quoting what each of them said. With regard to Fox saying "we're the most tolerant lovely country in Europe", P says apparently Finland is but we come second.

and then asks:

Is this really what was said?

No. The bit about Finland is what Libby Purves says in her article. She does say "apparently", so I presume she got the information from somewhere.

I find the comment about being shot in the face quite shocking Rosina. What a vile and evil thing to say. While some people are bickering about the right words to use others are making violent death threats to innocent people. These are the kind of words which in my opinion are far more damaging to society and should be called out and dealt with.

No. The bit about Finland is what Libby Purves says in her article. She does say "apparently", so I presume she got the information from somewhere.

Oh I see. Thanks for that

Maybe she got confused

Happens to us all

Taking the discussion onwards - much of the discrimination disabled people face ( I can only talk about mobility related aspects) is not being mocked or shouted at in the street but is based on the ableism that is institutionalised or unthinking. This often means that problems result from the fact that disabled people are not consulted in the planning and provision of services not because they are deliberately ignored but because they are just not on the radar

I don’t know any disabled people who would say ‘I am impaired’ but if any do, it’s their choice. As for the shooting in the face comment, one person saying that as shocking as it is does not have to result in mass shock/horror.