I have seen too many individuals labeled racist or discriminatory for purposes of political or personal gain that I will forever remain heavily skeptical. I'm especially skeptical when I see assertions of racism used to influence the arts or political commentary, it goes against free speech.
There is a significant difference between GTC's obviously light-hearted comments and the likes of Pauline Hanson, people are more than capable discerning that difference and more often than not they do so or fail to do so by choice.
Who are we protecting, what are we protecting them from, and how does it help?
Its really simple LP.
The litmus test, on any argument to do with racism, is how this would make someone feel about the comment if it was the first time they had heard it?
Mine is straight to anger, but over the years I have been conditioned to accept this and find that the next generation should not be put through as much. Not because I should, or because its right, but due to it being common place.
Thats not a reason for this stuff to continue. It was once common for people to own slaves. It was also once common for men to beat their wives. Likewise, sometimes things that are uncommon should become more common. I.e. Women getting equal treatment.
Calling someone a spastic or a retard is out. Calling someone a spear chucker is out. Using a racial group as the butt of a joke to insinuate that "we are better than you" based purely on ethnic group is out even if that is a "harmless joke".
Perhaps I am a little more sensitive to this because a lot of people from my ethnic background at my demographic have started raising families of their own, and my wife and I are starting that discussion/attempt ourselves, and Ive decided that "the standard I walk past is the standard Im willing to accept" and this means a world, where my little ones wont be made fun of because they are Greek/Portuguese Australians(when we are fortunate to have our own).
GIC only meant it to be some light hearted fun, but after I called him out on it, you chimed in with your own comment, and I only see further comments as an attempt to backpedal somewhat.
If you dont like the term racism, how does casual bigotry sound instead?? Label changed, same outcome.
@LP let it go. @Thry If that old gag caused any offence, I apologise sincerely and unresevedly. I must say, I have repeated that gag in front of my Greek mates and others countless times and I have never had an adverse reaction. That doesnt excuse any offence it may have caused, just putting it into context. Again, sorry.
GIC, im a big boy and I can take it so I accept your apology, but I am finding that I am less tolerant of this attitude as I grow older as we were conditioned to accept casual racism in the form of "light hearted humour" and are being told repeatedly that these sorts of comments are off limits towards some ethnic groups and not others these days, so I feel that perhaps these comments are no longer acceptable on any level and that we all need to start cutting this off here. After all, someone goes after the greeks, the greeks then go after another ethnic group and before you know it, we are wondering why comparing Adam Goodes to King Kong is being uttered on radio. You cut off casual racism, and then the real hurtful stuff gets the same treatment.
Sorry to disappoint Blues supporters with Greek heritage but that discovery is just one of many primate ancestors found in Africa, around the Mediterranean and in Asia. It's a side branch or evolutionary dead end and is not ancestral to modern humans.
No dissapointment DJC, that sample may or may not be the missing link, we seem to revise history over and over and over again, and realistically if anyone were to claim that human ancestry began anywhere, hasnt researched the globes history well enough to know that originally the world was one connected land mass. You could find fossils of pre humans in Antarctica FFS.
Just to temper the criticism he's a teenager in his second year of football. If this behaviour is still here next season then get worried but for now it's simply something for Cunningham to work on.
I actually think weitering has been ok as a forward allowing Casboult to play second banana.
He's a better defender, an even better intercept mark,but he's got the ability to play as a forward and we can all see it.
He actually looks like he's been playing under duress but not significant duress which indicates he has better in him and it's possible that he was squeezed forward for that reason being we have fit alternatives in defence but none up forward.
It cracks me up a bit to read some of the reactions.
To hear the slow play hurt us, when it effectively was shelved after the first quarter for a more run and gun style because Freo negated the short kick by manning up and the disposal efficiency dropped off.
The other thing that really hurt was losing Rowe. Killed our structure. Docherty started playing his role in the aerial contests, meaning we had one less competent rebounder once the ball hit the deck bringing the game back to Freo.
Losing Thomas workrate cannot be underestimated either as he is a cool head under pressure when others tend to go missing i.e. his checkside kick goal in the first quarter.
We are still a young developing output, that relies heavily on older bodies and heads to compete, and the youngsters do well when there is less pressure on them to perform. It was a dirty day, but its no insult to get beaten by a mature side, on their own paddock, whom the umpires gave a bit of an armchair ride from quarter time to three quarter time.
Gibbs, Murphy, Simpson, Docherty and Kreuzer are drawing a lot of criticism, but they were some of our better players. Ed Curnow's workrate was massive.
If we had regained our composure and played that keeping off style a bit more we would have absolutely won. I think our changing structure meant we had to change tact to something less suitable to our teams current skillset and that was ultimately the difference between winning and losing besides 5 marks inside 50 to the umpires.
I think you missed the point of what DJC was pointing out. Have another look at his list... pretty damning stuff and all with on-going ramifications.
I'm not sure Baggers.
I dont like Trump, and frankly I think he is what the shadow government that truly runs America wants, because people are so focussed on Trump that they are not really paying attention to things that they should and are hysterical about what isnt a real issue.
But, Ill play regarding the list. Here is my rebuttals:
1. Bombing the Syrian Air Force. - Bombing the "Syrian Air Force" (note it was an airstrip on one day which failed to shut it down for less than 24 hours) was deemed to be a justified show of strength in response to Assad's supposed chemical attack, which kind of doesn't make sense for it to be on a list of undesirable traits doesnt it?
Its paraphrasing at best particularly when tensions are running high, and Diplomacy is required.
Quote
Last week he told Reuters: “His father dies, took over a regime. So say what you want, but that is not easy, especially at that age.”
Mr Trump was careful to add that he was not praising the North Korean dictator, whose brutal regime executes dissidents (and is believed to be responsible for murdering Mr Kim’s estranged half-brother in Malaysia this year), simply pointing out that taking power in such circumstances was a tough thing to do.
The words have prompted intense speculation that Mr Trump is trying to find some common ground with his adversary and open a diplomatic channel by suggesting that Mr Kim is not irrational but was simply thrown into a very difficult situation at a tender age.
3. Sharing secret information with the Russians. - This is not that big a deal. I'm sure its happened before, and it will happen again perhaps a little more deliberately, but to quote the guardian "The intelligence Trump shared involved an Islamic State plot to use bombs hidden in laptop computers to bring down planes". Had no one told the media, would this be a problem?? As per usual, the media are the issue. Don't tell and no one will find out we have sources with this information.
4. Weakening environmental protection. Policy change to undo something that Obama brought in. Sounds bad and good for coal and businesses. Might be bad. Might make no difference. Might be a different plan. I doubt it, its business so this would be an economic change to benefit business.
5. Weakening heritage protection. I cant find anything specific on this, but it might roll into 4.
6. Demeaning women. Not going to argue too heavily about this. I find this an emotive over reaction to a few different things to do with potentially his abortion bill which was to do with pulling funding for organisations actively pushing abortion overseas. reportedly many presidents have done similar, but that doesn't mean any rights were removed. The conversation about kissing women and touching their bits was a bit crude and vulgar, but hardly demeaning. It is something I would expect of teenagers or early 20's males, but Ive heard women in their 40's and 50's say some things that would make your head spin, which simply makes him human as much as we all would like to see him as an oompa loompa.
7. Making the world a more dangerous place. - The USA has done a grand job of this for the last 50 years. I dont see why its something reserved for Trump as president for less than a year.
8. Promoting racism and discrimination. Perhaps. He talks about the wall. The one that exists in some parts but he hasn't built yet?? Anyone appealing to nationalism is going to sound dicriminatory and racist, but bigotry is an emotive tool and he may have simply used it to get elected. discrimination and racism exists unilaterally and I don't believe that it should be reserved for a criticism of Trump but seems to come from the mysoginistic white male thing. In fact, this ties into my distraction above.
9. Jeopardising the economy. See point 7 although I find it interesting that the stock market actually surged on the back of him being announced President. given his point 5 is geared towards good for jobs and the economy its hard to argue this one and that one.
10. Bastardising the English language. Guilty as charged. In fact, he seems a real bastard. Beyond that, he hasnt done much that any other president hasn't done before him but has done it in such a way that offsides everyone. That makes him guilty of being poor at PR and a poor choice of leader, but that was what he was when he was elected, and I find it difficult to really argue against someone warts and all, when they were voted in on that merit.
I dont like the man. I feel that these gripes are more of a shopping list of things to hate him about, without really making any difference to anything he does as president.
Im still waiting for a real gripe to come to the surface. At the moment he is crude and uninspiring. Hardly an impeachable offense, but he seems to want to try and make that happen.
Thomas is one of those players who works his dot off and if he isn't paid the respect he deserves will hurt you because he works really hard between the arcs. He is much easier to stop these days than he used to be, but even when time is put into stopping him, it means someone else is able to play freely.
Graham is another one in this category although he has a bit more ability to play inside the contest, which is a positive and a negative. He is not a very big midfielder, and against the Freo mids, he might find the going tough to compete with the likes of Mundy and Fyfe who are taller and more mobile around the ground.
Boekhorst is a much more outside player than the aforementioned, and I dont believe is in the same category for workrate. He is one that can be more dangerous drifting forward and has a bit more leg speed than the above as well as possibly being the more skillful of this lot.
Armfield. Started the year poorly, but that might have been an interrupted preparation as his VFL form of late hasnt been that strong. He might give it away or he might have just recovered fitness and reignite his career. We will find out soon.
Jones. Strong VFL form has seen him come into the equation for selection. White has been playing more small, so it wouldn't make sense to put him out for a tall given the weather. I don't think we will make too many other changes and I don't really see a match up for Jones in the Freo forward line so unless we are thinking of giving Kreuzer some help against Sandilands or needing to stretch freos defense, I cant see Jones playing.
Given White is the omission, I'm inclined to think that we have picked some flexible options for our ins. Good weather might see Jones play, but if its going to be wet and dirty football, I think Armfield will get the nod in place of Simon White given that we are taking an experienced player out of the side. I know we need to be future proofing, but I just cannot see us going to young anymore.
