Unpopular Opinions You Hold

[Kopfkino]

It's entirely possible for him to not be a racist but to do something with racial implications for which he should be punished. There has to be intent and purpose for it to be genuinely racist and clearly there was not. 

[Guest MattP]

8 hours ago, fleckneymike said:

But he wasn't. He didn't know whose baby it was. As soon as he did he took it down and apologised.

Up there with Wayne Hennessey that.

 

I'm certain Baker isn't a racist but to claim he didn't know whose it was or Markel is mixed race is slightly ridiculous given its mentioned almost every single time she is spoken about.

 

People who aren't racist can make racist jokes - it happens.

Edited 10 May 2019 by MattP

[Lovejoy]

Danny Baker had no idea whose baby it was. A bit like Wayne Hennessy had no idea who the Nazis were. Have a day off lads. 

[Xen]

10 hours ago, Kopfkino said:

It's entirely possible for him to not be a racist but to do something with racial implications for which he should be punished. There has to be intent and purpose for it to be genuinely racist and clearly there was not. 

This is the key thing for me. There's a huge difference between 'intent' and 'outcome' which people are glossing over.

 

In this case, there was clearly no racist intent but the outcome (post) certainly was, so whilst Baker is not a racist (noun), he was racist (adj.). He's apologised and been punished accordingly, and that should be that.

 

Those claiming that the post is not racist because he didn't intend it to be so are missing the point.

[ozleicester]

If he doesnt know who the baby was, he needs sacking for being an ignorant twat... there are as yet undiscovered tribes in PNG that know about "archie"

[Fox92]

He knew what he was doing surely. I dunno why some people go on about that Megan being black (when she isn't) then  he picks, out of everything in the World, a monkey. Nah I'm not having he didn't know what he was doing.

 

 

Edited 10 May 2019 by Fox92

[Buce]

1 hour ago, ozleicester said:

If he doesnt know who the baby was, he needs sacking for being an ignorant twat... there are as yet undiscovered tribes in PNG that know about "archie"

 

Point of pedantry:

 

If they are 'undiscovered', how do you know of their existence?

[RonnieTodger]

I just think that he tried to make a shit joke that backfired horrendously. Absolutely no surprised that he was sacked, but his sense of humour is a bit odd.

 

I certainly don't think he went in with the intention of comparing Meghan's heritage to a Chimp.

[Countryfox]

Just now, Buce said:

 

Point of pedantry:

 

If they are 'undiscovered', how do you know of their existence?

 

Footprints in the mud !! ...    

[z-layrex]

Why do so many men become so weird when they're middle aged?

[Buce]

1 minute ago, z-layrex said:

Why do so many men become so weird when they're middle aged?

 

In what way do they become weird?

[leicsmac]

14 minutes ago, Buce said:

 

In what way do they become weird?

...fear of mortality leading into a Tywin Lannister-style obsession with "legacy"?

 

Of course, not all, but many.

[danny.]

Umm, here's mine then, this woman is not "black", I doubt the baby is either.

 

 

This lovely lady is "black".

 

 

And no doubt someone is going to say that this post is racist :-/

[Buce]

3 minutes ago, danny. said:

Umm, here's mine then, this woman is not "black", I doubt the baby is either.

 

 

This lovely lady is "black".

 

 

And no doubt someone is going to say that this post is racist :-/

 

Your user-name gives you away, Mr Baker.

[ealingfox]

Have to laugh at all the nonsense you get from gammons and proto-gammons at incidents like this

 

iTs So HaRd nOt To bE rAcIsT tHeSe DaYs 

 

Sorry, but it really isn't.

[Guest]

40 minutes ago, z-layrex said:

Why do so many men become so weird when they're middle aged?

Probably because they were weird when they were younger men. I'd have thought younger people are weirder than middle aged people who have been conditioned to not be so weird before they get to become old-aged men and revert to their natural persona as they don't GAF.

[danny.]

11 minutes ago, ealingfox said:

Have to laugh at all the nonsense you get from gammons and proto-gammons at incidents like this

 

iTs So HaRd nOt To bE rAcIsT tHeSe DaYs 

 

Sorry, but it really isn't.

I'm a full on lefty, i.e. not one of the gammonese, but this isn't racism. It's an unfunny gag, and the guy (sorry, I mean I, being danny. Baker) should have thought more about it, but some old fashioned photo of a chimp in a suit is not a racist slur against what is pretty much a caucasian baby. I see why he had to be sacked, as it sets a precedent, but its "PC gone mad!".

All stuff like this does is shut down any dialogue, as people just won't say what they think, and then you get racism stewing inside people, which then bursts out when ie. the UK voted for Brexit.

Edited 10 May 2019 by danny.

[Guest]

If anything it's the monkeys who should be complaining about the comparison.

[ScouseFox]

20 minutes ago, FIF said:

If anything it's the monkeys who should be complaining about the comparison.

wow 

[Dr The Singh]

1 hour ago, Buce said:

 

In what way do they become weird?

Weirdo!

[Wymsey]

32 minutes ago, FIF said:

If anything it's the monkeys who should be complaining about the comparison.

And yet you regularly complain about your posts being limited..

[Buce]

1 hour ago, ScouseFox said:

wow 

 

1 hour ago, Wymeswold fox said:

And yet you regularly complain about your posts being limited..

 

This demonstrates exactly the problem, right here.

 

FIF has made a joke against the monarchy, and you take it as racist. Or maybe you haven't - maybe it's that you think the Royal family should be beyond satire or criticism?

Edited 10 May 2019 by Buce

[murphy]

3 hours ago, Fox92 said:

He knew what he was doing surely. I dunno why some people go on about that Megan being black (when she isn't) then  he picks, out of everything in the World, a monkey. Nah I'm not having he didn't know what he was doing.

 

 

I think that an innocent joke against royalty is the only plausible explanation.

 

If you think he knew that what he was doing and was making an overtly racist joke for all to see then you have to accept that he was knowingly committing career suicide and sitting up and begging for the nation's condemnation and revulsion.  Doesn't make sense to me.

 

A thoughtless and stupid joke in my opinion but I don't think he ever made a connection in his brain between the monkey in the picture and how that image can be used as a slur against people of Meghan's African American heritage.

 

 

 

Edited 10 May 2019 by murphy

[Alf Bentley]

1 hour ago, z-layrex said:

Why do so many men become so weird when they're middle aged?

 

Could you expand on that?  I ask out of curiosity, not hostility - despite being part of the "target demographic" (phrase borrowed from teenage daughter). 

 

The stereotypical midlife crisis is a bit sad, I grant you. But my main complaint about my fellow middle-aged men is that so many of them become boring, small-c conservative and lacking in dynamism.

Give me the weirdos any day!

 

Maybe some older gits also turn weird because they feel trapped by circumstances (marriage, children, career, mortgage, whatever)?

 

 

1 hour ago, leicsmac said:

...fear of mortality leading into a Tywin Lannister-style obsession with "legacy"?

 

Of course, not all, but many.

 

There's definitely something in this, Mac, though I'd relate more to "recognition of mortality" than "fear of mortality", and to "achievement" not "legacy".

But if you recognise that the time you have left is limited, and time left in a good state even more limited, it's reasonable to think more about purpose, achievement or legacy, isn't it?

 

If you're 30 or whatever, on a rational level you know that your time is limited, but it still seems a vast enough chunk of future that you don't need to think too hard about it. It feels different at 56.

I'd like to think that I have a healthy respect for the ultimate meaninglessness of life, which protects me against "fear of mortality" or grandiose ideas of "legacy". I see life more as a fantastic joke, to be enjoyed and savoured to the max.

Even so, I do find myself asking, in a way I didn't at 30, whether I should see any purpose to my life, what I have achieved and what I could still achieve with whatever time is left.

A couple of weeks ago, Finners commented on "aging men who've achieved nothing in life" (or similar), I almost started a thread about "Achievement" and might still do so: what is achievement? what have you achieved? what do you hope to achieve etc.?

 

But even weirder than middle-aged men becoming weird or (more commonly) achieving the inertia of suet puddings, is what seems to happen to some intelligent, articulate blokes in their 30s. These blokes get critical of middle-aged or aging men, in the apparent belief that they could never become middle-aged or old or under-achieving themselves.....and it's usually the intelligent ones who harbour this miscomprehension.

 

I'm not talking about you here, Z-layrex or Mac. It's more the likes of @bovril and @Finnegan that I have in mind (in the nicest possible way)......top quality posters, but afflicted by a self-perception as inevitably high-achieving Peter Pans??  

Mind you, Bovril does seem to have taken a lot of outstanding photos, traveled widely across southern/eastern Europe and accumulated a fair bit of knowledge in the process - so I would view that as high-achieving. 

[bovril]

32 minutes ago, Alf Bentley said:

 

I'm not talking about you here, Z-layrex or Mac. It's more the likes of @bovril and @Finnegan that I have in mind (in the nicest possible way)......top quality posters, but afflicted by a self-perception as inevitably high-achieving Peter Pans??  

 

Yeah alright. Just because I don't fancy Penny Mordaunt.