But even if Terry is in fact a dyed-in-the-wool racist, he’s being prosecuted for voicing an opinion, however ignorant and bigoted. Terry did not physically assault Ferdinand, nor did he incite anyone to abuse him or attack him. He may well have said something deeply insulting, but last time I checked, freedom of speech included the freedom to say things that others find offensive and repellant.
And if Terry is convicted, the maximum fine of $4,000 — which on his weekly wage of $250,000 he’ll be able to pay off with two hours and 38 minutes of “work” — is hardly going to force him to rethink deep-set attitudes, even if the negative attention causes him to hold his tongue in the future.
Terry is not being prosecuted because anyone seriously believes it will advance the cause of race relations. He’s being prosecuted because the self-flagellating, politically correct elites who dominate British politics, the criminal justice system and the media — and of course its flourishing race relations industry — demand it to fuel their delusions of self-righteousness and disdain for white working-class British people.
Britain’s soccer authorities are understandably keen to erase the stain of racism from the game, and remarkable progress has been made since the 1970s and 1980s, when black players were routinely subjected to racial abuse from massed ranks of opposing fans (and sometimes from their own supporters), and had bananas hurled at them on the pitch.
As in the wider society, that progress has come as a result of changing attitudes. And in soccer, progress was also made thanks to the skill and character of leading black players, which persuaded fans to look at them as footballers first and foremost, and to disregard their skin color. The fight against racism on the soccer pitch will not be won in the police cell or the courtroom, any more than will be the fight against racism on the street.
Terry should be dealt with, as Suarez was, by those who run soccer. If he’s guilty, let him be pilloried by fans and the press; let him be shunned by black players, and by self-respecting fellow players of every color; let him be paraded in front of schoolchildren to admit that his behavior was inexcusable.
Putting him in the dock, and turning a crude insult into a hate crime, is another step down the road to the routine criminalization of free speech and free thought.
Suarez is correct. In Argentina and Uruguay, “Negro” is used in a friendly manner. There is a joke about someone from Cordoba province who, when outside of Cordoba, pulls his car into a gas station. The driver addresses the gas station attendant: “Che negro, cambiame el aceite. Lipiame el vidrio” ( Hey negro, change the oil and clean the windshield.) The driver does this in the characteristic singsong/cantante accent characteristic of Cordoba.
The gas station attendant asks the driver, “Sir, are you from Cordoba?”
The driver replies< "How'd you know? By the X [on my license plate- which identifies Cordoba]?"
The joke being that the driver's cantante accent readily identified him as being from Cordoba.
In fact the term negro is not offensive in itself at all. It simply indicates a person with negroid features, typically including dark skin.
It’s the intent with which a word (including that one) is used that makes it racist or not…
Same in Australia, where “bastard” is a salutation. “How are ya, you old bastard.” True. Utterly, harmlessly true.
There must be a physical law which describes the inversion point when government measures to right social wrongs become wrongs in themselves. After 50 years of genuine progress in Ameica on the race front, we now have a black President who is more divisive, and some would argue, more racist (God Damn America!) than any President in recent memory. Surely we can see that affirmative action, which once perhaps served some purpose, helped elevate the poisonous Obama far beyond his worth and competence warranted, and has itself become a grave social disorder.
The same inversion has happened in education. For decades money and gloating staffs were thrown at the “problem” of educating our children, yet today, with unprecedented dollars spent per capita, tprecord numbers of teachers and support staff, education in Maericans has not been worse in living memory.
The same inversion has happened with unions, EPA regulations, and all the lefty social engineering boondoggles of the last half century. I fear the Lefties aren’t going away – they have too much invested in continuing the supposed social ills they purported to want to rectify. Somehow their power structures in academia, in the media, and in the government must be destroyed. Their narrative must be destroyed.
Destroying narratives that have no parallel with reality is exceedingly difficult. When there is no reality or facts to support such a narrative then fanatical, religious like faith is required.
Only yesterday on a blog site, when I pointed out that socialism has a perfect record of failure, someone criticized me by saying that just because something has failed once, or even a hundred times, that is no reason it should be tried again.
That’s right, you need to use arguments other than anecdotal evidence. I try to formulate it like this — the job of taking away wealth and then dividing it up goes to people who can and enjoy doing it (we call them thugs). They will then use socialist governance structures to set up dictatorships a la criminal families. Stalin started out robbing banks by blowing up bystanders in Tbilisi. Covert criminal enterprises mutate into overt governments whose job is to take stuff away and divide it up. Occupy Oakland, Obama’s DOJ, same ol’.
The record of failure is no accident, I don’t see any other way it can go. Call it a theorem in governance studies.
When did Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Finland die as socialist informed economies? I’d be fascinated to read the obituaries. I guess I’ve been too preoccupied with the decline into dystopian horror of the US economy – you know, that bastion of ‘free’ enterprise
Get real! The US hasn’t been a capitalist (free enterprize) country for over a century! We have crony capitalism (those who grease the hands of congress to favor themselves) at best and National Socialism (companies nationalized with the administration actively destroying any and all competition) at worst.
Scandanavian countries are doomed. Their demographics doom them. Through forced immigration of muslims (who use demographic (many babies) and economic (refusal to work while claiming all educational, housing, health benefits)jihad) who refuse to assimilate, their culture and economy is dying that slow death of a thousand paper cuts.
Perhaps you’ve noted the most recent listings of most liveable countries in Newsweek. They are, of course, as usual, dominated by the Northern European countries, Canada, and Netherlands. None of these countries seems to be dying any kind of death, and their dynamic liveability puts the lie to the overworked talking point that they are being outbred by Moslems. Maybe that talking point should be applied to the US which never rises above the middle of such listings. As usual, there is no evidence for the fevered claim by many conservatives that the US is the best country in the world.
A well written focus-on-the-doughnut-instead-of-the-hole article.
I add my voice, being originally from that area of the world, that “Negro” is used in Uruguay and Argentina as a term of friendship. Believe it or not!
I had an uncle whom we called “Tio Negro”, because he was dark skined, although he was originally from eastern Europe.
Do not judge everybody by just one yardstick. I believe that Suarez did not mean harm by his remark.
I would like to point out that the word in Spanish sounds a bit different that the word in English. When I am referred to as negro, short “e” I take no particular offense. In Spanish, negro mean black. The word negro long “e” sounds too much like other terms used to categorize American Blacks in times of racial inequality. I don’t know what to conventions are in other countries, I just hope those with whom I associate would respect me enough to avoid using terms that are personally offensive.
Although the Anglo-saxon mind cannot fully comprehend this, It is not uncommon for somebody in Uruguay to talk to a blonde blue eyed individual and say”Che Negro dejate de Joder!”
Meaning” Listen Negro, stop joshing me!”
It transcends a particular race or color, it is just aterm of familiarity.
it will be dud n.. stop fuc… me
Nailed it. Bringing the police in is a message to the oiks about who’s in charge.
United NEGRO College Fund anyone?
Personally I am fed up with these racist of .. ahem color. Whites have gone too far down the path of a colorblind society. We now stand far beyond where the Blacks,Reds,and Yellows are. We look over our shoulder and those parts of the human spectrum are not following Whites down this path.
It is time we Whites regress to where they are.
That mayhap, is the proper place to be.
How about the plastic-padded “lameness” of US Football compared to Rugby (league or Union) ?
Lets get real. This is nothing more than punishment of Working Class White people in Britain. That’s the whole point of PC and Multiculturalism — to basically exterminate the White Working Class by annihilating them with unbridled Third World immigration. Same in this country.
AFAIK, none, no, zero, zilch, nada Black man or Asian man or Pakistani man in Britain has EVER been prosecuted for saying hateful and insulting things about White people. Ever. In fact they say it with impunity.
“Anti-Racism” = Anti-White. Simple as that. Just as in this country, Civil Rights is nothing but code words for anti-White hatred. Harbored by the White Upper classes no less than the New Black Panthers, Louis Farrakhan … and the Obamas and their pastor, Rev. Wright.
You nailed it. This deluge of third worlders into EVERY western country on the planet – against the will of the people – by their representatives is treason at the highest order.
I understand why the league wants to eliminate this stuff; they feel that such worshiped players have an undue influence on young minds and it’s not exactly hamstringing the game to not allow players to call each other names.
I worked at a Teamster warehouse a few years ago and the amount of hilarious vulgar racial and gender-based jokes we threw at each other in an all-races-present warehouse was great fun for us. We knew where to draw the line and we all got along; having said that, the line was far advanced and probably on the order of 10 yr’s old’s when by themselves. We certainly couldn’t use these jokes in front of management.
As a side note, I remember sitting outside and often seeing a supermarket semi-trailer with a big drawing of the “stingy” Scot giving a wink with a tam o shanter with the idea it was low-cost foods. I wonder how that would’ve flown if it’d been a Jewish guy.
Some people are more sensitive than others – maybe some people have a right to be more sensitive than others. The point is that it is well understood that the jokes you tell to your brother while watching a game on TV are not the same jokes you tell at a board meeting or art opening. Just keep your head down and stay away from board meetings and art openings and money pinching Scots.
I speak Spanish and Portuguese; using the work negro or preto in an incorrect context can charge the word; there is nothing inherently insulting about the word “tall” but with enough disdain it can be insulting so these arguments that anyone was giving out “negro” as a familiar compliment by way of solidarity is dumb.
I am in Liverpool, Suarev is in our country and should abide by ours laws and
the F.A’S
Calling a black player f*ckin negroe up to nine times while trying to get the ball off each other doesn’t sound like a term of endearment.
The F.A has to have zero tolerance for racism because of our history.
That went from booing every time a black player got the ball,too makin monkey
noices and throwing bananas at them.
The independent commission established Suarez was not a racist but gave ‘unreliable’ evidence and had ‘damaged the image of English football around the world’.
Football is huge here and it’s meant to be for the whole family .
racist but gave ‘unreliable’ evidence and had ‘damaged the image of English football around the world’.
.
“That went from booing every time a black player got the ball,too makin monkey
noices and throwing bananas at them.”
So? You should see what the wetbacks do in our own country to the USA team. Team USA booed in LA. I think maybe some “racism” need be applied, in my country, to those scum.
My wife is blonde. One of my sisters in law is so white that she is called rana platanera( a kind of frog that lives among banans and is lilly white). My other siter in law has black hair and is a little less white, still almost lilly white, she is caled by her family la negra. Im dark but no one calls me negro.In Venezuela , any person a little dark is called negro. And usually is not offensive.If a venezuelan want to be polite to a balck man they call him “negrito”. little black. of course is patronizing but they are not aware of the offense. If they want to offend the wil say negro de… and add antother word usually sh…. It is not different in other latinamerican countries.
In Venezuela since last month the law banned the word negro , now dark people are afrodescendants