Rio Ferdinand Calls Ashley Cole A Choc Ice

The thing is, it's all ballacks.

Can't remember if it was on here or I read it somewhere else, but it was spot on. The context behind a white man (hundreds of years of opression, slavery etc etc) calling a black man a 'black lovely person' or 'choc ice' is completely different to another black man saying it.

I know a lad who would smack someone he didn't know if they called him a ginger lovely person. We call it him all the time. Context.

Prime example of getting offended about something that doesn't concern you because it might offend someone else but then it didn't offend them in the first place.

 

Report it then. If you genuinely think it's a racist comment, make the police aware of it and tell them how offensive you found it. Nobody will ever take any action if people are just spouting paranoid victimisation rhetoric on bulletin boards rather than doing something about it.

 

Ah, somebody gets it.

 

That is exactly the argument used to allow inconsistencies to flourish. The slave trade was abhorrent, both black and white would agree on that but to say its ok for a black man to use racist language because of something that may have happened to his ancestors hundreds of years ago is just wrong. Does this mean that Jews are excused if they abuse Germans? Should we be allowed to discriminate against the Japanese due to the atrocities they committed in WWII. Maybe we should be allowed to hate the Swedes and Danes for the damage they did historically. If a term is racist or offensive then it should be judged the same regardless of the colour of the person saying it. Personally I couldn't care less what he says, what really drives me mad is the inconsistency.

 

I honestly cannot see what relevance slavery has to the modern day.

 

And I think that just about sums it up.

 

You've got it the wrong way round. The Jew hasn't abused a German. An American hasn't gone all Pearl Harbour on the Japs etc.

The black man has laughed at another (I presume) black man calling another black man a choc ice.

 

I mentioned that before on here. It's about context.

 

Maybe you can explain it to me then. What awareness do you think the Ferdinands have of the slave trade? Sumfink 'appened years ago innit??

 

Are you saying because he's black he's thick?

I reckon he'll probably know a little bit about it. Seems logical that an ethnic group would know a little bit about how their ancestors were used as slaves to help the white man make his fortune and then the 150 years after haven't really gone without issue, either.

My point is that you don't know. I don't know. But there is historical context to a white man being racist to a black man. Fact.

 

That.

Some white folk doing their best to get offended. Again.

 

Well he's not Bamber fecking Gascoigne is he?? I don't know how much he knows about the slave trade but if you asked him who Wiliam Wilberforce was I bet he's more likely to say it's Will.I.am's real name. Nowt to do with him being black though.

Britain first looked at abolishing the slave trade over 230 years ago - how long do we have to spend apologising for it and making allowances for people whose very distant ancestors were victims of it??

 

Who's apologising for it? It happened. But after emancipation it still wasn't really a bed of roses for 'em was it? It's not like suddenly everything was alright for 'em in our society.

That's my point - historically, the black man has been oppressed by the white man. Absolute fact. Things are better now, of course they are, but that's the context I was talking about when a white man calls a black man a 'black lovely person' is slightly different to a black man laughing at another black man calling his black friend a choc ice.

 

Tony Blair apologised for it on the anniversary of the abolition. God knows why. What's the cooling off period then before we all move on?? 500 years? 1000? I suppose we've just about got over the end of feudalism in this country though.

 

Just to point out...There was a slave trade in Africa for hundreds of years before the white people ever arrived on the continent.
Your argument would hold up if it weren't for the fact that black people also sold/forced black people into slavery. The whites didn't introduce slavery to africa, they did however exploite it.

 

I didn't say they had, I just wondered if they would be excused if they did based on the fact that they were persecuted horrifically by the Germans a lot more recently than the events of the slave trade. The slave trade happened hundreds of years ago so I can't accept it as an argument for justifying racism in 2012. In my opinion there is no justification for racism from anybody regardless of their colour and if a blind eye is turned when a black man says something then it just dilutes and undermines the work being done to eradicate racism.

 

The slave trade was only one element of Dyson's post, putting in to context how black people have, and continue to suffer, at the hands of racism. We are only one generation removed from implicit segregation in our society and explicit in other western culture, and within all of our lifetimes it was common place for bananas to be thrown at black football players and our police forces found guilty of instituional racism.

Oh aye and Ferdinand is really thick, anyone else on here been the guest editor of the Observer Sports Monthly?

 

Why does that prove he's intelligent? All that proves is that his views may be more valid than yours or mine simply because of his profession. I doubt he was telling all the sports journos how they could improve their columns.

What's the implicit segregation you speak of??

 

Its not racist though is it? Unless it is offensive to call a white person ice cream. The phrase is used by black people to cirticise or make fun of someone who is black but is perceived to be culturally white and rejecting their own cultural heritage. In the same way as you might make fun of your friend if they started to dress like an honarary member of the Wu Tang Clan having previously modelled themselves on Donny Osmond.

 

So he's rejecting one racial stereotype and conforming to another. He's accusing him of behaving "white". If I was to say it was typical of a black man to like Wu Tang Clang (racist fvckers) I'd be accused of racial stereotyping and therefore being racist.