George Floyd/Black Lives Matter Protests

[Theroadlesstravelled]

1 hour ago, MSU said:

"Rule of thumb" is another phrase with a dodgy past, as it apparently dates back to a law that said you couldn't beat your wife with anything thicker than the width of your thumb.

Does that include slapping her face with your cock?

[Wile E Coyote]

13 minutes ago, NewBornBairn said:

 "No can do" was a way of mocking Chinese people struggling to speak English. 

Surely that just means you don't have any tinned pigeon

[MSU]

13 minutes ago, Theroadlesstravelled said:

Does that include slapping her face with your cock?

By "your cock" do you mean my cock or one's cock? 

[MSU]

1 hour ago, Dee Man said:

Were you allowed to shoot them with a thin bullet?

Positively encouraged.

[MSU]

1 hour ago, BigFatTabbyDave said:

Wow, I’d no idea about the nitty gritty thing. How on Earth did these phrases end up in such common use? It sounds like such an obscure origin.

Wasn’t that ‘rule of thumb’ origin a myth?

I'm pretty sure I read about both in the same Times article. Not saying that makes it any more or less credible.

[Hillonearth]

1 hour ago, Todd_is_God said:

This is from https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/nitty-gritty.html

There is no evidence to support the suggestion that 'nitty-gritty' has any connection with slave ships. It may have originated in the USA as an African-American expression, but that's as near as it gets to slavery. It isn't even recorded in print until the 1930s, long after slave ships had disappeared, and none of the early references make any link to slavery.

I suppose it often may have a lot to do with the obvious stigma attached to racism, and the natural desire to distance ourselves from that.

Particularly now in the internet age there is an opportunity for things like this to become 'fact' as it is easily shared among large numbers of people. Once there is a perception something may be racist among a large enough group of people, then it becomes impossible to reverse this.

I thought this was quite interesting, and even the humble picnic has been thoroughly examimed in the past.

Reading that it appears that the phrase "nitty gritty" didn't appear until well into the 20th century - it's unlikely by that point there was any new terminology being coined pertaining to the transatlantic slave trade so chances are it's innocuous.

Sounds similar to the case of the American politician that got their arse handed to them a few years back for using the word "niggardly" in a speech.  Despite the fact it looks and sounds uncomfortably close to the (ultimately Latin-derived) N-word, it's from an Old English/Norse root completely unrelated to it and predates it by a good few hundred years.

[MSU]

Freakonomics calls bullshit on the "rule of thumb" definition. Good enough for me, and it also renders questions about my cock now moot.

https://freakonomics.com/2011/07/01/rule-of-thumb/

Edited July 5, 2020 by MSU

[effeffsee_the2nd]

A number of prominent black people have contributed to articles in the press recently in the wake of the GF incident and subsequent statue protests saying, and ffs im paraphrasing here , " I don't know who said you can't call a blackboard a blackboard or sing bah bah black sheep , but it wasn't us"

for instance, the term black is perfectly acceptable to the majority of black people except from a few militant activists mostly in the states. the word coloured conjures up bad memories of the past and is widely disliked and taken as disrespectful or offensive

[Shotgun]

6 minutes ago, effeffsee_the2nd said:

A number of prominent black people have contributed to articles in the press recently in the wake of the GF incident and subsequent statue protests saying, and ffs im paraphrasing here , " I don't know who said you can't call a blackboard a blackboard or sing bah bah black sheep , but it wasn't us"

for instance, the term black is perfectly acceptable to the majority of black people except from a few militant activists mostly in the states. the word coloured conjures up bad memories of the past and is widely disliked and taken as disrespectful or offensive

You can't say "Merry Christmas" because it offends atheists.
You can't be proud to be English because it offends immigrants.
You can't fly the Union Jack because it offends Muslims.
You can't sing "Baa baa black sheep" because it offends the blacks.

Except you'd struggle to find anyone in those groups who are offended by any of that. It's almost like those are non-issues dreamed up to keep us all divided. 

[Raidernation]

I have worked with black people who, when asked, would rather be called “black” than any pc “description” such as African American

[Romeo]

Another group has it worse....

 

.

Edited July 6, 2020 by Romeo

[HeWhoWalksBehindTheRows]

9 hours ago, MSU said:

"Rule of thumb" is another phrase with a dodgy past, as it apparently dates back to a law that said you couldn't beat your wife with anything thicker than the width of your thumb.

Oooft, Prince Charles' bird is fucked then.

[Dan Steele]

Neil Oliver stands down from his role at NTS. More free time to write about how shite Scotland is, no doubt. Can't be long before he gets his gong for services to his beloved Union.

[Stellaboz]

What if Scottish football clubs were told they had to have a quote of black players playing every game? 

What if a Premiership or Championship club can only acquire a League 1 or League 2 standard player with black skin that is quite clearly out of his depth, but has to play due to the quota system? 

[Bairnardo]

What if Scottish football clubs were told they had to have a quote of black players playing every game? 
What if a Premiership or Championship club can only acquire a League 1 or League 2 standard player with black skin that is quite clearly out of his depth, but has to play due to the quota system? 

Do you think professional football on the playing side is an area of concern?

[GordonS]

33 minutes ago, The Skelpit Lug said:

Neil Oliver stands down from his role at NTS. More free time to write about how shite Scotland is, no doubt. Can't be long before he gets his gong for services to his beloved Union.

As someone said, he's 5 minutes from saying the Glencoe Massacre can't have been a massacre because there are still McDonalds.

[GordonS]

8 minutes ago, Stellaboz said:

What if Scottish football clubs were told they had to have a quote of black players playing every game? 

What if a Premiership or Championship club can only acquire a League 1 or League 2 standard player with black skin that is quite clearly out of his depth, but has to play due to the quota system? 

Yes, black players being notoriously bad at football...

A fairer discussion might be around why clubs in areas with high numbers of folk from ethnic minorities, especially Pakistani, don't have more ethnic minority kids in their youth set-ups. I'd be interested in knowing how hard they reach out to the schools etc to attract kids to play. Might quotas incentivise clubs to work harder to encourage talent? Who knows what we might already have missed, and what opportunities have been lost.

[GordonS]

13 hours ago, Mr Waldo said:

Now remember children, I am only quoting specific races because this is BLM thread, swap for male/female if you want.  Possitive discrimination'. We need more black people in 'x' role

1. My qualifications, attitude, everything scores 9/10. I am white.
2. My qualifications, attitude, everything scores 8/10. I am black

Number 2 gets the job to 'fill the quota'. No its or buts.  Discrimination is discrimination.

Do you have any actual examples of this happening?

The reason people support positive discrimination is because it's often the case that if someone from a disadvantaged group scores 8 and someone from a privileged background scores 9, the person who scored 8 will probably be better than the one that scored 9. Universities use this for places, because past scores are not the only, or best, predictor of future success. In Scotland a lot of the beneficiaries of that are white working class boys. 

[GordonS]

15 hours ago, D.A.F.C said:

This afternoon I listened to a show on BBC radio 4 talking to a Muslim women who was welcomed into the police force but was then bullied and harassed when she tried to progress to sergeant. This is what we need to change. Long standing institutional racism within places like the police and Westminster. Not some office in kirkcaldy that has zero problems with racism or subconscious bias because no bame people are applying.
 

Kirkcaldy? Really? That's the example you want to go with?

"He out and out admitted that he was a racist, that he hates them, as he puts it - all the blacks. It's not right he's a police officer."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-34529611 

[Bairnardo]

Yes, black players being notoriously bad at football...
A fairer discussion might be around why clubs in areas with high numbers of folk from ethnic minorities, especially Pakistani, don't have more ethnic minority kids in their youth set-ups. I'd be interested in knowing how hard they reach out to the schools etc to attract kids to play. Might quotas incentivise clubs to work harder to encourage talent? Who knows what we might already have missed, and what opportunities have been lost.

This is an interesting one because we simultaneously use the term BAME whilst almost exclusively only discussing the B. Especially in football. What are kids of Asian and Middle Eastern descent doing? They must be playing sport of some kind surelt? Maybe they are more into the likes of cricket? I imagine especially in England that may be the case. The England national team certainly seems well represented by people of Asian descent. There will no doubt be participation studies which would be interesting.

I think in the case of young Asians and Middle Easterns there is a problem 1 tier further up which is that I reckon they are behind black people on terms of integration into society, with a massive upswing in Islamophobia probably being the driver for that. I would be willing to bet that most of us have heard of and witnessed far more open abuse of Asians than black people. It doesnt seem to have made it to the social taboo yet in the same way as racially abusing a black person, and theres no doubt in my mind the association people make with brown person = Muslim and Muslim = bad plays a huge part in that.


I would hope that at youth levels this is improving and it just hasnt been ling enough yet that we have seen players emerge into the pro ranks but I have my doubts about that.

On the point of integration, that's probably the most common calling card of yer idiot facebook bigot. They should speak our language, they shouldnt get their own schools, they should do this and they should do that. I think when you split up the BAME acronym, A, M and E still face the most open and up front racism in Britain.