Why are people bothered about racist remarks aimed at them ?

[Wildcat]

There you go again!

 

I said I find your links boring.

 

Why do you always quote people and try to tell them what they have said when in fact they have not.

 

And that makes any difference how?

 

If I say your posts are racist twaddle and an excuse for racist bullying.... is that not a comment about yourself as well as about your posts?

[spindrift]

Yes I do.

 

What gives someone the right to call anyone, anything in order to belittle them or make fun of them, or in order to bully them ?

 

jongo, racist name-calling is an attack on everyone of that race.

 

Calling someone an idiot if they behave idiotically is not the same thing at all.

 

A racially or religiously motivated attack is an attack on the whole community.

[jongo]

jongo, racist name-calling is an attack on everyone of that race.

 

Calling someone an idiot if they behave idiotically is not the same thing at all.

 

A racially or religiously motivated attack is an attack on the whole community.

 

So, is what your saying the same as calling someone an idiot, then you are calling everyone that you see as being not as clever as you an idiot

or

calling someone speccy four eyes, meaning you are attacking everyone with glasses?

[spindrift]

What the Law says

Racial harassment and violence and the criminal law

 

The Crime and Disorder Act 1998 creates a number of new racially aggravated offences, which have greater maximum sentences than their non-racially aggravated equivalents:

 

Racially aggravated assaults, including common assault, actual bodily harm, grievous bodily harm and wounding.

Racially aggravated criminal damage, including arson.

Racially aggravated harassment, including: pursuing a course of conduct likely to cause harassment and pursuing a course of conduct causing fear of violence. In addition, on conviction, a court can make a restraining order against an offender. Breach of a restraining order is a further criminal offence.

A crime is racially aggravated if the offender shows hostility based on the victim's membership (or presumed membership) of a particular racial group, or if the crime is motivated by hostility towards members of a racial group.

 

In any other case, a court should pass a stiffer sentence if the crime is shown to be racially motivated.

 

This is because a racist attack is an attack on an entire community.

 

Racism has a long history affecting millions of people and is a common feature in wider society. People are seriously harmed and injured by it, and sometimes even viciously attacked and murdered. Words such Spotty, Fatty and Four Eyes are seldom used by adults and seldom or never used by adults to justify offensive behaviour.

 

Racist words and prejudices, however, are associated with discrimination in employment and the provision of services, and with a range of criminal offences.

 

 

 

 

The law of the land recognises the seriousness of racism by requiring that courts should impose higher sentences when an offence is aggravated by racist or religious hostility.

The distinctive feature of a racist attack or insult is that a person is attacked not as an individual, as in most other offences, but as the representative of a family, community or group. Other members of the same group, family or community are in consequence made to feel threatened and intimidated as well.

 

So it is not just the pupil who is attacked who feels unwelcome or marginalised.

 

'When they call me a ****,' explains nine-year-old Sereena, 'it's not just me they're hurting. It's all my family and all other black people too.'

[spindrift]

So, is what your saying the same as calling someone an idiot, then you are calling everyone that you see as being not as clever as you an idiot

or

calling someone speccy four eyes, meaning you are attacking everyone with glasses?

 

 

No.

 

And it's "you're".

 

 

Racist words and behaviour are experienced as attacks on the values, loyalties and commitments central to a person's sense of identity and self-worth.

 

Often, therefore, they hurt more deeply as well as more widely. 'They attack me for being an Arab,'

 

remarks Ahmed.

 

'But I'm an Arab because my father is an Arab, and I love my father. Do they think I should stop loving my father? I couldn't do that, ever.'

 

 

Racist attacks are committed not only against a community but also, in the eyes of offenders themselves, on behalf of a community — offenders see themselves as representative of, and supported in their racism by, their friends, family and peer group, and they may well feel it is right and proper to take the law into their own hands.

 

Quite apart from whether those responsible see themselves as representatives of their own community, taking the law into their own hands, this is how they may be seen by those at the receiving end. So a Traveller child, for example, may then fear and distrust all settled people, not just those who engage in bullying.

 

 

Most bullying involves a series of incidents over time. In the case of racist bullying, however, a single one-off incident may have precisely the same impact as a series of incidents over time. This is because it may be experienced by the person at the receiving end as part of a general pattern of racist hostility. It can in consequence be every bit as intimidating, rejecting and hurtful as a series of events over time.

 

 

http://www.teachernet.gov.uk/wholeschool/behaviour/tacklingbullying/racistbullying/responding/racistandotherbullying/

[jongo]

And that makes any difference how?

 

If I say your posts are racist twaddle and an excuse for racist bullying.... is that not a comment about yourself as well as about your posts?

 

I see no similarity to someone saying that someones links are boring to calling someone a name.

[jongo]

No.

 

And it's "you're".

 

 

Racist words and behaviour are experienced as attacks on the values, loyalties and commitments central to a person's sense of identity and self-worth.

 

Often, therefore, they hurt more deeply as well as more widely. 'They attack me for being an Arab,'

 

remarks Ahmed.

 

'But I'm an Arab because my father is an Arab, and I love my father. Do they think I should stop loving my father? I couldn't do that, ever.'

 

 

Racist attacks are committed not only against a community but also, in the eyes of offenders themselves, on behalf of a community — offenders see themselves as representative of, and supported in their racism by, their friends, family and peer group, and they may well feel it is right and proper to take the law into their own hands.

 

Quite apart from whether those responsible see themselves as representatives of their own community, taking the law into their own hands, this is how they may be seen by those at the receiving end. So a Traveller child, for example, may then fear and distrust all settled people, not just those who engage in bullying.

 

 

Most bullying involves a series of incidents over time. In the case of racist bullying, however, a single one-off incident may have precisely the same impact as a series of incidents over time. This is because it may be experienced by the person at the receiving end as part of a general pattern of racist hostility. It can in consequence be every bit as intimidating, rejecting and hurtful as a series of events over time.

 

 

http://www.teachernet.gov.uk/wholeschool/behaviour/tacklingbullying/racistbullying/responding/racistandotherbullying/

 

We all have our own views and my view is that there is no difference, they are all as bad as each other.

I dont see any excuse for calling anyone anything in order to bully, make fun of, belittle.

If that makes me a bad person then so be it.

 

Sorry by the way for my grammer.

[spindrift]

I see no similarity to someone saying that someones links are boring to calling someone a name.

 

It's quite easy to understand jongo.

 

Saying someone's links are boring is an unintelligent thing to say, but it's an attack on that person, no more, no less.

 

An attack on someone for no reason other than their ethnicity is an attack on everyone of that ethnicity, for the reasons above.

[Wildcat]

So, is what your saying the same as calling someone an idiot, then you are calling everyone that you see as being not as clever as you an idiot

or

calling someone speccy four eyes, meaning you are attacking everyone with glasses?

 

Idiots are people that persist with arguments that have been shown to be wrong, that in the opinion of the accuser is such that any objective observer would come to the conclusion the recipients behaviour is idiotic.

 

It says nothing about general cases of people with less intelligence it is used specifically to describe a poster unable or unwilling to see they are talking crap. Such a description is measured and accurate.

 

People that go around calling people with glasses speccy four eyes are idiotic bullies, in a different sense of idiot, but just as valid. Although perhaps mean-spirited, stupid etc. might be better words.

[medusa]

Put yourself in the position of those being subjected to racism- wouldn't the comments (along with the constant belittling of you and everyone you care about, everything you stand for and everything you can achieve in your life) wear a little thin after a while?

 

Wouldn't those comments also cause you to believe similarly negative things about the people issuing the comments in the first place?

 

I'm pretty sure that they would with me!

 

How long before the comments themselves breed overt hostility and foment rebellious sentiment? Virtually every country has had experience of the sort of bloodshed that comes about from institutional racism, from the Indian Mutiny of 1857 to the Rwandan genocide of 1994.

 

I've been on the end of intermittent gender and disablist discrimination and that's plenty for me thank you.

 

How does bullying work? Should the bullied person who is hiding in fear from their assailant just get up and shrug the comments off when their spirit is damaged to the point that they are unable to do so?

 

A comment from one person is just a comment; you cannot possibly know how many comments it comes on the back of.