[Closed] Kelvin MacKenzie

[url= http://www.lettersofnote.com/2013/08/arkell-v-pressdram.html ]arkell v. pressdram[/url]

Has anyone actually seen the full article? I'm unsure of the Gorilla reference to Barkley. I'm imagining (though might be wrong) it's that he in reference to Barkley having a reputation to looking, sounding and acting a bit thick. A sort of missing link reference. Like the sort of thing people have said about Rooney since he was a teenager.

Does that count as a racist comment because Barkley has partial African origins? I'm guessing that's the case because over the years overt racists have used monkey references to denigrate black people. So now any reference to primates in the same sentence as someone with (partial) african origins is now racist? Just want to get this right. Would McKenzie have been ok with the racial bit if he'd referenced Barkley looking like a neanderthal?

For reference my nickname when I was younger was 'Monkey paws' because my hands were(are) so hairy, and people thought they looked a bit like a monkey's. They do. This is ok because I don't have any african heritage but would have been racist if my grandfather was from Nigeria? Well apart from the obvious genus that we all have African relations if you go back a couple of hundred generations. I also note the OP's username he has chosen for him/herself.

No McKenzie apologiser - the man and the paper are things the world would be better off without. And why someone in his situation would even touch on Liverpool as a subject is beyond me. Maybe it's because he felt he was unfairly treated in comparison to other editors of the time.

Oh, I forgot. My sister's partner has a Kenyan father. It's such a non issue I have to remind myself. Their 5yr old daughter is therefore 25% of African heritage but as fair skinned as any child I know. She is cheeky. I often call her a 'cheeky monkey'; as does her dad. She even has a cheeky money t shirt. Does that make me racist, or her dad for that matter? Maybe I'm racist but he's ok as he is mixed race too so can say it.

Maybe I'm racist but he's ok as he is mixed race too so can say it.

Read the pricks list of previous.

Everton has banned the Sun.

Good

Perhaps cheeky monkey has no racial meaning and perhaps comparing black folk to apes does have some racial history?

Can you check with your mixed race in law if you can make monkey noises at him, based on his heritage, and get back to us?

Can you check with your mixed race in law if you can make monkey noises at him, based on his heritage, and get back to us?

To make it more relevant he should try it with someone he has never met

I think we might give another poster the benefit of the doubt that such remarks were entirely innocent and made in good faith.

However, if McKenzie is feeling a bit hard done by (poor thing), perhaps he should reflect on whether his forty years as a professional **** might have influenced how we now interpret his remarks, his intent and their context. 🙂

comparing black folk to apes

For the avoidance of doubt, this is Ross Barkley:-

[img] ?20170309164104[/img]

Ross Barkley is a lot of things (including a damed good footballer) but he is not black. African heritage in a recent generation yes, but he's not black.

Can you check with your mixed race in law if you can make monkey noises at him, based on his heritage, and get back to us?

I must have missed the bit where McKenzie made monkey noises to make this a relevant sense check - sorry.

he should reflect on whether his forty years as a professional **** might have influenced how we now interpret his remarks, his intent and their context.

This is maybe it. He is a grade one arse by most people's standards - to me this is a situation where he's let his guard down by making a comment that if you squint a bit (god, can I say that!?! And now I've offended the god bothers too) could be taken as racist just enough for everybody to give him a longed for smack around the chops.

I was going to say has anything found anything in his body of work that makes him commendable so far?

I must have missed the bit where McKenzie made monkey noises to make this a relevant sense check - sorry.

I understand why you want to sidestep the question given it completely tears asunder your argument

Personally i doubt kelvin meant to be racist[ I assume he is too stupid to know the players heritage] but he certainly meant to be offensive to the player , all of Liverpool and its inhabitants

Given his history , and that of the SUn, what exactly did they expect to happen?

I understand why you want to sidestep the question given it completely tears asunder your woeful argument

Do you really think that highly of yourself? Good grief. It doesn't. Or even close. Try a bit hard old chap.

I think it a a bit sad when in 2017, supposedly intelligent human beings are appearing in forums asking "oh, can I say this? Can I say that? Oh, this sounds a bit racist, so can I say that? Oh, professionally offended, oh. I said 'monkey' in a questionable context; is that racist?"

FFS, are your parents still taking you for a shit to wipe your arse as well?

MacKenzie was poking the wasps nest he fully knew what he was doing. The man is an oink of the highest order.

Do you really think that highly of yourself?

Saying cheeky monkey to someone and comparing a black person/person with black heritage to a monkey are not the same thing, for the reasons i stated- it's hardly a controversial point I am making.

One does not need to be bright to understand this point.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelvin_MacKenzie
Go read and tell me if you think he is a bit racist.

FFS, are your parents still taking you for a shit to wipe your arse as well?

Saying cheeky monkey to someone and comparing a black person/person with black heritage to a monkey are not the same thing, for the reasons i stated- it's hardly a controversial point I am making.

One does not need to be bright to understand this point.

The point I was making (clearly badly) is that of course I appreciate I can call my mixed race niece a cheeky monkey and I have no issue with having myself referenced to as a monkey for physical similarities - it's all about a context. And as you have admitted in your edit about KM was not intentionally racist in his comment either. RB is a visually white man but by using the genus of his heritage it is possible to make a comment (an insulting one) about him looking vacant like an animal in a zoo into a racial one. I don't think anyone of intelligence would construe KM specific comment in this story as racially motivated even if the man himself is a racist. Treating this as a race issue is denigrating real race hate issues imo.

. And as you have admitted in your edit about KM was not intentionally racist in his comment either

Yeah all round top bloke, him and Sean ss Spicer should have a beer.

convert +1

MacKenzie is an idiot who needs to learn to keep his gob shut. But his latest piece racist ? The Liverpool Mayor's trigger seems to have fired early.

it's all about a context.

Yep, and in an environment where "fans" make monkey noises and throw bananas in order to abuse players, using the same imagery in a written piece on football is clearly ... err ... unwise, and suggest that the writer and all the other people at the paper who had a hand in publishing the article were spectacularly ignorant and naive. Or else they were quite happy for the piece to appear racist.

Sorry but it leaves 2 options here
Malicious or massively incompetent which is it?

Both.

I said he was not intentionally racist

Now I have occasionally used the wrong term or said something* and what i do is immediately apologise, say I never meant it that way and we move on. Has he or they done this ?

* We used to have buffets at our works for training, those of us who worked there used to raid them when they returned to the training
I once entered a room to see the entire thing empty and some of the attendees chuckled about it. I said "you greedy pigs" which is not offensive. Unfortunately I said it to a room of coppers and immediately backpedalled once i realised how they had taken this comment. I was not intentionally offensive but my reaction was what let the room know this NOT MY INITIAL WORDS and we all moved on as it was just an innocent comment.

Have I missed his apology for the insult that was not racist but could be taken that way?

[img] [/img]

Is Kelvin McKenzie a knob? Yes.

Was he being racist when he wrote that column? No.

So, PC correctness aside..

Does anyone actually think there is anyone in Liverpool around Ross Barclay's age, and earning similar money, that isn't a drug dealer?

just saying...:-)

That statement reflects on you and your prejudice.

Does anyone actually think there is anyone in Liverpool around Ross Barclay's age, and earning similar money, that isn't a drug dealer?

And shows a real lack of awareness given Liverpool hosts 2 Premiership football teams, one of which is one of the most successful in club football history. Nob

Does anyone actually think there is anyone in Liverpool around Ross Barclay's age, and earning similar money, that isn't a drug dealer?

It might be true, but it would be true of anywhere outside of London perhaps. Outside of professional sport there's not many mid twenties people earning anything like their wages. A few businessmen or young banking high flies. For most the big money comes later in life.

I firmly believe he was making a deliberate racial slur. And that he couched it precisely so he could feign ignorance and walk away laughing.

Who in the country outside banking in London makes as much as footballers? No-one. Not really the point though, is it?

It was just a cheap, crass and sneering dig at the people of Liverpool, because clearly he's not insulted them enough already.

The bloke is a weapons grade ****! I'd love to see him go to Liverpool and repeat his odious opinions. It's not limited to Scouser's either. I'm a United fan and I'd happily see him get the kicking he so richly deserves for this....

[img] [/img]

Binners, if i recall, the week (or thereabouts) before it was your lot at Hillsborough, and there was crowd surging in the United end that week too, but nowhere near the same scale, thank god...

The print unions used to be the strongest of unions till defeated by eddie shah and then murdock,hopefully if they where still strong they would have refused to print macenzies rant, but then again the sun is printed in knowsley just on the outskirts of liverpool councils area, and employs lots of merseysiders to print the rag, who could have refused if their union was strong enough.

oldtalent - Member
Not being a professionally offended handwringer, a northerner or a footballist, i am failing to see what the issue is after reading the article.

Kelvin should go back to the 80's his opinions and 'stories' are of no relevance today. He's clinging on like a sad, lonely dinosaur, with his only attention coming from his deliberately inflammatory column. It would of hurt him more if everybody had just ignored it.
Sad attention seeking.

Is it a racist piece - probably not, at least not overtly to the average punter.

Is it in massively poor taste, bullying and vile - yes

Is McKenzie a weapons grade **** puffin - absolutely.

and more to the point, he's hated inside and outside of Fleet Street, and he walked into a trap here. Lots of people have been waiting for an opportunity to take him down and here it is...

he did not walk into a trap he created a trap for himself jumped headfirst into it whilst screaming abuse at a city he has serious history with close to the anniversary of the event for which he has been rightly vilified by said city

The trap was entirely created by his own hatred, bigotry and **** wittery

He's an intelligent guy, but this is the danger of existence in a bubble of a closed ideology echo chamber that is Murdoch's NewsGroup.
No serious challenge to his behaviour over the years, just back slapping and reinforcement from colleagues taking the Murdoch coin, reliant on these attitudes for income

I was going to say has anything found anything in his body of work that makes him commendable so far?

I could say much the same about Polly Toynbee, can we ban her as well?

Again Ninfan, closed ideology echo chamber

Murdoch hasn't handed down his judgement - yet.
He is the only person - other than McKenzie - who will decide what happens next.
Does KM know anything of Murdoch's past business dealings which may have been hidden for 30 or more years?
As for the article - ignorant, insulting, deliberately targetted.
Interesting point about the sun being printed on merseyside and the weakness of print unions.

[quote=ulysse ]He's an intelligent guy

Given a limited definition of intelligence yes - clearly he's highly intelligent in some ways, though it appears not in others. Like most intelligent people in a way, but it's worth pointing out in this case as the usual counter to him being described as stupid (as in the video posted above) is that nobody stupid gets to be the editor of a national newspaper.

Maybe not. But It is a role that tends to attract the very worst human beings on the planet...

Rebecca Brooks
Piers Morgan
Kelvin McKenzie
Andy Coulson

All fully paid up, morality-free ****s of the highest order