I called my kids ‘cheeky little monkeys’ several times when they were younger. I don’t call my nephew the same, he’s mixed race and I’ve modified my language to cheeky little scamps.

But if I was to use the same language to him that I used to my kids many times, I’m worried I’m now a racist. Or am I already, because I used that phrase and now don’t for fear of being labelled what I clearly am?

Umm.. well it’s something. On the face of it what should you feel a need to discriminate against your nephew an account of his race? (Not like you can’t… but more in the way if he’s called Richard he might prefer you don’t call him dick)

Quite honestly it makes me wonder what century we are living in?
Sometime back in the late 20C … maybe longer perhaps monkey might have been a derogatory term for people with darker skin… however in all honestly surely not something 21C? (At least in Europe)

I guess my point is whatever name it’s given even within some group of xenophobes referring to someone of darker skin as a monkey is surely more reflecting on some regressive 19C viewpoint?

Some people believe in lizard people taking over the earth or flat earth (or in all probability both).. so I can’t see it being “no-one believes” whilst millions of us refer to our sprogs lovingly as monkey’s… and I can’t in truth see Alasdair Stewart as being in the Lizard man camp… (unlike David Ike)

and I can’t in truth see Alasdair Stewart as being in the Lizard man camp

Alastair

Says a lot about the UK that drink driving didn’t end his career, but using a Shakespearian quote to call out Dunning Kruger[1] in an internet squabble did.

[1] DK in his opinion, who knows if it was or not.

could be worse, he could have referred to “watermelon smiles” or crowds of “flag-waving piccaninnies”, because that would definitely get you sacked. Or elected.

That “defense” piece from the spectator is **** awful. Basically saying if your not smashing minorities beneath hobnail boots then you can’t be racist, and the media bubble is a glittering light of diversity.

And I think DD has been misunderstood, obfuscating the debate with frivolous examples does look like deflection. It is clear that calling his kids cheeky monkeys is not racist, and that changing his language when referring to black kids is sensible. The question (does that make me racist) afterwards is just facetious.

always thought they were funky rather than cheeky, have I been mislead?

Very much misled, or perhaps you are confusing monkeys for chickens?

It might not just be about that quote, but by arguing & quote tweeting, he causes internet pile-ons, which isn’t good thing.

OK, so I'm probably going to regret sticking my oar in. But, Alastair Stewart:

— KateMaltby (@KateMaltby) January 29, 2020

It is clear that calling his kids cheeky monkeys is not racist, and that changing his language when referring to black kids is sensible.

Is it? My kids are in nursery & primary school. They and their classmates have no concept of Race. Do the school/nursery need to take the white kids aside and tell them ethnic background is important and then need to behave differently to some of their friends on ground of race?

As someone said earlier, race ceased to be a big deal in the Uk in the late 20thC. These days most adults and all kids see every possible race as equal and just treat everyone the same. (FFS, if you check our DNA we’re all mixed race anyway.)

Quite honestly it makes me wonder what century we are living in?
Sometime back in the late 20C … maybe longer perhaps monkey might have been a derogatory term for people with darker skin… however in all honestly surely not something 21C? (At least in Europe)

Yep, no use of using monkey as a racist trope

https://www.itv.com/news/2019-12-22/tottenham-vs-chelsea-match-stopped-as-stadium-announcement-warns-about-racism/

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/news.sky.com/story/amp/racist-chanting-halts-game-as-england-take-on-bulgaria-in-euro-2020-qualifier-11835848

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/premier-league/man-city-racist-fan-manchester-united-fred-monkey-chant-gestures-arrest-a9238766.html%3famp

OOB I suspect the two officers from our BAME staff group I was speaking to yesterday would disagree, but obvs you know best.

Sometime back in the late 20C … maybe longer perhaps monkey might have been a derogatory term for people with darker skin… however in all honestly surely not something 21C? (At least in Europe)

If only but sadly far from it.

You might make judgements on skin colour by most of us don’t

I’ve never been accused on here or anywhere else online or in real life of being a racist before so you can **** off and when you finish **** off **** off some more.

You utter **** coming on here and making judgements like that about me.

Just **** off.

This from the man who Just insinuated that everyone on here was akin to piers Morgan and Lawrence fox…

Lawrence

Laurence.

Is it? My kids are in nursery & primary school. They and their classmates have no concept of Race. Do the school/nursery need to take the white kids aside and tell them ethnic background is important and then need to behave differently to some of their friends on ground of race?

As someone said earlier, race ceased to be a big deal in the Uk in the late 20thC. These days most adults and all kids see every possible race as equal and just treat everyone the same. (FFS, if you check our DNA we’re all mixed race anyway.)

Although in essence I agree with you, the issues here that the person in question deliberately used race to offend.   Not only didn’t he do it deliberately, he quoted a piece of historical text as was written without alteration a fact which seems to be forgotten.

So a context based piece of text written by someone many years ago whom forms part of our considerable historical celebration is now – in this tweet and only in this tweet – considered racist.   Alastair has been made a victim of that because and I suspect like many others, he never suspected the outcome for a moment.

@Weeksy I don’t use Twitter – do we know the targets avatar was black, and even if so is it a lifelike representation of its owner?   How would he know that – we can all use any avatar we want….

@Weeksy I don’t use Twitter – do we know the targets avatar was black, and even if so is it a lifelike representation of its owner? How would he know that – we can all use any avatar we want….

Errrrm WTF am i being brought into this one for ?

Thanks PJ. Reading the KateMaltby thread we’re all barking up the wrong tree. Seems more likely that he didn’t resign over the measure for measure quote, he resigned over squabbling online using his real name. He’s deleted all the ‘bad’ tweets and everyone’s jumping to conclusions over the remaining tweet.

OOB I suspect the two officers from our BAME staff group I was speaking to yesterday would disagree

Explain?

Errrrm WTF am i being brought into this one for ?

If you have to ask, you’re showing the wrong attitude.

You heard it here first – Shakespeare is racist – FACT – lets burn all his books NOW.

outofbreath

Explain?

Two people I work who with state that race still plays a big part in the lives of Black, Asian and minority ethnicity people unlike your it’s all a bit passé view.

17th Century White man compares another 17th Century white man to ape in entirely non-racist context. 21st Century man quotes in the same context. Other 21st Century man deliberately chooses to take different meaning despite 400 years of established understanding of original context just because he wanted to win a Twitter argument. Man Loses job.

Very good!

Errrrm WTF am i being brought into this one for ?

As in the context of this thread, someone needs to be blamed for something even if they don’t know they’ve done nothing wrong, otherwise we’d have to work all day – I suggest you resign your P now!  😀

Sorry my mistake, it was wwaswas that typed the comment not you.

wwaswas

I’ve never been accused on here or anywhere else online or in real life of being a racist before so you can **** off and when you finish **** off **** off some more.

You utter **** coming on here and making judgements like that about me.

Just **** off.

Two people I work who with state that race still plays a big part in the lives of Black, Asian and minority ethnicity people unlike your it’s all a bit passé view.

And they are correct, I don’t think anyone is downplaying that fact.   This is the best summary if you stick to the event at question, lest we generalise into daily life:

17th Century White man compares another 17th Century white man to ape in entirely non-racist context. 21st Century man quotes in the same context. Other 21st Century man deliberately chooses to take different meaning despite 400 years of established understanding of original context just because he wanted to win a Twitter argument. Man Loses job.

As someone said earlier, race ceased to be a big deal in the Uk in the late 20thC. These days most adults and all kids see every possible race as equal and just treat everyone the same.

That is not the same UK that I live in. 3 years ago more than 50% voted for something that was largely based on racism.

I’ve never been accused on here or anywhere else online or in real life of being a racist before so you can **** off and when you finish **** off **** off some more.

You utter **** coming on here and making judgements like that about me.

Just **** off.

If only you watch one wwaswas one rant today…

If only you watch one wwaswas one rant today…

It’s even better if you read the unfiltered version*

*The swear filter doesn’t work on the version of posts that are shown  in a users profile posting history. Someone might want to sort that out.

That’s a great feature! Going to be playing “guess the swear word” for the rest of the day. I did quite well that round, just the c-bomb getting dropped that caught me out 🙁

This is nonsense:

“These days most adults and all kids see every possible race as equal and just treat everyone the same”

At my previous place of employment I was surrounded by racists (just ignorance) and yes, they did all vote for Brexit (because “we are at bursting point”).

I was the only person in my office that was not racist. My Manager insisted that he wasn’t: “I’m the last person you could call racist but I am not interviewing someone who hasn’t got an English name”.

I did once accidentally call a black person a “cheeky monkey”, in a professional situation. I felt terrible until I managed to take them to one side and apologize. When I did, they had no idea what I was talking about, they hadn’t even noticed or considered it racist.

People make mistakes and sometimes say stupid things, this is a fact. As long as they apologize when someone is upset, the incident should be forgotten.

Mick

It’s even better if you read the unfiltered version

Brilliant.  That feature should be left as it basically constitutes a choice of viewing and not an immediate NSFW opportunity.

Yep, no use of using monkey as a racist trope

I refer back to Lizard Men … I’d point out that a bunch of neanderthals going on about lizard men is just as stupid except referring to non Africans as neanderthals is probably “racist”.

OOB

Is it? My kids are in nursery & primary school. They and their classmates have no concept of Race. Do the school/nursery need to take the white kids aside and tell them ethnic background is important and then need to behave differently to some of their friends on ground of race?

This is so true… last week my son was upset by some verbal comments being made (yr 6 kids and some “gay” comments)
I was talking to him saying why would you really care and what if you called <name of classmate> something about his skin colour (not that you should).. would you really mean it ?
He quite genuinely hadn’t even considered <name of classmate> had a different skin colour with any significance whatsoever…. he is just so far beyond seeing skin colour as anything different than skin colour. He really doesn’t have any concepts of race … or think about his friends or school peers as having race.

It’s not the first time I noticed this…I think it’s fantastic and where we should be in the 21C.

geomickb

I did once accidentally call a black person a “cheeky monkey”, in a professional situation. I felt terrible until I managed to take them to one side and apologize. When I did, they had no idea what I was talking about, they hadn’t even noticed or considered it racist.

^ exactly this…

^ exactly this…

I’m still trying to work out how “cheeky monkey” and “professional situation” works?

This is so true… last week my son was upset by some verbal comments being made (yr 6 kids and some “gay” comments)
I was talking to him saying why would you really care and what if you called <name of classmate> something about his skin colour (not that you should).. would you really mean it ?
He quite genuinely hadn’t even considered <name of classmate> had a different skin colour with any significance whatsoever…. he is just so far beyond seeing skin colour as anything different than skin colour. He really doesn’t have any concepts of race … or think about his friends or school peers as having race.

Yup, I can’t think of a specific example, but I get it all the time. I’ll say was “David at the party, which one was he?” and they’ll come back with “The tall one with the red bag.”. Their great grandparents would have used race as a primary identifier.

Surely you know whether you are racist or not?

Suggest you google “unconscious bias” if you think this is the case.

I was watching kids football on a foggy Sunday a couple of weeks back. We were struggling to follow a passage of play at the far goal-mouth and a fellow parent remarked that it was like “gorillas in the mist”. Someone immediately reprimanded him saying that this was a racially charged comment. A quick demographic survey was undertaken, returning the result that all players and spectators were white. I’m not sure if this meant that the comment was OK or not. It’s so confusing. Good film though.

Just read the unfiltered version – gold!!

The discussion continues on the basis of an insult, but we are actually apes.

So how can that be an insult? It’s like calling someone a human.

So how can that be an insult?

It’s Hominidphobic.

@wwaswas is right though. How many times has what constitutes racism been discussed? Looking back at pretty much every conversation about race involving the dominant culture, the outcome is the same every time; we’re entitled to use racist tropes ’cause although those comparisons dehumanise other people it’s just a bit of banter.
Racism (and other forms of discrimination and prejudice) are insidious, it’s not necessarily the fault of individuals, but surely it’s our responsibility as individuals to ensure that what we say or do doesn’t harm others. The words may seem innocuous but they do fortify our and others prejudice, and cause detriment to those that do not fit our image.
Isn’t it time to listen and accept what we are being told by those whom it affects? If not then that’s willful ignorance and conscious discrimination which is certainly r*****

OOB

Yup, I can’t think of a specific example, but I get it all the time. I’ll say was “David at the party, which one was he?” and they’ll come back with “The tall one with the red bag.”. Their great grandparents would have used race as a primary identifier.

Yep, that’s the same here. It’s like “which David” (assuming there are 2 David’s) .. the one who likes Roblox … me: OK, assume I have no idea which one that is… “his mum works at debenhams”… me: and ….

I’m just trying to work out who he’s talking about but it quite honestly doesn’t even seem to be an identifying characteristic in their heads at all.