George Floyd murder | Clashes between US police and protestors

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While I would echo the criticism of the concept of a black history month, it's worth mentioning that attempts to get black and minority history taught in schools have fallen on deaf ears for a long time. People have been asking for ages for the empire to be put on the curriculum warts and all, and you'll often find it's the same people who moan about BLM that also oppose teaching a balanced and honest version of history. And that's because they think that it's the education system's job to produce proud citizens rather than educated ones. We saw a similar thing with the English curriculum where the whole thing was basically rewritten to reflect Michael Gove's favourite books (or the ones he claims are his favourites to make himself look patriotic and intelligent), basically purging all of the foreign ones in exchange for UK literature.
 
karen7 said:
I agree,a lot of comedy take the piss out of everybody I am disappointed in this knee jerk reaction
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It wasnt that long ago that minstrel acts were the height of comedy.

It's OK to look back and say that comedy of a past era is offensive by today's standards. When Netflix finally got Friends in its entirety one of the first things everyone realised was how much of it would not be allowed today because there are plenty of racist/sexist/homophobic plotline or punchlines.

It doesnt make you bad for laughing at it at the time, and it doesnt make the comedians bigots, it's just a sign of how far society has come towards treating people equally and not using the same old minorities as punching bags for mainstream comedy and acknowledging that let's us put it in context as "normal at the time" instead of pretending it's aged well.
 
domalino said:
It wasnt that long ago that minstrel acts were the height of comedy.

It's OK to look back and say that comedy of a past era is offensive by today's standards. When Netflix finally got Friends in its entirety one of the first things everyone realised was how much of it would not be allowed today because there are plenty of racist/sexist/homophobic plotline or punchlines.

It doesnt make you bad for laughing at it at the time, and it doesnt make the comedians bigots, it's just a sign of how far society has come towards treating people equally and not using the same old minorities as put ching bags for mainstream comedy.
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Indeed, but I'm confused by these people who are apparently incapable of watching something in its historical context. I mean seriously, who's watching Gone With the Wind in 2020 and thinking it's an accurate reflection of slavery?
 
Nellies left peg said:
I'm quite happy to have the piss taken out of me because I can give it back without any offence being taken. The world is a sadder place without humour of all types
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Indeed.

I can’t remember who said this but I know a quote that says; “I cannot offend you, you can only choose to be offended”.

People these days often can’t seem to grasp that a joke is not necessarily joking about the topic that’s even being talked about in the joke. The joke is actually often about a sub-plot to the joke or individual in the joke and not the punchline to the joke. So people actually claim to be offended by something that’s not even offensive.

Ricky Gervais’ most recent stand-up Humanity talks in depth about this, and his views are spot on!

Chris Rock said in an interview once that Political Correctness is ruining comedy and; “you can’t even be offensive on your way to being inoffensive”.

Aussie comic Steve Hughes also talks about this a lot.

Stephen Fry is also right;
its-now-very-common-to-hear-people-say-im-rather-11860519.png
 
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I'm With Stupid said:
Indeed, but I'm confused by these people who are apparently incapable of watching something in its historical context. I mean seriously, who's watching Gone With the Wind in 2020 and thinking it's an accurate reflection of slavery?
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I dont know but it certainly doesnt do anyone any harm to have a title card reminding people how fucked up it is by today's standards on for 10 seconds before the film.

The weird thing is no one wants it on 12 years a slave or anything.
 
domalino said:
It wasnt that long ago that minstrel acts were the height of comedy.

It's OK to look back and say that comedy of a past era is offensive by today's standards. When Netflix finally got Friends in its entirety one of the first things everyone realised was how much of it would not be allowed today because there are plenty of racist/sexist/homophobic plotline or punchlines.

It doesnt make you bad for laughing at it at the time, and it doesnt make the comedians bigots, it's just a sign of how far society has come towards treating people equally.
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The black and white minstrels were about 45 yrs ago if my memory serves me correct,i used to watch them but never thought it was wrong,i really like alf garnett as well,i thought the joke was on him really,the more recent stuff like bo selector wasn't offencive,he was taking off a person so he had to be their colour or it wouldn't have worked,it wasn't racist,neither was ant and dec with their undercover stuff,it wasn't racist,o am really disappointed that those two shows are apologising for it

The families of George and others killed by the police or those here who get hassle off our police are not bothered about ant and dec show or Keith lemon
 
domalino said:
I dont know but it certainly doesnt do anyone any harm to have a title card reminding people how fucked up it is by today's standards on for 10 seconds before the film.

The weird thing is no one wants it on 12 years a slave or anything.
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That's the problem with society today they need being led by the hand through everything. It's surely obvious to everyone but the dimmest cunts
 
karen7 said:
The black and white minstrels were about 45 yrs ago if my memory serves me correct,i used to watch them but never thought it was wrong,i really like alf garnett as well,i thought the joke was on him really,the more recent stuff like bo selector wasn't offencive,he was taking off a person so he had to be their colour or it wouldn't have worked,it wasn't racist,neither was ant and dec with their undercover stuff,it wasn't racist,o am really disappointed that those two shows are apologising for it

The families of George and others killed by the police or those here who get hassle off our police are not bothered about ant and dec show or Keith lemon
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The families of George and others killed by the police are probably well versed enough on racial politics to know that it doesn't start and end with police on the job. It extends right through society which is still stacking the deck against minorities in myriad ways. What makes the police treat black people differently? Why is it that the silent majority in America took decades to finally take it seriously?

The entire culture in America and other white countries is permeated with these echoes of old racist stereo types that still effect people on a daily basis. So if you've been part of that and learned it was wrong, it's absolutely the right thing to say, "look we were ignorant, we're sorry we did this unknowingly, we won't do it again".
 
purplenose said:
Yes i certainly accept that an awful lot of people care about what awful things go on far from their own home, i am one of them. The mast majority of those I honestly believe understood fully that what went on at the weekend was only going to cause more division and infact lose support for the just cause that they passionately believe in. Those people I believe would have stayed away and used such things as email and social media to lobby, and perhaps even to consider starting to arrange more events and protests at a time when it would be both safe and effective to do so.
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Agreed, but as we see in this case - on the streets and online - people just bandwagon

Proper sad stuff IMO because they detract from serious issues
 
domalino said:
I dont know but it certainly doesnt do anyone any harm to have a title card reminding people how fucked up it is by today's standards on for 10 seconds before the film.
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It's not a big deal, but are they going to do that on every film from the past, or are they going to trust people to be mature enough to know that something written 84 years ago is going to reflect different values to the ones common now? I mean I've been working my way through the Bond back catalogue and so I've been treated to scenes like this:



I'm capable of watching that in the context it was made and not think that because a company has it on their platform, they agree with the attitudes it reflects.

If it was like a foreword in a book that you could choose to read, then it might make sense, but as a content warning it seems like a half-arsed trigger warning to just look like you're doing something without actually doing anything meaningful. I guess it's similar, on a much less smaller scale of course, to the question of whether you should sell a copy of Mein Kampf that doesn't include a foreword (I've never read it, so I don't know if they do that). Or is it more like a content warning? This film contains violence, some sexual scenes, and mild old-school racism. That's an option, but the problem is that racism is a much more difficult thing to quantify, it isn't limited to old films, and there's next to zero chance of any companies signing up to any sort of system that risks pointing out racism in any of the properties they're currently making money off.
 
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