rekil
to menny cranks
Collett filth or keep talking filth? Curran isn't a veteran. Just an old crank and antisemite.Same group of people too
Collett filth or keep talking filth? Curran isn't a veteran. Just an old crank and antisemite.Same group of people too
What began as protests about police brutality has, for some, morphed into a campaign against racist statues and controversy over an English rugby anthem.
Malik’s latest piece. His key argument is that the ““cultural turn” of recent years has encouraged people to repose political problems as issues of culture or identity. Rather than ask “What are the policy reasons for the lack of housing and stagnating wages?” or “What are the social roots of racism and what structural changes are required to combat it?”, we look to blame the Other, demand recognition for our particular identity and tussle over symbols”
Culture wars risk blinding us to just how liberal we've become in the past decades | Kenan Malik
Britain appears to be fractious, divided. And yet the nation has never been more united in its social attitudes. What’s really going on?www.theguardian.com
I can't shake of the suspicion it's something a bit more sordid than that - an attempt to delegitimise the demands of BLM while performing a response. There is no chance that Swing Low Sweet Chariot will be banned, and reviewing it with this in mind is a ludicrous, ridiculous thing to do. It's only - and predictable - effect is to rile up fans, give opinion columnists something to get angry about, and make people who haven't been paying much attention think the whole movement must be a similar collection of ridiculous complaints.In the case of the latter, it appears to be a top-down response based in many ways on confusion about what is now happening.
Made this point on Twitter. The only reference I could find was some desperate article in the Independent. I had a conversation with two mates in the UK that are into rugby who are decent folk and they are adamant that the song started being sung at rugby in honour of Martin Offiah . Its a cackhanded top down response from the RFU . The song is one of my favourite by Paul Robeson.I'm curious about this 'review' of Swing Low Sweet Chariot. Who was demanding it be banned?
Maybe. Or more ineptitude than consipracy? While this certainly hasn't been a demand from anyone in BLM from what I know, the issue of that song has come up before. I get the impression of people in high places feeling uncomfortable and an extent of do-something-itis. We shouldn't underestimate the levels of cluelessness in certain circles.I can't shake of the suspicion it's something a bit more sordid than that - an attempt to delegitimise the demands of BLM while performing a response. There is no chance that Swing Low Sweet Chariot will be banned, and reviewing it with this in mind is a ludicrous, ridiculous thing to do. It's only - and predictable - effect is to rile up fans, give opinion columnists something to get angry about, and make people who haven't been paying much attention think the whole movement must be a similar collection of ridiculous complaints.
I wouldn't ever rule out ineptitude, but it's funny how all this top down ineptitude so perfectly assists those who want to turn the debate away from more material demands.Maybe. Or more ineptitude than consipracy? While this certainly hasn't been a demand from anyone in BLM from what I know, the issue of that song has come up before. I get the impression of people in high places feeling uncomfortable and an extent of do-something-itis. We shouldn't underestimate the levels of cluelessness in certain circles.
Maybe. Or more ineptitude than consipracy? While this certainly hasn't been a demand from anyone in BLM from what I know, the issue of that song has come up before. I get the impression of people in high places feeling uncomfortable and an extent of do-something-itis. We shouldn't underestimate the levels of cluelessness in certain circles.
Ironically, I would have thought a big reason why that song was taken up is precisely because of the imperialist and jingoistic sentiments of the alternatives - rule britannia, great escape, etc that get sung at the football. At least they're not singing the national anthem.
Yes, and I get the point - that this is an effective way of undermining it and neutralising wider demands. It just seems more accidental than calculated to me - a bit of a panic from various people 'upstairs', whether sports administrators or tv producers. fwiw I think football has got it right. I was quite taken aback tbh when everyone, including the refs, took the knee right after kick-off. Symbolism does matter, I think, when it's symbolism of the right kind and coming from the right place - in the case of football, they took their lead from the players.Don't think it's ineptitude or conspiracy, it's just that the terrain of struggle has changed into the cultural and symbolic rather than material and political, and this is following that trend?
Right - and usually the blame for this is placed on the left-wing cultural warriors - I guess watching the events of the last few weeks has made me wonder how much they're truly to blame - a movement for material change has morphed into an argument about rugby songs, ancient sitcoms and statues - and that change has not really been because of any demands by protesters - it's been because of the responses of various institutions which have chosen things which a) don't really matter, and b) which they can probably expect widespread and angry support over.Don't think it's ineptitude or conspiracy, it's just that the terrain of struggle has changed into the cultural and symbolic rather than material and political, and this is following that trend?
he makes passing, vague, mention of social movements, but that is all. Like he makes passing, vague, mention of the need for structural change. But choose not to develop those comments. It happens far too often for that to just be a coincidence. In the video he says (23.54 or so), in so few words, that 'racism has been there since the late eighteenth century - because (acc to Strange Fruit, the only book of his I've read) of debates within amongst liberals despairing of making real change. Now that is clearly related to actual movements, but it is the intellectual debate he is interested in, not the movement itself. Plus it just ignores the previous couple of hundred years of justifying slave ownership through ideology.Where does/has Mailk explicitly reject any materials basis for identity politics? Are you making this claim from what he has said in the video or from other his comments elsewhere?
In the 1st section I transcribed he specifically outlines how the "disintegration" of wider social movements is connected with rise of identity politics (an argument he's made elsewhere too). How is that not an argument with a material basis? You might argue that the material basis is not as developed as it should be, that there is too much idealism in his arguments, ok but that is different to saying that Malik rejects any material basis for the development of identity politics.
As I say above, I don't think this is really true beyond some newspaper stories. Statues and tv are a quick and easy 'fix' that could be a starting point or a complete dead end. I'm happy to see the back of most of them, but its our job to make sure that doesn't become the be all and end all.Don't think it's ineptitude or conspiracy, it's just that the terrain of struggle has changed into the cultural and symbolic rather than material and political, and this is following that trend?
Exactly so.Cos showing solidarity is important.
You know that it's right. That's enough.A bit tangential to the discussion but have people from here been going to the blm protests if they are white? My eldest son has gone along twice, his two best mates are both black. I wondered about going today to show solidarity but hesitated as on the one hand want to show my support, on the other don’t want to be seen as woke and what do I as a middle aged white woman know about it- very little.
Here they are when much smaller (they all three tower over me now but still give me a kiss!). They’ve known each other technically since baby massage in the children’s centre, then primary, secondary etc.You know that it's right. That's enough.
But your original claim was not just that Malik does not develop his argument enough with respect to material conditions (as I've already said something on which I'd agree). You went further and stated that "There is absolutely nothing about those politics being developed due to material conditions because [Malik] rejects that argument.", that is something fundamentally different and not a position that is supported by the evidence.he makes passing, vague, mention of social movements, but that is all. Like he makes passing, vague, mention of the need for structural change. But choose not to develop those comments. It happens far too often for that to just be a coincidence.
Well I never expected them to say "That's bollocks ya tory cunt" tbh.Osborne on radio 4 “this has been humanity’s finest hour”
some American “thats extremely privileged”
we did this to ourselves
If it's not divisive and exclusionary it's not identity politics.What’s interesting to me about the blm movement’s is they are largely young people, and mostly working class? I guess my son isn’t working class as I have been to uni and have a professional job plus I own our ex council house, but his mates certainly are (girlfriend prob not as her Dad owns his own shop fitting set up). Anyway, the point is that none of them have ever been involved in politics before, there was much pisstaking about the climate strikes (how DARE you) etc and certainly not political marches. Obviously this affects them directly (direct racial abuse), but their understanding of institutional racism (poorer opportunity to get a job- white vs black names- more likely to get stopped, go to prison, one of their Dads is in prison- more likely to go to their kind of school- more likely to die of covid etc etc) was very thought through.
I guess that made me think I might of been wrong in my distrust of identity politics as divisive and exclusionary?