You just put it in front of your mouth to filter your voice so it sounds like 40s radio, start rolling your r's and make sure you sound a bit angry (no jokes about the German language please). Et voilà
Jarrod Bowen under investigation for racist tweet
- Thread starter UncleBob
- Start date
Can’t roll the r’s. Get what you’re saying, though.You just put it in front of your mouth to filter your voice so it sounds like 40s radio, start rolling your r's and make sure you sound a bit angry (no jokes about the German language please). Et voilà
Exactly what I was thinking.
Considering that I know the song you are referring to I assume we are about within the same age group and yes back then saying the f- or r-word were much more common, and pretty much no one really said anything about it. I used them as well, we were even stupid enough to call each other the n-word after we watched "Menace to Society" because we were teenagers and thought it was fecking cool. I'm not proud of it, not at all but yeah teenagers do a lot of stupid shite.
But mate the bolded part, what the hell? I don't think that was ever an accepted chant in Germany after 1943.
That's funny, because I was one of the posters who pointed out to you that if you would like to know more about this topic then you can always check the national curriculum. So we can stop pretending that I am new to this conversation.
You can also check the National Archives of the Department for Education to see if grammar was part of the national curriculum prior the changes, but I think the best source of information would be the following:
Hudson, R., & Walmsley, J. (2005). The English Patient: English grammar and teaching in the twentieth century. Journal of Linguistics, 41(03): 593-622
Due to my position I have access to academic databases, but I am sure you can find a way to check this article out. Anyway, I would like to close this discussion from my part. I accept that you have different personal experience and I am glad that you shared it with us. Beyond this point, I don't see what else we can learn from each other.
Thread is a bomb site of predictable conclusions, but the added Grammar arc was truly something to behold.
@OL29 not sure how you still have your sanity.
@afrocentricity you know there are some in the sunken place, the use of "blacks" is a big give away, before they referred to us as "they"
@OL29 not sure how you still have your sanity.
@afrocentricity you know there are some in the sunken place, the use of "blacks" is a big give away, before they referred to us as "they"
I don't think I have ever used the n-word as even back then that felt wrong. At the same time I wouldn't think twice if I heard it in a song. How times have changed. I was talking to my parents about this recently and they said they it was just the normal word to refer to black people when they were growing up. Just have a look at school or children's books from the 70s.
That other thing happened on our first Männertag (I assume you are German and know what that means) and two of my mates (two big lefties and one of them Arab) started chanting the individual letters to some well-known melody I can't remember the name of. Yeah, best to forget about that. In some ways it was an easier time as you wouldn't have to watch every word you uttered even if meant as a joke whereas now you have people digging up old tweets from teenagers. On the other hand I think we have moved forward and there are certain things you rightly cannot and should not say anymore.
Wishful thinking at best
It's almost as if you're shifting the blame of racism. Would it better if the n word wasn't so used among blacks ? Who knows ? I sure know it's not related at all to how racist others can be towards blacks.In that context, the use of “they” is rather self-explanatory isn’t it?
Unless we’re assuming the poster is faking their ethnicity
Not really mate, no. You are othering a subsection of black people. I'm not from the states either and I don't have people repeatedly using the word in my circles but it doesn't make me feel like I need to distance myself from African Americans or any other categories for that matter. But that's just me...
They are my brothers and sisters.
I know you had contributed, but it seemed like you had missed a chunk of the conversation as it went back to a part which had been accepted and left in the past a few pages ago. There was no stubbornness or inventing stats from my part. I genuinely didn’t know grammar schools still existed, and I certainly didn’t learn grammar from schools in the UK. I’ve spoken about grammar with friends of mine who were schooled in the UK and they also did not learn grammar in a theoretical way.
I was merely speaking from experience. Someone (possibly you) posted some segments from syllabi earlier and they were accepted, not argued. We don’t need to return to it.
I’m going to the beach, enjoy the rest of your Sunday
I’ve had a lot of free time over the last few days, so this thread has kept me entertained, while also being a reminder of why I told myself I’ll stop discussing race online. Some of the takes in this thread have been depressing.
That grammar war - what the feck did I just read
I’m not telling you to agree with it. I’m saying the context provided by the poster didn’t really create confusion.
What did I say? I said it was an interesting use of words (that says something about the poster and how they think). Did I say I was confused?
Gets really tiring hearing other people tell black people what "real" racism is, at times you have to laugh at the ignorance, other times you can only despair.
Fair enough. Maybe I jumped in a little too soon.
Yeah totally get what you are saying, young people do stupid shite because at the time we think it's funny, edgy or we just try to piss of older people. The stupid part about us using the N-Word for a while was that we didn't do it as a slur but to great each other and shite like that, you just like in the movie, we thought we were so gangster man.
Today I have to cringe so much about this a bunch of stupid, white, pampered middle class kids thinking it would be totally awesome to talk like a couple of gangsters from Compton. Ugh.
But honestly I think it's a good change that people stop being so mindless about homophobic and racist shite because there are people out there for whom these slurs have ugly real life consequences. But I also feel that if people use these words they should get a chance to learn from their mistakes and not be ostracized from society as total scum as Twitter seems to be so quick to do these days. Especially young people will say and do stupid stuff and I don't think that will ever change.
Ok fair enough. But what point were you making? Personally posts like the one I replied to piss me off...
1. Because it shifts the blame (as if it would make a difference if the word was no longer used by black people, the genie isn't going to go back in the bottle is it?)
2. The guy/gyal is separating themselves from a subsection of black people and then casting aspersions, how helpful is that?
What's your read on it? I'm not getting on to you btw...
I just take solace by the fact that I only ever encounter this people online, it is a bit of an eye opener though with regards to why progress has been so slow, how can we eradicate racism if most people can’t even identify it?
That's the problem, the very people who spout this nonsense are likely to be people in positions of power like job interviewers, teachers, parents etc but they can only identify a racist as someone in a white hood. So they'll continue to gaslight the experiences of minorities because the alternative would mean that they have to own up to their own instances of racism, or call out their loved ones for their racism. And round and round we go.
That’s not a what you stated though is it? You stated that 1) grammar schools disappeared in the 1970s and that 2) grammar isn’t being taught in schools when sources including myself as a teacher, tell you otherwise.
Like someone said earlier, I’m not sure what point you’re trying to prove but you seem to present the wrong information as fact then say you don’t really know as you’ve not been in England for some years. Then tell someone to google it... I have been tutoring kids for years in Kent and Essex so I think I have a fair knowledge of the grammar school and selective school process
It’s all a bit strange
Seems to me that most don't really care about it as opposed to identify it. It's not hard to identify once it's been highlighted and explained.
My thoughts too. Whatever happened to owning it and learning from it?
All this 'it wasn't so bad back in the day, we all did it and nobody cared" - people cared alright, you just didn't get the memo.
Also the old 'the real problem is all the fuss being made about it, things we're better back in the day' - feck off!
Ask black people what is a more frequent occurrence of racism (i.e. "real" racism) and they'll tell you it's micro-aggressions and subliminal behaviour, not being called the N word. But hey, this thread made for good light reading on a mundane sunday.My thoughts too. Whatever happened to owning it and learning from it?
All this 'it wasn't so bad back in the day, we all did it and nobody cared" - people cared alright, you just didn't get the memo.
Also the old 'the real problem is all the fuss being made about it, things we're better back in the day' - feck off!
This one irritates me the most to be honest. Stupid, stupid argument!Seems to me that most don't really care about it as opposed to identify it. It's not hard to identify once it's been highlighted and explained.
My thoughts too. Whatever happened to owning it and learning from it?
All this 'it wasn't so bad back in the day, we all did it and nobody cared" - people cared alright, you just didn't get the memo.
Also the old 'the real problem is all the fuss being made about it, things we're better back in the day' - feck off!
This is an amazing thread.
Some of you are completely stupid to use racial tensions not being as high in 2012 as an excuse, even more so when that’s completely not true, racial tensions were far worse in the 80’s and 90’s at least in a Uk perspective when you had NF skinheads and the murders of Stephen Lawrence.
Even the 2011 riots had a racial element to it, some of you just need to know when not to talk on certain and every topic.
Even the 2011 riots had a racial element to it, some of you just need to know when not to talk on certain and every topic.
It's not that people are saying the further you go back, the less racial tensions. It's the fact that some are denying there has been any difference or change from a decade ago. It's like saying there has been no significant changes from the 60s to the 70s, or 70s to 80s, no social progress, no changes in the way we use language, etc.
“They” as in Blacks in the Western world (where I'm from that's Europe and North America...if this needed explaining)....which I'm not one of, which I made clear in my post.
I guess we have stopped discussing and now you have decided to start with insults. You offered your race for what I thought was a clarification on how you come to your opinion. I did the same in kind. I can look at that tweet from 2012 and know instantly it is a kid attempting to mimic the likes of Dave Chapelle. If you see more than that, I really don’t know what to say. His tweet in 2012 was during a time in pop culture that was different from 2021. If you think going back 9 years and punishing a person for a pop culture reference is something that should be done, then that is your opinion I guess. I look at it, understand the context, and it is cringey at best.
I don't think it's any higher or lower. It's just more media coverage along with social medi etc.
Same with most things really.
It was more 'pakis out' from the brainless hordes where I'm from rather than an anti black sentiment. (I could never grasp the concept of spouting NF nonce-sense whilst listening to Bob Marley and eating curries but, whatever)
College when I moved south was an eye opener for me where I found myself in a minorty and had a lot of anti white stuff.
The most annoying part was the 'but you're ok fer a white lad' Bollox. That would piss me off, not because of the racial element to it, but rather at how lacking in self awareness it was.
But my brother and sister are black, I have black cousins and my parents were total hippies so I suppose I had an advantage in having been shown from a young age that the colour of someone's skin should make no difference. A dickhead is a dickhead no matter what they're creed may be.
Again I was in a minority there too.
The world is a shitty place and unfortunately there's always going to be arseholes out to ruin it for the rest of us.
But for me, digging up a tweet by a 15 year old lad who probably thought he was being funny at the time isn't helping highlight anything.
I'm assuming nobody on here has ever done or said anything stupid when they were young.
I don't see the point of looking at black people in America and basically saying, they are the reason of the use of the n word today. The fact that they choose to use the word (never mind context) is the problem in your mind. Therefore if they were to stop, the problem would go away...
Correct me where I'm wrong.
To be fair the issue isn't with "they" but "western blacks" and the fact that he attached a non factual statement to that group of people.
Also no African I know is going to hear being called the n word and immediately take to blows, taking aside the near statistical impossibility of that happening (where I'm from you hardly see a white face....much less a racist one), that word itself has almost zero significance to us and like I said, the only time we get to hear that is when we consuming Western Black culture (music, movie etc), if we didn't know better you'd forgive us for thinking they actually love it.
I didn't differentiate between us and them based on skin color, I did so based on culture. We are nothing alike culturally.
I can certify that it's nonsensical. People in Africa know exactly what that terms means, it has a significance, a racist significance. In fact one of my cousins once got clattered by my uncle for using it, it was in Africa.
Nowhere in my post did I say they were the reason for it's use or it's existence. I simply suggested that it might help greatly in the fight against racism if they themselves stopped using it so much. They can put in that effort to make that offensive word and others die. There is only one race who are openly saying such words in public space now and that's Western Blacks.
The reason the term has been adopted by African american communities was to delute its meaning and make it less potent which has actually worked.
What insults are you talking about?
And are you ignoring what people are saying? I don't think people are ascribing malice to the tweet, they're disagreeing with your argument that it was okay for white people to use it "back then."
The thing is, no one here is advocating for Bowen to be punished. My issue here, which I’ve made clear numerous times, is you making definitive statements, speaking for black people as a whole. You may not take that particular word with malice, but I’d wager that a significant number of black people, whether in 2012 or 2021, will not have taken kindly to being greeted in that manner, regardless of intent.