You think people should be allowed to carry on making racist comments online for instance?
Prophet Muhammad cartoon sparks Batley Grammar School protest
- Thread starter esmufc07
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Wow, I completely misread your post then.So you agree with me, stop fighting it.
Yup. At what point in someone's life do they get tempted to draw an image of a religions prophet? The point isn't even about a neutral image, it's about an image that was intentionally made to offend by depicting their prophet as a terrorist. Like.. what is their possibly to gain? It's the freedom to speak vs freedom to offend. I can go up to someone's face and just start spewing insults about their family, parents, siblings, children, friends, heroes, whatever the case. I would also expect the other person to lash out at me and I would probably deserve what I got (within reason). You can't just go out and offend people (with your actions being entirely meant to offend someone) and not expect a reaction. People who use "freedom of speech" as an excuse to say what they like is usually trying to justify being a cnut of a human. All there is to it.
You don't, but you do show explicit photographs from the holocaust if you're teaching about it, for example. I don't know about British school books, but Norwegian ones are full of uncomfortable paintings, photos and other imagery. None of them contains the Muhammad cartoons, but if properly set up and justified you would be well within your rights to show them (you probably wouldn't ever do so in history, but in sociology, for example). This was made very clear in the wake of the beheading of the teacher in France.
Racist comments are different because you’re born that way. Islam is a certain set of values you yourself choose to follow. Islam is more comparable with political views which are widely ridiculed on this forum for instance.
I think there's a definite argument for a lot more than banning in some cases.
Threatening people with violence, stalking etc.
I think long term they will eventually make the major social media platforms verified accounts versus your national insurance number only.
The pressure will become too high on the fb/twitter/youtube type sites.
That will cut the abuse down greatly as there will be ramifications on people.
There will still be an underground, but it'll be a cesspool to avoid.
Similar to lynching photos in my country, always often point of contention, but very impactful & thought provoking.
Those are illegal acts and don't fall under freedom of speech, imo.
I don't necessarily agree with that. I love the anonymity this forum offers and I'm happy that the general forum isn't visible to the public. Regardless of what I post: I'd hate it if everything I wrote was logged so clearly under my real name that a google search would return everything.
I think what he means is you shouldn't go to jail for it but you should know that you'll also be effectively shunned/hated on by the community and criticized for it. Can't say I'd disagree with saying any words, regardless of how harmful, shouldn't put you in jail, but more just a societal disapproval/shunning thing.
The mention of god in a public setting can only be accepted in a not so secular context, in the case of the US we are talking about a country that was supposed to be a model of secularism at its creation(if I'm not mistaken) but with the de-secularization of the state and mentalities, mentions of god have seemingly become the norm.
Now my point was that in a secular country, the mention of scriptures or god is highly limited, that's one of the key aspects of secularism, the state is supposed to be neutral. The state and everything directly linked to it are supposed to be faithless.
Now the interesting thing is that even if we disagree with those failed versions of secularism we tend to accept them as the norm. We accept that the US president casually mentions god or that the french president casually visits the Pope. But when minorities ask about their religions and maybe a little of empathy we ask them to shut up because we are seculars.
I'm not really sure what you think the parents have done to even start answering this. There was a bigger fuss when Jamie Oliver took away fatty foods.
From the footage I've seen there's been about 15 people stood quietly at the gate. It's more Father Ted than Beghazi.
Anyone got a link to the cartoon ?
If today a movement started that wanted to ban cartoons of a person who lives now which they find offensive everybody would rightfully ridicule that. Just because Muhammeds movement started centuries ago it all of a sudden is totally different while in its core it’s exactly the same.
Muhammed himself probably offended a lot of people in his time and he is the hero of the people who don’t think you can say anything offensive about Islam. Where’s the logic?
Muhammed himself probably offended a lot of people in his time and he is the hero of the people who don’t think you can say anything offensive about Islam. Where’s the logic?
I bet Banksy could do a good prophet.
Not the case here, specifically, the mentions of religion abound, especially in many specific states, both governmentally & casually. Such an environment doesn’t exist, à faithless environment to the extent you are discussing.
Not too sure about the phrasing of your last point, but that’s nhnt. I wouldn’t want to limit debate on a relevant cultural topic even if it means offending a small portion of the society. But that’s just me.
We're talking about children. And the person in question is a teacher.
Are you suggesting therefore, that teachers should be free to offend their pupils? If so, that's a very slippery slope, atop a hill I wouldn't particularly like to die on.
Just Google image Charlie Hebdo Islam or Muhammed.
And yet they've been described as terrorists and mentions of beheadings as a norm in Islamic culture. Quite regularly, in fact.
There is a very thin(frankly nonexistent) line being treaded between free speech and outright discrimination here.
the worst thing about this thread.. you made me click on a dailymail link.
Oh.. was it the same one?
The others are not harmless by definition. Somebody was harmed in the making of child porn and of gore or violence. It is a totally different thing to a cartoon poking fun at a religious figure.
I'm not having a go at you here, but I feel that bringing up racism in this discussion is just a lazy attempt to score moral points and discredit the conversation of anyone who disagrees with you.
They are totally different things. People are hurt by racism, people are hurt by actual religious persecution. Nobody is hurt by a cartoon depicting Mohammed and it is wrong to pretend one is equatable to the others.
I feel passionately about both of those issues. I also feel passionately about this one because I have studied the impact of the church and taboo on my own state.
That doesn't make me a bad person and it's wrong for you and others to use my opinion on this to paint me as having a bad opinion on the others which you do when you lazily equate it to those.
Serious question - what potential slippery slopes have actually occurred to negative consequence?
There’s no way this is a reasonable/proportionate response to a disagreement over the content of a lesson at school. Also note that they’re expanding the content of their complaints to include children being taught “inappropriate relationship and sex education”. We all know what that is referring to.
What an absolute idiot of a teacher and completely goes against what teachers should be doing.
Not sure which one, but this is from the first page saying it's one of the Hebdo cartoons (there aren't many of these cartoons that would ever get brought up in any way, this one is a notable one, so would make sense).
They are literally very well spoken and gathering to protest what is happening. There teacher has been making racist comments deliberately to wind up part of the community. What else are they supposed to do Pogue?
Did the teacher make racist comments?
In the video they say that one of the teachers spoke about the Iraq war and said “your guys are shooting at our guys legs off.”
was this a religious school? Shouldn’t a teacher be allowed some freedom?
how many of those children were ‘offended’, did it really warrant these types of protests?
A teacher insulting it's peers and students and a large group of people? The ages of this school is 4-16. Probably very easy to form their opinions. Being a teacher has LOADS of responsibility. If you're teaching them hate, teaching them that being rude and insulting people is OK, teaching them it's OK to not be tolerant of the differences of others.... then you are straight up fueling hate and helping lead to actual tragedies. It's not a big leap to start from criticism, hate and turn that hate into oppression and segregation based on a skin color or a belief. Which can then lead to genocide, as we've seen throughout history. A teachers job is to be impartial, to be respectful, tolerant of EVERYONE, and purely educational. Not to sway opinions towards their own beliefs. A teacher doesn't tell kids that this group of people is better than another, that this religion is better than another, that this country is better than another, that being this race is better than another. Years in years of a certain way of thinking and teaching led to years of racism against people of color, sexism against women who were deemed inferior for whatever reason, so many restrictions to anyone who isn't hetero-sexual that even to this day in many first world countries they don't have the same rights. The list goes on.
Does a teacher deliberately being inflammatory towards the students they are meant to safeguard need a protest of around 30 people peacefully gathering?
yes.
He did what now?
In the video you posted.
Talking about how “their boys” had been blowing up British soldiers legs.
Sorry Pogue but exactly what is it that you find out of proportion in that video? As if white parents haven't ever protested at school gates possibly over eager on their statements to the press. Let's not downplay religious sensitivities to contents of a lesson, it is what it is a bit of a crass act.
I didn't grow up that far from the area so perhaps i'm a bit more comfortable with those type of scenes because to me i'd have seen more muslim parents on the daily, perhaps it's more contrasting to some. I completely agree they're wrong on sex education but then they won't win that argument and they never do because it's vital, they're entitled to that opinion but they know they won't win.
You’re discussing potentials / maybes. What slippery slopes into negative consequences have actually existed, been proven to have occurred? I’m sure there has to be some, but what are they?
Or maybe the slippery slope argument is a bit of a fallacy?
Cultural insensitivity is not harmful? If we start being culturally insensitive, where does it stop? When it gets hateful? When it gets vile?
Why not try to be as respectful of others as possible, within reason? Especially when around children.
There's a precedent being set here that it's okay to disregard people's beliefs if we head down this road.
I disagree with the take on racism. When a commentator constantly remarks black footballers as strong and athletic but dumb and technically lacking, does that not contribute to a stereotype? Is that harmless?
When we're depicting a religious prophet in an offensive manner, does that not set a trend that it's okay to do that? When the image is depicting a religious figure as a terrorist, is that not setting a stereotype for those of Islamic beliefs?
I learned about religions in class at the age of 10. I didn't need a fecking offensive cartoon to understand what I was learning about.
What slippery slope comes out of teaching it is ok to hate and insulting your students is ok? Are you being serious right now? Why the feck do you think there was so much racism, sexism and oppression throughout history? There is nothing potential or maybe about it. People believed they were better than other groups. People taught kids it was ok to hate on them because they were different. This led to years of slavery, oppression, sexism, racism, genocides as some of these kids grew into people who viewed them as lesser so they were insignificant. "It doesn't matter if I push them out of this country, they have this belief therefore they are dumb and useless and a strain on resources."
I can't tell if you're being serious because it is very worrying if you are here.
That’s a different teacher. And sounds like complete hearsay. Which is inevitable when a bunch of people get all riled up and Chinese whispers start. All we know for certain is what we’ve heard about the cartoon. Which was real enough for the school to have taken action.
The whole “protest” smacks of the usual suspects looking for an opportunity to stir shit. Hence the mention of sex education etc For a bunch of allegedly concerned parents it’s hard not to notice the absence of any mothers.