Duncan Garner: Let's squash the PC race relations office and move on

[Crusader]

Are you one of those people who prefers to attempt to change history rather than answer the question honestly?


Anyway, reading through the earlier thread about Susan Devoy (posted by Lovelee back when Ms Devoy became the race relations concilliator) is very interesting. Posts from YOU even feature in it. You should go back and see what you were posting about her back then and compare it to what you (and others) are posting about her now. I won't make it easy for you and post a link....find it yourself by typing Susan Devoy into the group's search engine and it should be the top result, ahead even of this latest thread about the Dame.

I am not here to discuss the past, I am merely informing you that your constant anti Nat propoganda has brought this group down and needs to be toned down.

Ooooooh.....we mustn't criticise the government unless some people get upset.

Does that apply when the Nats are no longer the government in NZ?

'cause I seem to recall a HUGE amount of criticism of the previous government by heaps of people.

Would you like us to all sing Kumbaya together every day for ever and ever and ever?

OK now you are using the Straw Man Theory to try and win an argument by quoting me out of context. I have merely asked you to tone down the constant anti Nat posts. Everytime you do this, Reality feels the need to butt in (as he has just done on this thread) and then the whole thread is hijacked by you both, trying to get one over the other. From there it just descends into chaos of which everyone else wants to disassociate from this group. Reality has already received his warning, and it is time you receive yours.

That post of yours was nothing more than just an attempt to bait Reality.

[reality]

..."Reality feels the need to butt in.."

...only because  I dont  think people should be able to make claims that are at best wrong..or at worst lies....
 .....it happens with monotonous regularity

..I am dont see it as "butting in"....i see it as my civic duty

..we should not let misinformation become the norm here..."guests" could get a bad impression of us

[Alicat]

I'm watching this thread - be under no illusion - if this thread continues to be hijacked, it will end up along with all the others in the Biffo Room.

No argument.

No consultation.

Just action.

[ssweetpea]

I'm watching this thread - be under no illusion - if this thread continues to be hijacked, it will end up along with all the others in the Biffo Room.

No argument.

No consultation.

Just action.

Alicat is not the only mod watching - just often the quickest to get to a computer.

[reality]

"I'm watching this thread - be under no illusion - if this thread continues to be hijacked, it will end up along with all the others in the Biffo Room.

No argument.

No consultation.

Just action."

.....and

"Alicat is not the only mod watching - just often the quickest to get to a computer."

...but please let us not have anything that could be determined as decisive

..or perhaps we could have a rule that if you are going to make outrageous claims you should have evidence....not just attacking  people for the sake of blindly following a political doctrine..we would be far more relevant if we were all accountable

[guest49]

Oh for Christ's sake give it a bloody rest realty!

[reality]

I feel that accepting those types of claims and remaining silent  is similar to knowing about child abuse and remaining silent..do you not think that members should be accountable for their claims?

Why are we so afraid of the truth...standing up, and being counted

What do I have to do to become a mod?

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

Meanwhile, in “PC” America....



from the Los Angeles Times....

Young '60s civil rights heroes should be a model for today's protesters

By DAVID HORSEY | 5:00AM - Wednesday, November 25, 2015



THE CARTOON that accompanies this column is a deliberate but good-humored provocation meant to lure student activists into a discussion of what is important and not important, what is central and what is peripheral to their cause.

Let me first stipulate that I believe racism remains a deeply rooted problem in our country, even if its expression now comes more frequently from ignorance than from overt hatred. Women remain targets of sexual assault and gender bias. Micro-aggressions, too, are a pervasive phenomenon that can wear at the spirit of even the most talented and motivated young person who comes from a disadvantaged background. Those stipulations will disappoint folks who saw my cartoon and thought, “That liberal fool has finally come to his senses!” No, my view of the world has not suddenly flipped.

My view of the world, though, makes me think the movement that is rising across the country on college campuses has become so important that it deserves a critique from an ally. My message to the new student activists is simple: The cause in which you are engaged is bigger than you are. The arc of history bends toward justice only if people keep pushing it in that direction, but people who cannot be taken seriously undermine that effort.

Here is one small example of what I mean. Recently, during a student gathering at USC, a young white man was speaking and used the word “guys” to refer to the people in the room, as in “you guys ought to think about this” or “you guys don't understand.” An angry young woman interrupted him, declaring that his use of the word “guys” was an affront and a negation of all the females in the room.

Really? Am I not right in thinking that 99% of young American women use “guys” in a gender-neutral way? If a female student were urging her female friends to join in a protest, she would very likely say, “Hey guys, let's skip class and go to the quad!” Some micro-aggressions are not at all small, but some are relatively minor. And, as in this case, a few seem to be fabricated so that the allegedly offended person can get the upper hand in a debate and, perhaps, demonstrate she is superior to anyone who has not adopted the proper lingo.

There was an even more alarming incident on the University of Missouri campus when a line of students, having claimed a “safe space” for their protest in the center of campus, intimidated a student news photographer who was on the scene to cover the story. An extended video of the confrontation showed the young Asian American photographer remaining impressively cool as he asserted his 1st Amendment right even as the protesters pushed against him, berated him and blatantly used the language of personal safety as a tool of aggression.

Those students had the excuse of being young and naive. Not so the faculty member who was with them — a communications teacher, of all things, who had urged the media to cover the protest and then, on camera, called for “muscle” to help her drive newspeople away.

Incidents like these can make protesters look ridiculous, as did the spectacle at Yale where a student was caught on video profanely shouting down a faculty member who was attempting to engage in a reasoned discussion about Halloween costumes. Sorry, folks, but political activism isn’t a form of therapy and self-actualization. It isn’t a place to prove how cool you are. Demanding that every obtuse college official be fired is not much of a tactic. Treating every slight and offense as a catastrophe betrays a lack of proportion.

Today's student protesters would do well to emulate the young civil rights activists of the early 1960s. These were students who sat down at segregated lunch counters and took severe abuse with stoic, passive resistance. These were students who went into the Deep South to register people to vote who had been denied their rights because of their skin color. These were the young Freedom Riders who boarded buses and went on the road to challenge the racist system that kept black citizens from having the same access as white citizens to bus stations, drinking fountains, public bathrooms, hotels, movie theaters, restaurants, schools and universities.

These students were not seeking safe spaces for themselves. To the contrary, they were intentionally putting themselves in danger. Many were beaten by racist mobs. Many more were jailed. Some were murdered. But their disciplined, nonviolent activism shamed and inspired a nation and went a long way toward toppling an oppressive, racist system that had been entrenched for centuries.

The times and circumstances are now significantly different, of course. Still, today's young activists would do well to develop that same kind of discipline and focus. They need to know that others have been in their place before and accomplished great things because they were trained in the practices of nonviolence and were ready to put the common cause ahead of themselves.

Sure, it is presumptuous of me to lecture. I'm a very privileged, middle-aged white male whose greatest privilege is having a platform in a major American newspaper where I can spout off day after day. But that doesn’t mean what I say is not worth thinking about.

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/topoftheticket/la-na-tt-model-for-protesters-20151124-story.html

[dragontamer]

Oh for Christ's sake give it a bloody rest realty!

You seem to have a problem with translating Yak's statement.  Let me make it clear...

SHUT THE FUCK UP!

[reality]

Oh for Christ's sake give it a bloody rest realty!

You seem to have a problem with translating Yak's statement.  Let me make it clear...

SHUT THE FUCK UP!

Thanks for being so reasonable

...why am I so surprised