Jeremy Clarkson's "The World According To Clarkson" is one of Penguin's "best books of its kind to be published in recent years"

Quit taking the context out of it (old white dude who has a history of saying racist things, invoking stereotypes) to make him look _better_

there is no accident, there is no lack of intention to offend,

multiple takes, he realized he accidentally mumbled it in one, and asked for a different take to be used, this one with a totally different word used in n-word's place? how is that not "lack of intention to offend"?

when you're 60 yrs old and reciting a nursery rhyme that had the n-word in it

for the umpteenth time, this was being filmed AS A BIT. the ENTIRE JOKE was "ohmygod he's gonna say the n-word what a bad boy". he didn't get recorded by an undercover journo during a game of hide and seek that got heated ffs

he recorded it twice with the n-word mumbled, realised he wdn't get away with it, recorded it a third time with a mumble intended to not sound like the word - altho the point of the joke was the same

ahhhhh Dainger are you saying it's only a problem if clarkson was thinking "i hope this hurts someone's feelings" when filming the bit?

I don't care about making him look better. Just think this particular thing isn't terribly egregious on its own. If you want to tie it into his past, go ahead. Outsider looking in, it seems silly for this to get as much outrage as it has. Public funding of BBC and his past...yes I can see why people who already disliked him would try to snatch upon this as the final straw.

"BBC broadcaster thinks better of using the n-word on his TV show after trying it out a couple of times" - maybe you're right, that doesn't really sound like a bad thing

Granny, have you considered using arguments that a single person on the thread might find convincing, or addressing anyone's actual points?

As an outsider, you are basically saying you have no idea what this guy's pattern of behavior is, but you're willing to defend him all over the place.

like, give us a single point here as to your interest in the matter other than trolling, because you're not having a reasonable conversation

It's not reasonable because you have all made up your minds and anyone who disagrees with you is a racist or racist apologist. Long live ILX "debate".

what I am getting from this is: Granny Dainger is the guy who is willing to defend a pathologically old racist white British man based on a single case, knowing nothing of the guy's history, because old rich white guy really needs it?

Everyone said it was about a pattern of behavior and you cherry-picked NV's post saying this single incident would get him in trouble. NV also said this was based on the context and prior behavior in response.

So what. is. your. point?

you are basically saying you have no idea what this guy's pattern of behavior is,

No, I am aware of most of it, I think. I happen to think this particular incident isn't anything to cause an outrage(as a "last straw", I can see how it's a perfect thing to latch onto). You and everyone else here disagrees. Fine.

No, I disagree with that. I think the last straw probably came years ago.

you are getting the wrong things from this then. But it is the things that allow you to paint me in the most negative light possible, so I'm hardly surprised.

t's not reasonable because you have all made up your minds and anyone who disagrees with you is a racist or racist apologist. Long live ILX "debate".

― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger), Sunday, May 4, 2014 10:19 AM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

what I am getting from this is: Granny Dainger is the guy who is willing to defend a pathologically old racist white British man based on a single case, knowing nothing of the guy's history, because old rich white guy really needs it?

― a strange man (mh), Sunday, May 4, 2014 10:19 AM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink.

Love how these posts are backtoback

do you not think it's an outrage because you don't think racist language shd be thought of as racist unless it's in a context directed very explicitly at a person or group? trying to fully understand your argument here

Clarkson's shtick isn't 'i'm a big racist', it's 'i'm a normal bloke who likes a bit of racist / sexist / homophobic bantz, just like you, and i'm going to constantly try to get away with as much as i can, on our collective behalf, to stick it to the PC Nazis'.

In this case, the joke was 'we both know i am deliberately saying the version of the rhyme with the n-word in but i'll get in trouble if i just come out and say it so i am going to mumble or cough at the key point'. It assumes the audience is in on the joke. It's the same with most of his 'racial humour' - unambiguously racist (or at least anti anti-racist) in intent but skirting the boundary with his phrasing so he doesn't get taken off air.

That's fundamentally different from someone in the public eye who uses the word accidentally or absent-mindedly, as Germaine Greer did a couple of years ago.

The only other British broadcaster that I can remember using that word when thought he was off camera pretty much got thrown out of his job within the space of a few days iirc. He was a football commentator of a generation older than clarkson and got the boot despite several black footballers stepping up to defend him (which was based on his previous standing of being pretty much the first football manager in the english football league to field black players). Not sure he's ever worked much since and i think that's definitely the right call even though i confess i really liked the guy beforehand. given that precedent, why that arsehole clarkson is being given the benefit of doubt after mutiple previous incidents sure the heck beats the shit out of me.

Honestly I am puzzled by why Hammond in particular wasn't fired for the Mexican stuff.

I think it's convenient, but really the wrong message, to fire people for saying things in plain language that we've deemed as shibboleths when it's only the tiniest indicator of the monstrously horrible behavior they've participated in, in the past.

Your comment about the NBA owner, Sterling, indicates you agree with this convenience, to me. Because that guy had _legal judgments_ against him for discrimination under the law, but somehow that wasn't enough until he was caught muttering what people suspected he thought.

Hammond wasn't fired for the Mexican stuff because there is no shibboleth in British culture against slurring the Mexican people.

because, like Clarkson, he has been placed on a pedestal of virtual untouchability within the BBC which allows him to continually push the line SV talks about up there

and Granny, I felt that you weren't taking the guy's history into account, either! If this childhood rhyme thing happened in a vacuum it wouldn't be that newsworthy. I don't think anyone here is contesting that, but you kept acting like it had to be looked at in seclusion.

Hammond nearly won a Darwin Award while working for the BBC so they may feel guiltily in his debt.

I can see why people who already disliked

And I don't get why you're trying to make this personal. People don't want racist, colonialist, retrograde attitudes seen as funny or fine for television coming from people seen in a positive light. Making it about Clarkson personally is kind of disingenuous.

Hammond, Clarkson & May's function as the id of the BBC works fine as long as you assume the BBC's audience is entirely made up of people like them, or if the part of the audience that isn't like them is of no concern to the organization. also have to remember there are sections of the BBC that genuinely worry that they don't represent the views of the bigot on the street often enough

agree w/all that (and most of what you've said actually), mh

xxp

This stuff is actively harmful. The attempt to swing the pendulum back to "it's just a bit of fun" wrt regressive, offensive behaviour is played out all across the country every day. Clarkson is the most visible example of the anti-PC / "banter" culture that sees you as the problem if you object to someone else making a racist / sexist / homophobic joke about you if the person making the joke isn't a card-carrying neo-Fascist.

If this childhood rhyme thing happened in a vacuum it wouldn't be that newsworthy. I don't think anyone here is contesting that, but you kept acting like it had to be looked at in seclusion.

If I "kept acting like it had to be looked at in seclusion" it was because I felt that people were making it to be far worse than I thought it was. It's enough of a case to go "look this is relatively minor as far as racist statements or actions go, but it is one in a long line of them from Clarkson, and as a Britain I don't think he should be employed by the BBC any longer. I'm tired of it" that I don't think any one needs to go to things like "yes it's one of the hazards of being a white man, the n-word could just pop out at any time, at the most inconvenient moment. even when you're concentrating super-hard on not saying it" and paint this act in specific as being horribly horribly racist.

People keep saying super hard on.

I think one of the main problems, and not just w/the Clarkson situation, is that in the absence of an obvious, wrapped-up package of a racist statement or action with a bow on top, there's a willingness to sweep smaller infractions under the rug. I mean, maybe someone in the BBC is waiting for Clarkson to do something over the top, but in doing so, there are years of incidents of passive racism or bias that happen.

It's a different situation than the Sterling one in the US, but in that case there are actual, legally-documented lives that the guy has fucked with but the one time he's recorded, complaining about his girlfriend/assistant/whoever hanging around with _affluent_ people of color, he loses his NBA franchise. In absence of a smoking gun (which let's get real, the guy has had smoking guns, just not what people cared about) they've ignored all kinds of passive acts that are many times worse than an offhand racial slur or comment.

So yeah, painting this one act by Clarkson as ridiculously bad is a bit disingenuous, but defending his job or reputation on that basis is not something I'd be willing to do.

"He shouldn't get in trouble for this slip-up" in the grand scheme of things is kind of "the perfect is the enemy of the good" when it comes to possibilities to indict this behavior, long-term.

Clarkson is the most visible example of the anti-PC / "banter" culture

I think overreacting to things like Clarkson did here only fuels these people's notions, unfortunately. How to show that this sort of thing isn't acceptable, this pattern of "soft" racism from someone like Clarkson, while also not giving the anti-PC folks affirmation that "see, they're all just too sensitive and looking for a reason to be offended" is prob next to impossible tho.

It's also worth noting (via thread history) that Clarkson repeatedly sets up was-he-or-wasn't-he situations in order to exploit the divide between what behavior is acceptable in his role as television personality and what behavior isn't. Is Jeremy Clarkson trustworthy when he said that his words slipped out? Given past history, probably norm, but sure, give him the benefit of the doubt and kick the can down the road another half-dozen years.

I think one of the main problems, and not just w/the Clarkson situation, is that in the absence of an obvious, wrapped-up package of a racist statement or action with a bow on top, there's a willingness to sweep smaller infractions under the rug

yes this. but things do not disappear when they get swept under the rug, no? if there's a lot of little things that have been swept under there, you can't ignore the bulge they create. iow little things prob should be "swept under the rug", but they shouldn't be forgotten.

dude baits people who see "politically correct" behavior everywhere as the enemy into supporting him and buying his shit

if he's not fired, it's under the rug.

basically any time he turns the conversation from "he should be fired" to "is this passively racist, or is he being persecuted" he gets us to discuss it a lot and his book sales go up

so fire him, that'll send a message right? to whom? people who already agree that he's a racist who should be fired. he'll undoubtedly quickly get another job at a nonBBC station plus will be a martyr for the antiPC crowd.

It's enough of a case to go "look this is relatively minor as far as racist statements or actions go, but it is one in a long line of them from Clarkson, and as a Britain I don't think he should be employed by the BBC any longer. I'm tired of it" that I don't think any one needs to go to things like "yes it's one of the hazards of being a white man, the n-word could just pop out at any time, at the most inconvenient moment. even when you're concentrating super-hard on not saying it" and paint this act in specific as being horribly horribly racist.

maybe i don't need to, but i am, because it truly does boggle my mind that by his own admission he needs to work quite hard at not saying the n-word on national television. i also sort of can't stop giggling at this image, sweat beads forming on his head, "must... not.... say..... DAMMIT"

by his own admission he needs to work quite hard at not saying the n-word on national television.

....when reciting a nursery rhyme which contained the n-word. again, you've omitted things to paint it how it plays out best for your ends.

not sure how a racist nursery rhyme makes a white dude saying the n-word any less racist, but you've been holding that line for awhile so i doubt i'm going to change your mind now. now excuse me while i go back to plotting how to make things play out best for my "ends"... muahahaha

"boss, boss..! you don't understand, 'faggot' was once a term of endearment in my family, and it's hard for me not to use it at work"

right, reciting the original words to a nursery rhyme is just as racist as saying something like "I don't let my daughter date n**gers". it's exactly this hardline anti-racist stance that has worked out so well in squashing the antiPC folks.

you're not getting this

and I think you're not

see how that works?

no one here is saying reciting the original words to a nursery rhyme is just as racist as saying something like "I don't let my daughter date n**gers" and no one is interested in saying that

but you think they are

then you'd say a nursery rhyme could make a white dude saying the n word less racist?

i think very, very few things could make a white dude saying the n word less racist, certainly not a racist nursery rhyme that most sentient human beings learned alternate words to about a hundred years ago

especially this white dude

Granny did you know that passive racism does a shitload more harm than active racism? If a dude says "I don't hire black people" then there's legal recourse, but if he makes subtle comments all the time and is is a shitbag about his attitudes about people different than him, there's no legal recourse and people are just like "oh, whatever, he can have his opinions"

I mean, that's less of a deal when it's your racist uncle, more of a deal when it's some rich dude with a soapbox who people might want to emulate