Be Excellent To Each Other

2016 is cruel

Boom

I want your T-shirt!

Is she on telly too?

That's a mystery to me, but the t shirts are both excellent.

Thank you. No idea who she was.

It's a shame someone stole the shoulders out if the girl's tee shirt, though.

I think I can see the culprit's hand.

Cameron stepping down as MP - by-election time!

Should expect large increase in Labour votes there under the Great Leadership

Isn't it the safest of safe Tory seats?

Mate, Corbyn has got this nailed on with his new kinder politics. Labour are going to smash this one. Corbyn is ace. Everyone knows.

They're up 1% on the latest Guardian poll so it's happening!

Briefly i looked and they polled 16% in Witney last time and 22% the time before. If Corbyn is any cop, i would want >22%

I'd be surprised if they polled 10% tbh.

But if anything, it reflects quite well on Jeremy Corbyn.

Go on...

Cameron stepping down?

I am riffing on the famous Toby Young interview where he said the pigfucking rumours reflect well on Cameron.

Ah.

Hmm... I could do with a career change. Just need to move ten miles west from where I currently live.

I'd vote for you. As long as you were wearing a proper suit

Hey, I know the name of my tailor: George.

Reasonable.

Why? There are no rules to say you have to live in the constituency you're a candidate for.

It's West Oxfordshire. They don't trust outsiders.

I didn't realise David Cameron was from West Oxfordshire.

I'm assuming you're intelligent enough to realise that Kern's comment wasn't at all serious and you're trying to continue the joke by playing it straight

I just don't want him to throw away his dream by such narrow thinking

It probably isn't the best place to start the revival of the Liberal Democrats. Frankly, I'd be better off standing for the Whigs.

Kern's Oxford Campaign Slogan:

"Keep Kernow for the Kernish!"

Yes we Kern!

Title.

Kern I kick it?

'Make Rollright Great Again'

There's a really interesting piece in the grauniad about this

"I hope the concept of cultural appropriation is a passing fad'.

On one hand, that was quite well written and made a number of good points. On the other hand, I couldn't quite shake the image of her standing up on the pedestal whining "Oh, but whyyy can't my kids play with a golliwog any more?"

I think that's rather grossly unfair, to be honest, and somewhat typifies the standard of debate around this (at least as it usually goes on the Graun - I was rather surprised they published Lionel's speech given their usual approach).

I disagree. I thought in the article she was entirely focusing on the rational, and totally dismissing the emotional response to questions of discriminatory behaviour. She seemed very much to be doing the typical academic thing of standing there, saying "well obviously nobody's going to put black people back on plantations, so where's the harm?'" - without taking into account that everything involved in race relations has to take the associated baggage into account.
I largely agree with what she's saying, and think that there is a lot of nonsense surrounding what is treated as cultural appropriation - and I think universities and colleges are some of the worst sinners in that extent. I do, however, think the arguments and wording she used are shallow and dismissive.

But where does that translate into you having a mental image of her being a massive racist (which is the only interpretation of your golliwog comment)? That's my issue with what you said.

lol

I didn't call her a massive racist, I called her someone who isn't prepared to value the fact that a community's opinions over their own culture and its history are more important than hers. I don't think she's racist at all - but I do think that she's decidedly insensitive to racial issues.

Wealthy white academic stands at a lectern and tells people they're taking racial sensitivity too seriously? Please.

I'm not going to have sex with you Cras, stop white-knighting

Of course you are.

Of course I am

You don't think that's a rather, shall we say, loaded statement, then?


Ah, of course - and when wealthy white academics have opinions on these things, they can be dismissed with an implication of being a racist.

To be honest, I think someone who makes a living out of telling people they're putting too much time and effort into being considerate of the feelings of oppressed minority groups can be dismissed any way you please. I don't see a big difference between what she's saying there and a lot of MRA stuff.

I'll admit the golliwog comment was hyperbolic. As I said, I don't think she's racist. I just don't think the world has a glaring need right now for people to announce how we're taking racism too seriously.

You know she's a rather famous author, right, not "someone who makes a living out of telling people they're putting too much time and effort into being considerate of the feelings of oppressed minority groups"? Or is it because she's a female author you're dismissing her achievements?


Except she didn't "announce how we're taking racism too seriously". Cultural appropriation (as defined by the academic authorities she's talking about and talky heads in the Guardian, and in that article) is not the same thing as racism, (although there can of course be an overlap depending on how that appropriation is done).

You're sort of proving my point, to be honest. You can't have a productive conversation about an issue if you're constantly misrepresenting what the other person's saying.

I'm not though. At the heart of it, she's basically saying "Well it wouldn't upset me, so what are people bothered about?"



And the response is as it always should be - successful people who haven't spent a lifetime being an oppressed minority (ignoring her sex, the impact of which is impossible to determine from this article) don't get to decide what other people get upset by.