OFCOM letter of response

Tabnabs

My friendly postman delivered a letter from OFCOM this morning. It was in response to my complaint about racial stereotyping of an Irish housemate (‘Seany vs the leprechaun’ incident). It’s a fairly detailed letter which basically says that leprechaun is not an offensive word and is in no way racially abusive when compared to “the n-word”.

Everyone who wrote in can expect a letter in the post so!

(Have to admit, I had completely forgotten about it!)

BuffyBot

Good to see my tax money being wasted on something we already knew

Hobbes

BuffyBot wrote:

Good to see my tax money being wasted on something we already knew

Even better, anyone from any country can complain to OFCOM and it comes out of your taxes.

Also Starring LeVar Burton

I got one too. It's probably the exact same letter. It took them long enough to respond.

Naos

Eh, Thats total boll0x.

Leprechaun is an offensive word if it's used in an offensive manner.

I'm not trying to big the Irish up here, but just because we don't get offended easily and generally just joke about, does not mean that they can claim it's not offensive.

Evidently it is if people were bothered enough to get up off their asse's and write in about it.

Dyflin: I strong recommend you to write to them again explaining this.

Cactus Col

Mear wrote:

Eh, Thats total boll0x.

Leprechaun is an offensive word if it's used in an offensive manner.

I'm not trying to big the Irish up here, but just because we don't get offended easily and generally just joke about, does not mean that they can claim it's not offensive.

Evidently it is if people were bothered enough to get up off their asse's and write in about it.

Dyflin: I strong recommend you to write to them again explaining this.

Absolutely .... it's not offensive in the same way as Gollywog isn't offensive!

r3nu4l

I got mine yesterday too...and it came out of my taxes As an Irish person living in England I'd get plenty offended if my colleagues or people I didn't know started referring to me as 'the leprechaun'. I'm pretty sure that if that happened in any place of business the HR department would put a stop to it pretty soon.

I can't imagine calling any of my black colleagues "Golly" and getting away with it!

kittex

Ah but this is Britain. It's OK here to be derogatory about the Irish or the Scots.

I've lost count of the amount of times I've been told "Relax, it's just a bit of fun" about comments like the one aimed at Seany.

r3nu4l

I had a colleague who every time she saw me for the first three days I worked with her would put on a 'torr-a-loo, top o' the morning, turty-tree' accent.

When I asked her to stop she was shocked and responded by saying "But I love the Irish, I've got Irish friends!" thereby attempting to justify it.

Sounds a bit like "I'm not racist but..." doesn't it?

The OFCOM letter also states that they felt Channel four should broadcast the word because it showed the housemates in their true light. However they broadcast Emily saying the 'n-word' showing her in her true light and Channel 4 still took action, looks like it's okay to be racist against fellow whites like Kittex says.

admiralofthefleet

i got an email from them, they probably got fed up sending out letters.

Also Starring LeVar Burton

I was very dissapointed. The complaints were lodged over a month ago and we all only got response yesterday or today. It's ridiculous. Anyone know how we can find out, how many complaints they got about it from the boardsies. I know I was first. What happened to the thread where this was discussed? I'd like to go back and refresh my memory.
Is there anywhere we can complain about the behaviour of Ofcom?
Wouldn't it be funny if we complained to Ofcom about Ofcom?

Hobbes

Month is normal, and yea you can complain to Ofcom about Ofcom.