Racism and hypocrisy in Ireland

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121154721#Comment_121154721

No evidence at all, in other words. I rest my case.

Or to quote your own post from earlier on:

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121154528#Comment_121154528

You should be consistent with the standards that you apply to others.

growleaves

This public controversy seems to be mostly driven by Americans.

Simone Biles, Jordan Chiles the famous athletes who've lent their voices to the family are Team USA.

Mohamad Safa, who has been quoted by the Guardian and Sky News and others calling Ireland a racist country, is a "human rights activist" based in New York.

Even Overheal is a resident of South Carolina.

I dislike toxic American race politics very much. There are cultural memories in that country - like George Wallace stopping black schoolgirls from entering the University of Alabama - that have no equivalent or resonance here.

Usually black immigrants to Ireland are Africans from Africa, not descendants of Africans slaves from the Americas. Irish people in Ireland are not descended from slave owners but mainly from subsistence farmers who lived under British rule.

So is cutting and pasting USA race politics onto Ireland a good thing - is it wise or relevant?

Imo it is anti-social to refuse to accept someone's explanation that they simply made an error and accuse them of being motivated by race hatred where it is ambiguous. You should give that person the benefit of the doubt. If you insist they are guilty, please provide incontrovertible evidence yourself.

Why should anyone volunteer for anything or have any civic engagement if the culture is weaponised against ordinary people like this?

There are what anthropologists call "low-trust societies" with very little volunteerism and with many people mostly refusing to deal with anyone outside of their extended family and maybe a few friends. If that's what we want we can have it, because it is not unusual historically or even in the present day. People can just withdraw into themselves.

Overheal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121154732#Comment_121154732

We have prima facie evidence in the form of the video. You rest without providing any reasonable doubts.

Overheal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121154740#Comment_121154740

Incredibly ironic post that confirms the OP

nullzero

So still no actual evidence, just some peoples interpretation of the video as racist and lots of grandstanding and condescending remarks.

Overheal

Still no better explanation than racism. “Distracted” by what. “A mistake” what was the mistake. An “error” what was the error. The favorite was people inventing names on the back of the medals. No reasonable doubts.

growleaves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121154767#Comment_121154767

Nope. There are cases where people shouted racist abuse at GAA and soccer matches. They get fined, warned by a judge and shamed in local papers. That is not brushing racism under the carpet. There is a strong social stigma against racial prejudice in Ireland.

When it comes to an ambiguous incident, where all you know for certain is that someone didn't get a medal, you will never be able to say either way. Therefore the pro-social thing to do is to accept an explanation of innocence (but apologise anyway for carelessness).

Instead there are people who want to make hay from the bad feelings, extrapolate wildly to say that Ireland itself is fundamentally guilty as a country and is a racist country, accuse people who don't accept their interpretation of being racists themselves, and just generally do everything to stoke the flames of such incidents with no thought for the consequences.

Its these politics that I object and I don't believe in the 'innocence' of the people who subscribe to them. They are people who will happily dynamite social solidarity between men and women, between native Irish people and recent immigrants, if this dividing and conquering helps them to increase their own power just a smidgeon or even just to make a display of their own moral vanity.

The corrupted political culture of America clearly leads to permanent feuding between different 'groups' in society, which isn't what I want for my own country.

Overheal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121155084#Comment_121155084

What does America have to do with anything? Still proving the OP with that Freudian slip.

Augme

How's there been any explanation as to why the women made the mistake? Is she claiming she just didn't see the girl at all and didn't even realise she was there? Has she claimed she thought she wasn't meant to get a medal? Haa there been any rational provided as to how the events unfolded?

Penn

The question is; how do you "prove" it's racism? Unless you have the woman involved come forward and say "Yeah, I didn't give her a medal because she's black and I don't like black people", how are you going to actually prove it's racism?

All we can do, particularly as Gymnastics Ireland and the woman in question haven't come forward to give an explanation as to what happened other than go "Whoopsy! That's been dealt with. Shut up", is review the video. And what does the video show? The woman is handing out medals to a line of girls, she gets to the one black girl, looks at her, then sidesteps her, gives a medal to the next white girl, and then carries on down the line. If she'd run out of medals when she got to the black girl and when she came back picked up again at the wrong girl, sure, that could be a mistake. If the black girl was facing away or talking to someone else maybe the woman might have thought she had a medal. If the woman had skipped any one of the white girls rather than the black girl, yeah you could definitely chalk that up to a mistake. Even if the black girl was wearing an outift that had red on it and the woman thought she was already wearing a medal because the medal ribbons were also red, you could think that's fair enough.

Unfortunately, there is so little logical explanation that she stands in front of the one black girl, with a bunch of medals in her hand, and then skips her and continues on down the line. It's not like she even takes one big step past her, she stands in front of her, they clearly make eye contact, then she gets a medal, puts it on the next girl, looks back towards the black girl, and then carries on down the line.

It is incredibly difficult to "prove" some things like this are racist, because ultimately you don't know what's in people's heads or hearts.

But that f*cking looks racist to me.

Overheal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121154732#Comment_121154732

Or to quote your own post from earlier on:

You should re-read what you quoted me on. We have evidence.

lmao10

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121155225#Comment_121155225

It looks racist to 99.999% of people.

some1gr8

Is racism "harmless mistake" that should not behighlighted for the grater good of society.

I nearlly end up paying with my life, spent 2 years of insanity (my previous post will show it)

came close to harming my own family, at the end, just had to suck it up and be quite.

I worked in semi state company with 7k plus employee,

while there were many incident that but the one, that pushed it over the edge was job promotion interview, where after being unsuccessful , in the feedback interview, when they could not give me any logical reason, i was told that it because "I came from outside ireland".

I had seen people junior than me that i was training, getting promotion, but i wasd good enough to train them and take blame for their mistake. but i was not good enough for promotion.

Previous to this company was already charging consultant rate for my work to other state company, while paying me Eng salary

I did not left any stone unturtned to highlight my issue, and sent many emails,used every option available to me and the fasct that, even in investigation report which was an effort to cover up, it said, " These comments were made to encourage me and be patient" . but i was hitting a brickwall.

The whole effort that everybody i contacted was to brush it under the carpet and pressurise me not to highlight it.

there was not the only incidednt, previous to that there were many that can be labed as " harmless mistake".

So you might think that there is no racism in ireland, but the fact is, its all big cover up to make thing appear rosy.

Become Death

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121155248#Comment_121155248

It looks racist to 99.999% of people who agree with you.

But that's because anything negative that happens to anyone who isn't white is because of racism according to those people.

lmao10

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121155438#Comment_121155438

Racism is racism and 99.999% of people are capable of seeing it.

Become Death

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121155464#Comment_121155464

That is absolutely true.

Thankfully, most people don't invent and attribute racism to everything negative experience that non-white people experience.

But sadly there are a very noisy cohort of people who think racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia etc are the only reasons that bad thing happen to people who qualify as "victims" in those categories.

Those things do exist and it does a disservice to actual victims of actual instances of racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia etc

M.Dem

At the medal ceremony, which was filmed and photographs were taken, the judge stood in front of her sorting medals and then moved onto the next girl. The only black girl was the only girl who was not given a medal publicly. She was the only child whose talent and dedication was not publicly acknowledged and celebrated. It is a moment she is likely to remember for the rest of her life. How anyone can attempt to justify this or dismiss is astounding.

lmao10

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121155482#Comment_121155482

Stopped reading after your first sentence. Glad we agree.

Overheal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121155482#Comment_121155482

Where is this cohort? Only reasons?

Cordell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121155248#Comment_121155248

It looks racist to people who are conditioned to see racism whenever a white person wrongs a non-white person.

Become Death

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121155503#Comment_121155503

No wonder you think 99.99% of people agree with you.

M.Dem

Not publicly, not with every other child, not as part of a medal ceremony, not filmed, not photographed, not publicly congratulated. Publicly ignored, disrespected and denigrated. Treated as other.

Become Death

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121155510#Comment_121155510

People who attribute almost everything you they disagree with as some sort of ism or a phobia.

They are very vocal on the internet.

Overheal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121155524#Comment_121155524

Good thing you corrected yourself. They're not here, no use whinging about hypothetical people like that.

Gatling

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121155516#Comment_121155516

Not true

Overheal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121155541#Comment_121155541

What's the innocent explanation?

Charles Babbage

The main thing this illustrates is the absolute innumercy of many people and their inadequate analysis being spread around on social media and the underying racism of many of these people who would regard skipping a black person as worse than skipping a white person.

A sample of one does not prove anything! If one person in 10 in children's gym is black and if in 1% of cases the official accidentally skips someone then eventually they will skip a black child. That they do so does not prove anything and this publicity it says more about the inadequacies of those who rant about it than anything else.

By all means have a big investigation if someone can show that in cases where the official forgets someone, which is extremely rare, that in a reasonable number of these cases there is statistically significant variation in the number of black and white children passed over, accounting for the diffferent proportions involved. Anything else is just **** stirring. **** happens, if there is a pattern then investigate, but one incident does not provide any basis for inferring a pattern. There were some people whose ticket did not work in the rugby in Paris, if both of these wore glasses it does not imply that World Rugby has it in for people with glasses.

Become Death

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121155540#Comment_121155540

Oh they are here.

More pathetic than hypothetic though.

M.Dem

There was a line of children who were to receive a medal. The judge skipped one child. only. How could you possibly try to try to justify that?

lmao10

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121155513#Comment_121155513

It looks racist to normal people. Sorry if that hits a nerve.