New Party fad!

[beaky]

It's inevitable that the obvious difference will be mentioned when decribing someone. I get tired of white hand-wringing over this; I couldn't begin to count the number of times I've overheard someone with slightly more melanin in their skin mention that so-and-so was "white" as a way of  sort of setting the scene, or narrowing down the identity of someone who's name they've forgotten, etc. This is generally done with no malice or contempt whatsoever, and I'm not offended by it as a "white" man. Pussyfooting around it is just a pretense of righteousness, and in my mind it's a form of racism. You can mention someone's age, gender, height, weight, wealth, clothing, etc., but God forbid you describe their race...?!
We're all brown, some more than others... there are historical and cultural complexities to it,and a few secondary physical characteristics, but it's really just a matter of melanin. I don't think I'll ever fully understand what all the fuss is about, but I guess many people are still driven by some ancient tribal urge to mistrust the "others"...

[Deputy]

Well remember they are brummies. And as I said, saying the colour of their skin just adds more description to the story. Otherwise you would just assume everyone to be white.

Yeah, but black or white, it makes no difference. Somebody is dead now, who shouldn't be. You'd never see it written quite like that in a news article around here.

[Hagar]

There's always the possibility it was racially motivated. Maybe this was the reason they mentioned it. Easy to pretend there's no racial discrimination but this is still a serious problem. From what I've seen it's worse in some parts of the US than it ever was here. I don't think this obsession with not mentioning the colour of a person's skin helps. It might even make things worse.

[Deputy]

Racial motivation can be extremely difficult to 'detect', sometimes impossible. I am not familiar with British journalists, so I'm not sure what to expect with the British newspapers. Care to fill me in, Doug? Is this ... typical?

The reason I ask, here, at least in Oregon, people would be  furious, lawsuits against the newspaper, and a bunch of bad image of the city.

[Hagar]

Racial motivation can be extremely difficult to 'detect', sometimes impossible. I am not familiar with British journalists, so I'm not sure what to expect with the British newspapers. Care to fill me in, Doug? Is this ... typical?

The reason I ask, here, at least in Oregon, there would be people furious, lawsuits against the newspaper, and a bunch of bad image of the city.

In my experience it's very unusual that this would have been mentioned in a newspaper or on TV here. I didn't notice it myself until Dave pointed it out so it's possibly more common than I thought. Here's the same report on the BBC website. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4429707.stm
Note that the victim's skin colour is not mentioned. Nor is the skin colour of her alleged attacker.

I still think this is ridiculous & as I said before, it does nothing for racial harmony. IMHO
Not being allowed to mention something cannot prevent what people think. None of the black people I know ever objected to me calling them black. They're proud of it so why would they object? I sometimes wonder if the people who make these stupid rules ever knew anyone of a different race or colour.

PS. Rottydaddy obviously feels as I do & puts it so much better than me.

Pussyfooting around it is just a pretense of righteousness, and in my mind it's a form of racism. You can mention someone's age, gender, height, weight, wealth, clothing, etc., but God forbid you describe their race...?!

Deliberately avoiding mentioning something does not magically make it go away. It just sweeps it under the carpet.

[Deputy]

In my experience it's very unusual that this would have been mentioned in a newspaper or on TV here. I didn't notice it myself until Dave pointed it out so it's possibly more common than I thought. Here's the same report on the BBC website. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4429707.stm
Note that the victim's skin colour is not mentioned. Nor is the skin colour of her alleged attacker.

I still think this is ridiculous & as I said before, it does nothing for racial harmony. IMHO
Not being allowed to mention something cannot prevent what people think. None of the black people I know ever objected to me calling them black. They're proud of it so why would they object? I sometimes wonder if the people who make these stupid rules ever knew anyone of a different race or colour.

PS. Rottydaddy obviously feels as I do & puts it so much better than me.
Deliberately avoiding mentioning something does not magically make it go away. It just sweeps it under the carpet.

Here's what I think is the problem with that - if you 'classify' each crime by race, people will begin to think that a specific race is bad, when in reality, it is not. For instance, here, in Washington County, crimes involving Hispanics are of a large number. People read the crime trends involving Hispanics, and without researching the population of Hispanics in this county,  will think, "all Hispanics are bad." Well, they aren't. There are more Hispanics here than any other race , most of whom are good people, who have not done anything wrong. But the public doesn't think about the numbers of Hispanics that DON'T do anything wrong as opposed to the few that do, and the entire race gets a bad rap. This is the case with every single race.

Same with African Americans and Caucasians. People read half of the information out there, and make a decision on that limited information. No particular race is worse or better than any other.

I firmly believe the media doesn't reveal such information about the race of those involved in crimes, to prevent uproar of other races.

[Hagar]

I was speaking more generally. People are afraid to mention anyone's skin colour in public now in case they're accused of being racist over a perfectly innocent remark. The problem with this type of thinking is that it's a form of censorship. I don't think it solves anything.

In this particular case the black girl was an invited guest & apparently the perfectly innocent victim of a mindless attack. I think most people in this country of whichever race, colour or creed can only sympathise with her family. It could happen to any one of us.