Gone off track Excerpts from the "Random Thoughts" thread

[Betty Swollocks]

Rule number 9 in the rules section...

9. Encouraging respectful behavior. People come from all over the world to share their experiences and knowledge and to raise awareness about issues that are important to them. This means that you may encounter opinions that are different from yours, which we believe can lead to important conversations about difficult topics. To help balance the needs, safety, and interests of a diverse community, however, we may remove certain kinds of sensitive content, move them to a different section, and/or limit the audience that sees it. With all that said, should you have issue(s) with member(s) on the site, you must discuss and resolve it/them amongst yourselves. The staff won't take any part, nor sides on member against member discussions.


@hovabongZA You were told your "joke" last week was racist and highly controversial in France. I pointed this out to you several times over the last week, yet you repeated it again. To say it's "sensitive" is a gross understatement.

 

[martinbo]

@Betty Swollocks. Boy have you got some nerve. On and on like a raving lunatic about a Black African identifying with and making a harmless, happy and proudly African joke that, actually, really, Black people in Europe originate from Africa.

You haven't got a clue about what you're saying - instead you keep on stirring up a hornet's nest. Are you genuinely as detached from reality as you're making out?
African Americans are allowed to called each other the N word. White Americans are not allowed to call African Americans the N word. This is no different.

THERE IS NOTHING RACIST IN A BLACK AFRICAN MAKING A JOKE ABOUT A BLACK EUROPEAN BEING AFRICAN BY WAY OF THEIR OBVIOUS ETHNICITY.

You continue to demand answers from a person you have no right to interrogate, badger, belittle and criticise. This individual has no obligation whatsoever to answer your questions because YOU ARE NOT ENTITLED to an answer.
Your misguided prejudice is outweighed only by your arrogant, misplaced sense of entitlement. You pulled a misinterpreted race card which backfired, and when you were informed that, maybe you weren't seeing the big picture, you came at me in order to somehow draw attention away from your false accusation.

Seriously, I think you're a fool for continuing on this misguided crusade to save face that you called a black person a racist and then went on to wrongly accuse me of being supportive of racism in this forum.

YOU ARE THE WHITE EUROPEAN WHO HASN'T GOT A CLUE THAT IN AFRICA A WHOLE LOT OF AFRICANS (NOT WHITE FAR RIGHT RACISTS IN FRANCE) ARE HAVING A RIGHT ROYAL LAUGH THAT HALF THE FRENCH SIDE IS "BLACK LIKE ME".

It not racist. You're culturally oblivious.

 

[hovabongZA]

@Betty Swollocks. Boy have you got some nerve. On and on like a raving lunatic about a Black African identifying with and making a harmless, happy and proudly African joke that, actually, really, Black people in Europe originate from Africa.

You haven't got a clue about what you're saying - instead you keep on stirring up a hornet's nest. Are you genuinely as detached from reality as you're making out?
African Americans are allowed to called each other the N word. White Americans are not allowed to call African Americans the N word. This is no different.

THERE IS NOTHING RACIST IN A BLACK AFRICAN MAKING A JOKE ABOUT A BLACK EUROPEAN BEING AFRICAN BY WAY OF THEIR OBVIOUS ETHNICITY.

You continue to demand answers from a person you have no right to interrogate, badger, belittle and criticise. This individual has no obligation whatsoever to answer your questions because YOU ARE NOT ENTITLED to an answer.
Your misguided prejudice is outweighed only by your arrogant, misplaced sense of entitlement. You pulled a misinterpreted race card which backfired, and when you were informed that, maybe you weren't seeing the big picture, you came at me in order to somehow draw attention away from your false accusation.

Seriously, I think you're a fool for continuing on this misguided crusade to save face that you called a black person a racist and then went on to wrongly accuse me of being supportive of racism in this f...

Well put @martinbo, I honestly don’t think you owe him any explaination. Let him rave on like a lunatic.

 

[hovabongZA]

@Betty Swollocks.

Seriously, I think you're a fool for continuing on this misguided crusade to save face that you called a black person a racist and then went on to wrongly accuse me of being supportive of racism in this f...

Just to add being racist isn’t exclusive to only white people , black people people can be just as racist. So I have no problem in someone calling me racist if I’m am, but it was clearly not the case in this situation ,it was just an individual trying to blow things way out of proportion for their own agenda.

 

[Betty Swollocks]

@Betty Swollocks. Boy have you got some nerve. On and on like a raving lunatic about a Black African identifying with and making a harmless, happy and proudly African joke that, actually, really, Black people in Europe originate from Africa.

It might be "harmless" and "happy" in Africa, but what you CONTINUALLY fail to appreciate is that it's not in France or in other European countries. Racists there use it against black people to make it clear they don't consider them "French" or "Belgian" etc. I've shown you evidence this is the case, and that the players themselves consider these jokes as offensive.

Considering in your OWN rules about people being from all over the world, why do you think it's acceptable to allow someone to continually post racially sensitive material?

instead you keep on stirring up a hornet's nest.

No, the only hornet's nest which was stirred up was the one @hovabongZA did by posting the same joke again! Even @sako97 had to repeat the same thing I've been saying.

African Americans are allowed to called each other the N word. White Americans are not allowed to call African Americans the N word. This is no different.

What if one of the African Americans didn't want to be called the "N" word? Would that be acceptable if the first black guy kept calling him "N*****"? What if a black guy wanted to use the "N" word on here? Would it be allowed? No it wouldn't, because on a forum we don't have context, and we are largely anonymous, so to avoid offending people, certain sensitive words are not allowed because you don't know who is reading them. This is why this joke is not funny on an internet forum, and what I've been saying all along!!

This is what the point is here, and what you're failing to grasp. On the one hand we have an African identifying with black people in Europe and calling them "Africans". And on the other hand we have black French people who don't want to be called "African" because they're having this same joke being used against them in racist ways to make them feel like they're outsiders. The evidence I've posted should alert you to this and make you understand it's a sensitive issue!!

And I agree about the use of the "N" word. I don't care one bit if a black person uses the word. The word is only racist coming out of the mouth of a white person due to the history of the word. It's all about CONTEXT Martin.

You pulled a misinterpreted race card which backfired, and when you were informed that, maybe you weren't seeing the big picture, you came at me in order to somehow draw attention away from your false accusation.

No I didn't!! You're continually failing to see what the issue was! I didn't think a forum with members from all over the World is the place for a racially sensitive joke!! Period! I only called hovabongZA a racist when he didn't explain the context after SIX ATTEMPTS to find out the context! And even then, it's still not acceptable to post the joke, just because it's not seen as racist in Africa. After I had pointed out it IS racist to the French and Belgian players, with evidence, it should have ended there!

YOU ARE THE WHITE EUROPEAN WHO HASN'T GOT A CLUE THAT IN AFRICA A WHOLE LOT OF AFRICANS (NOT WHITE FAR RIGHT RACISTS IN FRANCE) ARE HAVING A RIGHT ROYAL LAUGH THAT HALF THE FRENCH SIDE IS "BLACK LIKE ME".

It not racist. You're culturally oblivious.

Unbelievable. I've continually said that it might not be offensive to an African but it IS offensive to a black European, yet you're calling me "culturally oblivious"?

You're seeing it from YOUR point of view and that's it.

 

[martinbo]

No buddy. No, no, no. You're muddling up racism in all other manner of prejudices or offensive insults.

Allow me to remind you:

I'm calling you a racist. Prove me wrong.

You called him a racist. You were proven wrong. And yet you still haven't apologised for your false accusation.
This is the fundamental tenet of your indiscretion.

You are incapable of separating racism from your own (and perhaps Lukaku et al's) taking of offense toward the sentiment being projected by a Black African. You fail to recognise that you took the fight to the source and accused that source of racism. You lacked the cultural awareness to rather point out that as a European you felt offended by the joke, instead you went straight for the accusation. It doesn't matter how many times you demanded context. The fact is what the fact is.

So, it's quite straightforward. If you want to sprout on about context then here it is: you falsely accused a member of being racist and then accused me of condoning that racism.

 

[Betty Swollocks]

African Americans are allowed to called each other the N word. White Americans are not allowed to call African Americans the N word. This is no different.

If you walked down the street and heard two black people using the "N" word with each other, you wouldn't find it offensive. If two people on here used the "N" word with each other, at the very least, the posts would be removed. The difference is, in the first example you have context, and it's why you have to employ different rules for an internet forum when people make posts that could be culturally sensitive.

When the first joke was made, I didn't have context. I asked SIX TIMES for some context, not knowing who the Hell hovabongZA is or his ethnicity. When he continued to avoid answering and instead goadied me, I assumed it was a deliberately racist joke. I have said SEVERAL TIMES since, that now I HAVE the context, I don't consider hovabongZA racist. What it doesn't change, however, is that racially sensitive jokes should not be made on here!

 

[Mick Briesgau]

@Betty Swollocks, I appreciate most of your posts and respect you as a valuable member of GCF, but every post, remark or behavior that doesn’t fit your political correct and typical european conceptions, makes you shout “racism”. No one saw any “racism” in @hovabongZA post. I for one didn’t, in the context it was placed. And please, don’t come on to me with “far-right” sentiments. There aren’t any, only in your much too sensitive mind. Lighten up, don’t take yourself too serious and have a good laugh.

 

[Betty Swollocks]

Allow me to remind you:

You called him a racist.

Unfair when taken out of context. I called him that after I asked him SIX TIMES to explain what he meant by African, and after I explained to him this is a joke made by racists in Europe. Had he explained the things that you have explained in the meantime, I wouldn't have called him racist.

To use YOUR analogy, imagine if an anonymous person on here called someone else "n****r", and I said "please explain yourself" SIX TIMES, and the only response I got was "drama queen", you would stop giving them the benefit of the doubt. If it subsequently was revealed "oh we're both black, and we know each other anyway", it changes the context, but it doesn't mean the INITIAL handling of the situation was wrong.

You were proven wrong. And yet you still haven't apologised for your false accusation.
This is the fundamental tenet of your indiscretion.

I have made various statements (once I got an explanation of the context) accepting that @hovabongZA isn't racist. I also have said that I don't think YOU are racist. I could go back and find these posts but I am more than happy to clarify once more...

@hovabongZA I have no evidence you are racist, and I apologise for calling you "racist".

@martinbo I don't believe you condoned racism and I apologise for saying you did.

 

[Betty Swollocks]

@Betty Swollocks, I appreciate most of your posts and respect you as a valuable member of GCF, but every post, remark or behavior that doesn’t fit your political correct and typical european conceptions, makes you shout “racism”.

Oh no. This isn't about being "politically correct". In France it's out and out racism, and I've posted many examples of why it's offensive and frequently perpetuated by the far-right. Have you been buried under a rock for the last twenty years? Are you so unaware of the issues that have plagued les bleus for the last twenty years?

@Betty Swollocks
No one saw any “racism” in @hovabongZA post.

Yes they did. @chonkoa did. I did. @sako97 has just reminded hovabongZA that the black players are French.

I for one didn’t, in the context it was placed. And please, don’t come on to me with “far-right” sentiments. There aren’t any, only in your much too sensitive mind. Lighten up, don’t take yourself too serious and have a good laugh.

What are you talking about? I'm not saying hovabongZA is posting it with far-right sentiments, but it's certainly a joke which has long been made by far-right groups in Europe. UK. Belgium. France. Italy. Mario Balotelli has spoken about being called African even though he's representing Italy. So the joke shouldn't be posted on here. Period.

 

[hoffmeister_fan]

@Betty Swollocks

Jeez, I don't want to get pulled into this mire as I come to GCF to unwind and not to get wound up. We deal with enough BS in the real world, I avoid it like the plague in the virtual world.

That said, calling @hovabongZA racist was uncalled for. Mostly to be racist on a forum, in my book, you either a) have to have a track record of saying questionable things that are racially insensitive in nature, or b) say something so egregious and unambiguous that it cannot be interpretted as anything but racist or outright prejudicial in nature. Though I don't keep track of hova's posting (why would I?), I can neither seem to recall anything offensive he has said nor do I recall him posting something so blatant. So to brand hovabongZA as racist based on what he posted regarding Belgium vs. France is just irresposible. There was no need to besmirch him like that.

I am no fan of racism, casual or otherwise. It's an insiduous element that I would like to see eliminated, especially when it comes to policy-making. However, calling someone racism when there's little to no evidence of it takes the emphasis out it when we do decry something that is truly racist.

 

[martinbo]

From here on...

Let's not turn this into a Betty Swollocks smackdown. He has done the noble thing and apologised to the two parties directly involved and I respect him for doing this.
On a personal note, I feel that Betty Swollocks does bring valuable input to this forum and that his contributions are insightful, informative and make GCF a more interesting place to talk about cars.

We need to move on from this in the overall spirit which makes GCF such an amazing place because - by and large - we get along and respect one another as human beings from all over the world.
Sure it's not all always perfect - none of us are - but the fact that this forum has been around for as long as it has, with many of the longest-standing members still here is a testament to the good in people.

Can I ask that we put this issue behind us and move on with renewed mutual respect. We're done with this matter.

 

[Giannis]

From here on...

Let's not turn this into a Betty Swollocks smackdown. He has done the noble thing and apologised to the two parties directly involved and I respect him for doing this.
On a personal note, I feel that Betty Swollocks does bring valuable input to this forum and that his contributions are insightful, informative and make GCF a more interesting place to talk about cars.

We need to move on from this in the overall spirit which makes GCF such an amazing place because - by and large - we get along and respect one another as human beings from all over the world.
Sure it's all always perfect - none of us are - but the fact that this forum has been around for as long as it has, with many of the longest-standing members still here is a testament to the good in people.

Can I ask that we put this issue behind us and move on with renewed mutual respect. We're done with this matter.

If I may add a sidenote to what Martin already said, GCF is a community with members from all around the world. The communication medium we use is the keyboard, an instrument that only communicates words. A lot of what each one of us thinks, feels and wants to say is lost through the filter of the letter keys. So, before we crucify someone for something he wrote we should be reminded of this.

We value each and every member, each and every post. Even klier's love letters to The Artist. Please respect that.

 

[hoffmeister_fan]

If I may add a sidenote to what Martin already said, GCF is a community with members from all around the world. The communication medium we use is the keyboard, an instrument that only communicates words. A lot of what each one of us thinks, feels and wants to say is lost through the filter of the letter keys. So, before we crucify someone for something he wrote we should be reminded of this.

So true.

We value each and every member, each and every post. Even klier's love letters to The Artist. Please respect that.

I think this relationship is the keystone that holds GCF together. We just bask in their reflective glory. Without it, GCF would just dissipate into the ether...like it never existed before.

 

[Betty Swollocks]

So to brand hovabongZA as racist based on what he posted regarding Belgium vs. France is just irresponsible.

Can we make it absolutely clear as to how this incident escalated? I DIDN'T brand hovabongZA racist based on what he posted regarding Belgium v France. I branded him racist when, after FIVE attempts to clarify the CONTEXT of a joke which in MY part of the world has been repeated for the last twenty years by racists, I didn't get an answer. He just goaded me by hitting "funny" and "drama queen" ratings. To me that came across as him knowing full well it was an offensive joke in Europe, and he thought it was funny. Had he engaged with me in an adult discussion then maybe this whole episode wouldn't have happened. I would have accepted that from HIS perspective, he wasn't being offensive and he wouldn't have realised the connotations it has in France, Belgium, Italy and the UK.

 

[hoffmeister_fan]

Can we make it absolutely clear as to how this incident escalated? I DIDN'T brand hovabongZA racist based on what he posted regarding Belgium v France. I branded him racist when after FIVE attempts to clarify the CONTEXT of the joke, he just goaded me by hitting "funny" and "drama queen" ratings. To me that came across as him knowing full well it was an offensive joke in Europe, and he thought it was funny. Had he engaged with me in an adult discussion then maybe this whole episode wouldn't have happened. I would have accepted that from HIS perspective, he wasn't being offensive and he wouldn't have realised the connotations it has in France, Belgium, Italy and the UK.

I had typed about two paragraphs into a response and asked myself, "why am I doing this?"

While there are things you claim that I find disagreeble, I am just going to heed Martin's request and not push this any further.

 

[SDNR]

The term “racism” gets thrown around way too easily.

I have also been accused of racism on this forum in the past, it annoyed me immensely.
I assure you, I don’t have a racist bone in my body. I take people as I find them, I respect cultural differences and do my best to get along with people ...even if I don’t agree with them.

If we start to deconstruct every comment and accuse people of underlying prejudices, it will wreck this forum.

I understand there are 1 or 2 white members on this forum who see it as their moral duty to stomp out prejudice wherever they may perceive it.
As noble as their mission may be, there is a tendency to be a tad over-zealous.

This is a multi-racial community, I have no doubt that our non-Caucasian members are very capable of speaking for themselves if they are genuinely concerned about any comments made on this forum.

 

[Betty Swollocks]

The term “racism” gets thrown around way too easily.

I have also been accused of racism on this forum in the past, it annoyed me immensely.
I assure you, I don’t have a racist bone in my body. I take people as I find them, I respect cultural differences and do my best to get along with people ...even if I don’t agree with them.

If we start to deconstruct every comment and accuse people of underlying prejudices, it will wreck this forum.

I understand there are 1 or 2 white members on this forum who see it as their moral duty to stomp out prejudice wherever they may perceive it.
As noble as their mission may be, there is a tendency to be a tad over-zealous.

This is a multi-racial community, I have no doubt that our non-Caucasian members are very capable of speaking for themselves if they are genuinely concerned about any comments made on this forum.

There is no doubt that the joke, if said in a certain context, is racist. What I was trying to find out WAS the context.

And I don't see myself as some moral crusader. I'll call out homophobia, racism, misogyny when I see it. And just because I'm white, middle class, and male, that doesn't mean I should keep quiet and let someone else do it.

 

[chonkoa]

@martinbo a simple explanation would have diffused this, and I agree with Betty. During the world cup, I got similar comments from some acquitances here and believe me they were veiled racism. So a similar comment based on my experience by HovabongZA just stirred up the same emotions and pushback. All HovabongZA could have done was to provide context. Peace

@hovabongZA The earlier comment you made unfortunately over here is misconstrued as racist. There are some members of our society especially in the age of Donald Trump see it differently. A simple explanation would have helped in diffusing the situation. Peace

@Betty Swollocks, I think you should let it go and accept the explanation.Peace

I am on a four day road trip to see my folks in Texas and I miss Canada already.

 

[hovabongZA]

@martinbo a simple explanation would have diffused this, and I agree with Betty. During the world cup, I got similar comments from some acquitances here and believe me they were veiled racism. So a similar comment based on my experience by HovabongZA just stirred up the same emotions and pushback. All HovabongZA could have done was to provide context. Peace

@hovabongZA The earlier comment you made unfortunately over here is misconstrued as racist. There are some members of our society especially in the age of Donald Trump see it differently. A simple explanation would have helped in diffusing the situation. Peace

@Betty Swollocks, I think you should let it go and accept the explanation.Peace

I am on a four day road trip to see my folks in Texas and I miss Canada already.

No,I don’t think I needed to provide any explanation or context, but I appreciate your opinion. Please can we all drop this issue and let this thread go already.