Yeah, you are NOT HELPING

[sparkindarkness]

Ok, time for a rant.

Prince Harry recently said something very very stupid. He is a very very stupid boy and a very very very poorly advised one. This is known. He called one of his Asian fellow soldiers a P*ki. Needless to say, people were not amused.

But I'm not going to talk about that. Because it has been done to death everywhere else and, as Sryavulcan pointed out - his apology was text book of everything an apology should have been.



BUT I am, going to talk about his defenders. YOU ARE NOT HELPING.

Seriously, every letter to the editer, every family friend, every Teletxt message, every forum debate trying to say it wasn't offensive, or it was in fun or it wasn't a problem - YOU HELP NO-ONE

You don't help Prince Harry - who probably wants it all to go away, since you prolong the "debate" and you undermine his apology.

You don't help the people who were offended - because I am utterly horrified and disgusted to the point of nausea at the amount and patheticness of excuses offered. I've read "it's a nickname." I've read "It's natural fun you get in any work place." I've read "it's affectionate." I've read so much drivel it makes my eyes BLEED. And if my eyes are bleeding i cannot imagine the intense rage I'd feel if I were South Asian and saw all this claptrap flying around and idiots rally round to call racism a good thing.

You don't help yourselves. I don't care whether you're racist or just so blindly devoted to the royals (and I say this AS a monarchist) or any other damned stupid excuse you tell yourselves for spouting this nonsense. You LOOK like racists bastards. An awful lot like it. When you make such utterly feeble excuses to defend the indefensible, you look like the arseholes you are. Stop it. Prince Harry (or his advisors anyway) knew what to do - when you've done something inexcusably wrong you do NOT try to justify or excuse it - you APOLOGISE for it.

You don't help us. As a nation, as Britain. You don't just make us look bad but you make us think badly of ourselves. We should be better than this - a damn site better than this. At home and abroad, this is shameful. And the fact that there are so many of you crawling out the woodwork to fight the fight against "pcsim" and champion the cause of racism and prejudice is something that causes me no small amount of shame and embarrasment.

I am ashamed that there are so many of these inexcusable people in the land. It is an embarrasment to us all that so many were willing to defend the indefensible and say the unthinkable.

Comments

[kathminchin.livejournal.com]

This. So much this.

I have to say that I think the father of the young man involved hasn't helped by saying "an apology is not enough." What does he want? A criminal sentence? Jail time? Harry to be kicked out of the army?

Harry has apologised. The apology is what you are advised to say. I am going to assume that he's not about to make the same mistake again. So let's see - he has apologised, he's not going to do it again (change of behaviour) and he may well have had disciplinary action that quite frankly, is between him and his CO and I don't feel should be plastered across the media. Possibly a short statement (if it hasn't already been said) along the lines of "Harry's actions have been investigated and appropriate disciplinary action has been taken" could be made.

But apart from that, everyone else putting their oars in is kust making it worse. The fact that some of the worse offenders for using the word "Paki" in my experience are either people from India, or people of Afican descent does not make it acceptable either. Racism is racism, and it really doesn't matter who is committing it.

[fasangel.livejournal.com]

Um, how does being from India or Africa make it any better?

[kathminchin.livejournal.com]

It doesn't. I should have explained more. I overheard one of my co-workers talking about Harry and saying "but *they* use that term all the time, so why is it wrong? Why is it only bad if a white person using it? It's so unfair and PCness gone mad etc." I asked who "they" were, and got told "Indians".

I then pointed out the political problems between India and Pakistan, and that if Indians were using it then they were almost certainly using it as a derogatory and racist term. She was somewhat startled to learn that actually, it's still racist if it's not a white person using it. I don't think she was expecting a minor historical and political lecture, but at least she learned something (I hope.)

Racism is racism, and it doesn't matter what the ethnic origins of the person making the racist remarks is. I get so angry when someone uses the excuse "but *they* do it so it's ok for us to do it." No it's not. It's not ok for anyone to do it.

Hope that now makes more sense!

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

Weeellll i'm in 2 minds about that. I know if I used such language in my work place about a collague I'd be sacked. Most of us would. It has been covered up for 3 years - people want to see equality of treatment and some level of consequence for such actions

I think it's in the army's best interest true. The army doesn't have the best reputation when it comes to race relations, they need to make it clear that such behaviour is not acceptable ESPECIALLY these days when more recruits are needed and Arabica/middle eastern language/cultural skills are an asset.

So very true - it's always depressing when victims lash out at other groups - I know people are people but I do tend to think in some corner of my mind "hey, you have to go through shit too, why don't you know better?"

[seryan.livejournal.com]

Not being racist is 'PCism'? I'm under the impression it goes with being polite and civilized.

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

Well that's what I consider pcism to be. It's ultimately about being polite, respectful and civilised to other people.

But the right wing and forces of bigotry have worked tooth and nail to turn the tide back - to make basic good manners some kind of flaw or crime. To make being polite reprehensible. It's extremely depressing

[polarbee.livejournal.com]

People never cease to amaze me. Are they actually listening to the words that are coming out of their mouths?

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

I only hope they aren';t - I hope they're just speaking before thinking. Because the alternative is just too frightening

[allthepettylies.livejournal.com]

Prince Harry recently said something very very stupid.

And the Pope...is catholic..