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The Biden era begins with his predecessor boycotting the ceremonies – politicalbetting.com

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Comments

  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,712
    Scott_xP said:

    Because I've seen what you look like.

    You couldn't be any more white if your name was Whitey McWhiteface.

    But Leon is a new poster. Where did you meet?
    No doubt @TSE is in the market for artisanal flint sex toys. How else could they have met?
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,677
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    The father of Kamala Harris.

    Obviously not a black dude.


    I am directly descended from the estimated 20,000 Homo sapiens - the population of Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire - who crossed from Africa to Europe many years ago. I am therefore black. Soz. I mean, Black

    https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2010/01/human-ancestors-were-endangered-species

    But you say I am not BLACK like Kamala Harris. How do you know? Perhaps you could check me against a colour chart, or put a pencil in my hair? I have no idea.
    Because I've seen what you look like.

    You couldn't be any more white if your name was Whitey McWhiteface.
    Seriously. You say Kamala Harris is Black. How do you know? And how would you check?
    Mate, you've painted yourself into a corner. I doubt even you believe your own argument. Time to let it go.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,881
    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    The father of Kamala Harris.

    Obviously not a black dude.


    I am directly descended from the estimated 20,000 Homo sapiens - the population of Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire - who crossed from Africa to Europe many years ago. I am therefore black. Soz. I mean, Black

    https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2010/01/human-ancestors-were-endangered-species

    But you say I am not BLACK like Kamala Harris. How do you know? Perhaps you could check me against a colour chart, or put a pencil in my hair? I have no idea.
    Because I've seen what you look like.

    You couldn't be any more white if your name was Whitey McWhiteface.
    I'm also rather surprised to learn that the people of Tewkesbury are all sub-Saharan Africans by birth. They looked pretty peely-wally (anglice: pallid) when I went through there some years back.
    The abbey is lovely. Great for summer picnics, Beware the indigenous population, however. Primitive
    They do paddle quite a bit in the winter when the Severn and the other river flood.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,436

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    The father of Kamala Harris.

    Obviously not a black dude.


    I am directly descended from the estimated 20,000 Homo sapiens - the population of Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire - who crossed from Africa to Europe many years ago. I am therefore black. Soz. I mean, Black

    https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2010/01/human-ancestors-were-endangered-species

    But you say I am not BLACK like Kamala Harris. How do you know? Perhaps you could check me against a colour chart, or put a pencil in my hair? I have no idea.
    Because I've seen what you look like.

    You couldn't be any more white if your name was Whitey McWhiteface.
    Seriously. You say Kamala Harris is Black. How do you know? And how would you check?
    Mate, you've painted yourself into a corner. I doubt even you believe your own argument. Time to let it go.
    lol
  • President Biden and Vice President Harris just now heading down Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House.

    Seventy-two years ago, back in 1949, my father was part of the US Marine Corp honor guard at the inauguration of President Harry Truman.

    My Daddy Dearest was 19 years old, and thus not old enough to vote in 1948. If he HAD voted, almost certainly he'd have voted for Republican Tom Dewey NOT "Give Em Hell" Harry. Who

    Which didn't matter diddly squat to him on that day. For him, it was a proud day - for himself AND for America.

    A day like today.

    I still think that, flawed though he was, Truman was probably the best President of the 20th century.
    Harry Truman certainly rose in public esteem AFTER he was President. Starting from a LOW base as he left the White House, due to the Korean War deadlock, also spy & corruption scandals within his administration.

    Indeed, when he left the White House, his (dis)approval rating was even worse than Trumpsky's is today!

    On measure of his post-presidential recovery, was the assessment of my GOP grandfather, who habitually referred to Harry's predecessor as "Franklin Goddamn Roosevelt".

    When Truman fired MacArthur, Pop Pop thought that he (Truman) deserved to be shot. (His son, my father, felt exactly the opposite.)

    However, by the time I rolled around and first emerged as a political pundit (at the age of nine or so) the old old man had changed his tune - that Truman had been right about MacArthur, and maybe a few other things as well. BUT certainly not everything!
  • RobDRobD Posts: 59,933
    We already have events to mark the change of head of state. They just don't happen all that often.
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    I liked Joe's dialled down speech and the occasionally informal moments in the pomp. They did a very good job today. Lovely to see everyone coming together.

    A new era.

    If only you were right. I fear it is bollocks.

    The Democrats are totally captured by Woke-ism. eg Kamala Harris is now described, even by the BBC, as "Black" (with a definite capital b). In what universe is she black? Seriously. Does it now refer to anyone who is non-white? She is clearly brown. Sorry, Brown.

    Frankly, if I were African-American, descended from slaves, I would deeply resent this woman "appropriating" my ancestry of real and terrible suffering. She's Indian and went to Harvard. Yes, she's from a tough-ish background, but it really does not compare to slavery.

    How does this nonsense square with the tens of millions of minimum-wage white Americans in Ohio or Arkansas or Lousiane? The Trump voters? Answer: it doesn't
    The father of Kamala Harris is a black dude from Jamaica.

    Perhaps you should acquaint yourselves with some facts before you embarrass yourself once more.
    She's also half Indian, and she isn't African American in any sense that she is descended from a US slave lineage. Like Obama her being half black is closer to someone over here than over there, her experiences as a half Jamaican, half Indian woman will be completely different to an African American living in the deep south getting called a n***** and being threatened for dating outside of their race both by their own race and by others.

    Hopefully she can relate to the latter group, but I'm not sure she will at all. Black Americans are still waiting for representation after the disappointment of Obama, the GOP could really throw a huge spanner in the works by nominating an African American candidate for 2024.
    Within a few decades we'll all be melting pots of mixed heritages.

    I've done my bit on that front.

    I think she had mentioned how she got strange looks for having white boyfriends/partners.

    There were de facto and de jure laws banning mixed race marriages in America during her lifetime.
    Loving v. Virginia was simply wokeistas trying to upset that natural order of things and cause division in the country.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,677

    Record vaccination number today....doing many times every other European country every day.....

    https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1352003566307848193?s=19

    Shut today and tomorrow in Chesterfields main centre ran out of vaccine yesterday.


    Been told they can only have enough for 3 days next week despite been set up as a 7 day a week operation
    As a number of us predicted, supply is going to be the issue, not delivery.

    Makes the push for 24x7 vaccinations look a bit stupid.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,881

    Wouldn't blame if he was tbh, anything to occupy the 4 months until he becomes FM.

    https://twitter.com/MrDanDonoghue/status/1351971160825729026?s=20

    Do we know what gave them that impression? That he thinks he'll be FM before the year is out? Or that he thinks the fishermen will vote for him if he pretends to be agin Mr Johnson?
  • geoffwgeoffw Posts: 8,720
    Harris is the daughter of a Stanford academic, where I suppose she grew up. Quite privileged I'd say, whatever her skin colour color.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,126

    Record vaccination number today....doing many times every other European country every day.....

    https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1352003566307848193?s=19

    Shut today and tomorrow in Chesterfields main centre ran out of vaccine yesterday.


    Been told they can only have enough for 3 days next week despite been set up as a 7 day a week operation
    As a number of us predicted, supply is going to be the issue, not delivery.

    Makes the push for 24x7 vaccinations look a bit stupid.
    I thought it was a trial, not a push.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,712
    MaxPB said:

    Foxy said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    I liked Joe's dialled down speech and the occasionally informal moments in the pomp. They did a very good job today. Lovely to see everyone coming together.

    A new era.

    If only you were right. I fear it is bollocks.

    The Democrats are totally captured by Woke-ism. eg Kamala Harris is now described, even by the BBC, as "Black" (with a definite capital b). In what universe is she black? Seriously. Does it now refer to anyone who is non-white? She is clearly brown. Sorry, Brown.

    Frankly, if I were African-American, descended from slaves, I would deeply resent this woman "appropriating" my ancestry of real and terrible suffering. She's Indian and went to Harvard. Yes, she's from a tough-ish background, but it really does not compare to slavery.

    How does this nonsense square with the tens of millions of minimum-wage white Americans in Ohio or Arkansas or Lousiane? The Trump voters? Answer: it doesn't
    The father of Kamala Harris is a black dude from Jamaica.

    Perhaps you should acquaint yourselves with some facts before you embarrass yourself once more.
    Or, alternatively, learn something yourself

    "Born on August 23, 1938 in Brown's Town, St. Ann Parish, Jamaica, Donald J. Harris is the son of Beryl Christie (Finnegan, through her second husband[citation needed]) and Oscar Joseph Harris, who were of Afro-Jamaican heritage"

    Her "Blackness" is pretty tenuous. Unless everyone with black ancestors can claim Blackness?


    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_J._Harris

    If anyone who has any Black blood is by definition Black then that includes trillions of Americans. Indeed all of us, as we are all descended from Africans

    Hyper race-awareness is a species of madness, a modern possession by demons.
    Her father was a black Jamaican, born to other black Jamaicans. What is the chance that her paternal ancestors were slaves? Close to 100%, I would think.

    To say she is not Black is absurd. Of course she has Indian heritage too.

    It's a completely different experience to being born into a segregated America where you grow up having to sit in coloured seats on buses or use different entrances to buildings. The experience of black Americans is a really horrible story of persecution, I don't think she will have had the same experiences in her life. She will have had a life more along the lines of what a black or brown person experiences in the UK, not comfortable and awful individual encounters with some nasty people but overall one of acceptance and, frankly, indifference to skin colour.
    She has spoken of being bussed in a school desegregation programme in childhood. Do you think she was not regarded as Black then, or had no insight into the African American experience?
  • President Biden and Vice President Harris just now heading down Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House.

    Seventy-two years ago, back in 1949, my father was part of the US Marine Corp honor guard at the inauguration of President Harry Truman.

    My Daddy Dearest was 19 years old, and thus not old enough to vote in 1948. If he HAD voted, almost certainly he'd have voted for Republican Tom Dewey NOT "Give Em Hell" Harry. Who

    Which didn't matter diddly squat to him on that day. For him, it was a proud day - for himself AND for America.

    A day like today.

    I still think that, flawed though he was, Truman was probably the best President of the 20th century.
    Harry Truman certainly rose in public esteem AFTER he was President. Starting from a LOW base as he left the White House, due to the Korean War deadlock, also spy & corruption scandals within his administration.

    Indeed, when he left the White House, his (dis)approval rating was even worse than Trumpsky's is today!

    On measure of his post-presidential recovery, was the assessment of my GOP grandfather, who habitually referred to Harry's predecessor as "Franklin Goddamn Roosevelt".

    When Truman fired MacArthur, Pop Pop thought that he (Truman) deserved to be shot. (His son, my father, felt exactly the opposite.)

    However, by the time I rolled around and first emerged as a political pundit (at the age of nine or so) the old old man had changed his tune - that Truman had been right about MacArthur, and maybe a few other things as well. BUT certainly not everything!
    Maybe not but listing the things he did do - including the Japan bombs - a lot of his decisions were not easy ones but were the right ones. The founding of the UN and NATO, the Berlin Airlift, the Marshall Plan and of course, perhaps most importantly Desegregation at a time when his party was still dominated by Southern segregationists.

    I also like the fact that after he retired he lived off his army pension and refused to take any position in any company or make any endorsement as that would have undermined the integrity of the office of President.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,436
    As an aside, BBC TV News' obsessive coverage of the Biden Inauguration is insane. Endless. They are now interviewing some old actor from West Wing, in his house in.... Toronto. He's not even in America.

    We pay for this shit.

    America is important. Trump is mad. Thank God he's gone. We get it.

    But the UK - which the BBC serves - has just experienced its worst day of deaths (a global record, possibly) during a hideous pandemic, which is the greatest national crisis since World War Two, and the worst medical emergency for a century. And the worst recession for 300 years.

    Today is possibly Peak Bleak. The nadir. So many dead.

    Yet it is unmentioned. Instead, BBC News has nothing but endless footage of empty limousines patrolling the streets of the second most powerful nation on earth, where they had an election.

    Would any other country, in a terrible crisis, focus on another country like this? It is Mad. I would defund the BBC for this alone. The American Century is over. Move on.
  • geoffw said:

    Harris is the daughter of a Stanford academic, where I suppose she grew up. Quite privileged I'd say, whatever her skin colour color.

    She grew up in the flatlands, which was predominantly a black area.

    Plus her parents divorced when she was seven, thus Harris has said that when she and her sister visited their father in Palo Alto on weekends, other children in the neighborhood were not allowed to play with them because they were black.

    https://www.latimes.com/local/politics/la-me-pol-ca-harris-senate-20150930-story.html

    But I love how white dudes in the UK like to say they no so much about how Kamala Harris was privileged and has no experience of racism.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 62,766

    Record vaccination number today....doing many times every other European country every day.....

    https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1352003566307848193?s=19

    Shut today and tomorrow in Chesterfields main centre ran out of vaccine yesterday.


    Been told they can only have enough for 3 days next week despite been set up as a 7 day a week operation
    As a number of us predicted, supply is going to be the issue, not delivery.

    Makes the push for 24x7 vaccinations look a bit stupid.
    The 24x7 is classic 'policy driven purely by response to media'.

    Ludicrous outside of hospitals.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,436
    Foxy said:

    MaxPB said:

    Foxy said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    I liked Joe's dialled down speech and the occasionally informal moments in the pomp. They did a very good job today. Lovely to see everyone coming together.

    A new era.

    If only you were right. I fear it is bollocks.

    The Democrats are totally captured by Woke-ism. eg Kamala Harris is now described, even by the BBC, as "Black" (with a definite capital b). In what universe is she black? Seriously. Does it now refer to anyone who is non-white? She is clearly brown. Sorry, Brown.

    Frankly, if I were African-American, descended from slaves, I would deeply resent this woman "appropriating" my ancestry of real and terrible suffering. She's Indian and went to Harvard. Yes, she's from a tough-ish background, but it really does not compare to slavery.

    How does this nonsense square with the tens of millions of minimum-wage white Americans in Ohio or Arkansas or Lousiane? The Trump voters? Answer: it doesn't
    The father of Kamala Harris is a black dude from Jamaica.

    Perhaps you should acquaint yourselves with some facts before you embarrass yourself once more.
    Or, alternatively, learn something yourself

    "Born on August 23, 1938 in Brown's Town, St. Ann Parish, Jamaica, Donald J. Harris is the son of Beryl Christie (Finnegan, through her second husband[citation needed]) and Oscar Joseph Harris, who were of Afro-Jamaican heritage"

    Her "Blackness" is pretty tenuous. Unless everyone with black ancestors can claim Blackness?


    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_J._Harris

    If anyone who has any Black blood is by definition Black then that includes trillions of Americans. Indeed all of us, as we are all descended from Africans

    Hyper race-awareness is a species of madness, a modern possession by demons.
    Her father was a black Jamaican, born to other black Jamaicans. What is the chance that her paternal ancestors were slaves? Close to 100%, I would think.

    To say she is not Black is absurd. Of course she has Indian heritage too.

    It's a completely different experience to being born into a segregated America where you grow up having to sit in coloured seats on buses or use different entrances to buildings. The experience of black Americans is a really horrible story of persecution, I don't think she will have had the same experiences in her life. She will have had a life more along the lines of what a black or brown person experiences in the UK, not comfortable and awful individual encounters with some nasty people but overall one of acceptance and, frankly, indifference to skin colour.
    She has spoken of being bussed in a school desegregation programme in childhood. Do you think she was not regarded as Black then, or had no insight into the African American experience?
    Why do you capitalise "black" as "Black"? Genuine question
  • Leon said:

    Foxy said:

    MaxPB said:

    Foxy said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    I liked Joe's dialled down speech and the occasionally informal moments in the pomp. They did a very good job today. Lovely to see everyone coming together.

    A new era.

    If only you were right. I fear it is bollocks.

    The Democrats are totally captured by Woke-ism. eg Kamala Harris is now described, even by the BBC, as "Black" (with a definite capital b). In what universe is she black? Seriously. Does it now refer to anyone who is non-white? She is clearly brown. Sorry, Brown.

    Frankly, if I were African-American, descended from slaves, I would deeply resent this woman "appropriating" my ancestry of real and terrible suffering. She's Indian and went to Harvard. Yes, she's from a tough-ish background, but it really does not compare to slavery.

    How does this nonsense square with the tens of millions of minimum-wage white Americans in Ohio or Arkansas or Lousiane? The Trump voters? Answer: it doesn't
    The father of Kamala Harris is a black dude from Jamaica.

    Perhaps you should acquaint yourselves with some facts before you embarrass yourself once more.
    Or, alternatively, learn something yourself

    "Born on August 23, 1938 in Brown's Town, St. Ann Parish, Jamaica, Donald J. Harris is the son of Beryl Christie (Finnegan, through her second husband[citation needed]) and Oscar Joseph Harris, who were of Afro-Jamaican heritage"

    Her "Blackness" is pretty tenuous. Unless everyone with black ancestors can claim Blackness?


    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_J._Harris

    If anyone who has any Black blood is by definition Black then that includes trillions of Americans. Indeed all of us, as we are all descended from Africans

    Hyper race-awareness is a species of madness, a modern possession by demons.
    Her father was a black Jamaican, born to other black Jamaicans. What is the chance that her paternal ancestors were slaves? Close to 100%, I would think.

    To say she is not Black is absurd. Of course she has Indian heritage too.

    It's a completely different experience to being born into a segregated America where you grow up having to sit in coloured seats on buses or use different entrances to buildings. The experience of black Americans is a really horrible story of persecution, I don't think she will have had the same experiences in her life. She will have had a life more along the lines of what a black or brown person experiences in the UK, not comfortable and awful individual encounters with some nasty people but overall one of acceptance and, frankly, indifference to skin colour.
    She has spoken of being bussed in a school desegregation programme in childhood. Do you think she was not regarded as Black then, or had no insight into the African American experience?
    Why do you capitalise "black" as "Black"? Genuine question
    In my case it is because I have someone with the surname Black on my phone, someone who I regularly contact.

    My phone and iPad regularly capitalises it, ditto for White.
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,468
    Leon said:

    Foxy said:

    MaxPB said:

    Foxy said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    I liked Joe's dialled down speech and the occasionally informal moments in the pomp. They did a very good job today. Lovely to see everyone coming together.

    A new era.

    If only you were right. I fear it is bollocks.

    The Democrats are totally captured by Woke-ism. eg Kamala Harris is now described, even by the BBC, as "Black" (with a definite capital b). In what universe is she black? Seriously. Does it now refer to anyone who is non-white? She is clearly brown. Sorry, Brown.

    Frankly, if I were African-American, descended from slaves, I would deeply resent this woman "appropriating" my ancestry of real and terrible suffering. She's Indian and went to Harvard. Yes, she's from a tough-ish background, but it really does not compare to slavery.

    How does this nonsense square with the tens of millions of minimum-wage white Americans in Ohio or Arkansas or Lousiane? The Trump voters? Answer: it doesn't
    The father of Kamala Harris is a black dude from Jamaica.

    Perhaps you should acquaint yourselves with some facts before you embarrass yourself once more.
    Or, alternatively, learn something yourself

    "Born on August 23, 1938 in Brown's Town, St. Ann Parish, Jamaica, Donald J. Harris is the son of Beryl Christie (Finnegan, through her second husband[citation needed]) and Oscar Joseph Harris, who were of Afro-Jamaican heritage"

    Her "Blackness" is pretty tenuous. Unless everyone with black ancestors can claim Blackness?


    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_J._Harris

    If anyone who has any Black blood is by definition Black then that includes trillions of Americans. Indeed all of us, as we are all descended from Africans

    Hyper race-awareness is a species of madness, a modern possession by demons.
    Her father was a black Jamaican, born to other black Jamaicans. What is the chance that her paternal ancestors were slaves? Close to 100%, I would think.

    To say she is not Black is absurd. Of course she has Indian heritage too.

    It's a completely different experience to being born into a segregated America where you grow up having to sit in coloured seats on buses or use different entrances to buildings. The experience of black Americans is a really horrible story of persecution, I don't think she will have had the same experiences in her life. She will have had a life more along the lines of what a black or brown person experiences in the UK, not comfortable and awful individual encounters with some nasty people but overall one of acceptance and, frankly, indifference to skin colour.
    She has spoken of being bussed in a school desegregation programme in childhood. Do you think she was not regarded as Black then, or had no insight into the African American experience?
    Why do you capitalise "black" as "Black"? Genuine question
    For the same reason as African American, Latino, Hispanic, Pacific Islander, Native American, White, Non-White, Caucasian. It seems to be the practice when labeling race.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,436
    TimT said:

    Leon said:

    Foxy said:

    MaxPB said:

    Foxy said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    I liked Joe's dialled down speech and the occasionally informal moments in the pomp. They did a very good job today. Lovely to see everyone coming together.

    A new era.

    If only you were right. I fear it is bollocks.

    The Democrats are totally captured by Woke-ism. eg Kamala Harris is now described, even by the BBC, as "Black" (with a definite capital b). In what universe is she black? Seriously. Does it now refer to anyone who is non-white? She is clearly brown. Sorry, Brown.

    Frankly, if I were African-American, descended from slaves, I would deeply resent this woman "appropriating" my ancestry of real and terrible suffering. She's Indian and went to Harvard. Yes, she's from a tough-ish background, but it really does not compare to slavery.

    How does this nonsense square with the tens of millions of minimum-wage white Americans in Ohio or Arkansas or Lousiane? The Trump voters? Answer: it doesn't
    The father of Kamala Harris is a black dude from Jamaica.

    Perhaps you should acquaint yourselves with some facts before you embarrass yourself once more.
    Or, alternatively, learn something yourself

    "Born on August 23, 1938 in Brown's Town, St. Ann Parish, Jamaica, Donald J. Harris is the son of Beryl Christie (Finnegan, through her second husband[citation needed]) and Oscar Joseph Harris, who were of Afro-Jamaican heritage"

    Her "Blackness" is pretty tenuous. Unless everyone with black ancestors can claim Blackness?


    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_J._Harris

    If anyone who has any Black blood is by definition Black then that includes trillions of Americans. Indeed all of us, as we are all descended from Africans

    Hyper race-awareness is a species of madness, a modern possession by demons.
    Her father was a black Jamaican, born to other black Jamaicans. What is the chance that her paternal ancestors were slaves? Close to 100%, I would think.

    To say she is not Black is absurd. Of course she has Indian heritage too.

    It's a completely different experience to being born into a segregated America where you grow up having to sit in coloured seats on buses or use different entrances to buildings. The experience of black Americans is a really horrible story of persecution, I don't think she will have had the same experiences in her life. She will have had a life more along the lines of what a black or brown person experiences in the UK, not comfortable and awful individual encounters with some nasty people but overall one of acceptance and, frankly, indifference to skin colour.
    She has spoken of being bussed in a school desegregation programme in childhood. Do you think she was not regarded as Black then, or had no insight into the African American experience?
    Why do you capitalise "black" as "Black"? Genuine question
    For the same reason as African American, Latino, Hispanic, Pacific Islander, Native American, White, Non-White, Caucasian. It seems to be the practice when labeling race.
    OK. But what about "white"?
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,126

    geoffw said:

    Harris is the daughter of a Stanford academic, where I suppose she grew up. Quite privileged I'd say, whatever her skin colour color.

    She grew up in the flatlands, which was predominantly a black area.

    Plus her parents divorced when she was seven, thus Harris has said that when she and her sister visited their father in Palo Alto on weekends, other children in the neighborhood were not allowed to play with them because they were black.

    https://www.latimes.com/local/politics/la-me-pol-ca-harris-senate-20150930-story.html

    But I love how white dudes in the UK like to say they no so much about how Kamala Harris was privileged and has no experience of racism.
    Sounds like the sort of thing Colbert used to say, as a white guy on behalf of black people everywhere.
  • Pro_RataPro_Rata Posts: 5,288
    Scott_xP said:
    C'mon, the man clearly took Poker Face to heart.

    I mean, the chorus rather than the verses, but still.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,712
    Leon said:

    Foxy said:

    MaxPB said:

    Foxy said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    I liked Joe's dialled down speech and the occasionally informal moments in the pomp. They did a very good job today. Lovely to see everyone coming together.

    A new era.

    If only you were right. I fear it is bollocks.

    The Democrats are totally captured by Woke-ism. eg Kamala Harris is now described, even by the BBC, as "Black" (with a definite capital b). In what universe is she black? Seriously. Does it now refer to anyone who is non-white? She is clearly brown. Sorry, Brown.

    Frankly, if I were African-American, descended from slaves, I would deeply resent this woman "appropriating" my ancestry of real and terrible suffering. She's Indian and went to Harvard. Yes, she's from a tough-ish background, but it really does not compare to slavery.

    How does this nonsense square with the tens of millions of minimum-wage white Americans in Ohio or Arkansas or Lousiane? The Trump voters? Answer: it doesn't
    The father of Kamala Harris is a black dude from Jamaica.

    Perhaps you should acquaint yourselves with some facts before you embarrass yourself once more.
    Or, alternatively, learn something yourself

    "Born on August 23, 1938 in Brown's Town, St. Ann Parish, Jamaica, Donald J. Harris is the son of Beryl Christie (Finnegan, through her second husband[citation needed]) and Oscar Joseph Harris, who were of Afro-Jamaican heritage"

    Her "Blackness" is pretty tenuous. Unless everyone with black ancestors can claim Blackness?


    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_J._Harris

    If anyone who has any Black blood is by definition Black then that includes trillions of Americans. Indeed all of us, as we are all descended from Africans

    Hyper race-awareness is a species of madness, a modern possession by demons.
    Her father was a black Jamaican, born to other black Jamaicans. What is the chance that her paternal ancestors were slaves? Close to 100%, I would think.

    To say she is not Black is absurd. Of course she has Indian heritage too.

    It's a completely different experience to being born into a segregated America where you grow up having to sit in coloured seats on buses or use different entrances to buildings. The experience of black Americans is a really horrible story of persecution, I don't think she will have had the same experiences in her life. She will have had a life more along the lines of what a black or brown person experiences in the UK, not comfortable and awful individual encounters with some nasty people but overall one of acceptance and, frankly, indifference to skin colour.
    She has spoken of being bussed in a school desegregation programme in childhood. Do you think she was not regarded as Black then, or had no insight into the African American experience?
    Why do you capitalise "black" as "Black"? Genuine question
    When it is being used as a "proper noun" rather than an adjective.

    https://englishgrammarhere.com/nouns/10-examples-of-proper-noun/
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,677
    edited January 2021
    kle4 said:

    Record vaccination number today....doing many times every other European country every day.....

    https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1352003566307848193?s=19

    Shut today and tomorrow in Chesterfields main centre ran out of vaccine yesterday.


    Been told they can only have enough for 3 days next week despite been set up as a 7 day a week operation
    As a number of us predicted, supply is going to be the issue, not delivery.

    Makes the push for 24x7 vaccinations look a bit stupid.
    I thought it was a trial, not a push.
    I was referring to the push in the media and by some on here; the trial is the result of that push.

    Either way, I'd say there are four possible constraints:

    1. Vaccine supply (including vials, needles, swabs etc.)
    2. Staff to give vaccinations and support the programme.
    3. People willing to be vaccinated.
    4. Vaccination site capacity.

    Of these, the only one that 24x7 vaccinations help with is: 4. Site capacity.

    However, site capacity this is the least likely to be a bottleneck because it is easily addressed by booking additional venues (many of which are otherwise free due to lockdown).

    The 24x7 trial is a distraction. I suspect many promoting it were secretly hoping it would be a way of getting the vaccine earlier than their demographic would otherwise allow.

    The focus should be on supply, supply, and then more supply.
  • geoffw said:

    Harris is the daughter of a Stanford academic, where I suppose she grew up. Quite privileged I'd say, whatever her skin colour color.

    She grew up in the flatlands, which was predominantly a black area.

    Plus her parents divorced when she was seven, thus Harris has said that when she and her sister visited their father in Palo Alto on weekends, other children in the neighborhood were not allowed to play with them because they were black.

    https://www.latimes.com/local/politics/la-me-pol-ca-harris-senate-20150930-story.html

    But I love how white dudes in the UK like to say they no so much about how Kamala Harris was privileged and has no experience of racism.
    I get the horrible feeling this is going to turn into the new 'Birtherism' of the next few years. Harris is not poor enough and oppressed enough to be considered a proper Black.

    Yet more pointless arguments.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,436
    Foxy said:

    Leon said:

    Foxy said:

    MaxPB said:

    Foxy said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    I liked Joe's dialled down speech and the occasionally informal moments in the pomp. They did a very good job today. Lovely to see everyone coming together.

    A new era.

    If only you were right. I fear it is bollocks.

    The Democrats are totally captured by Woke-ism. eg Kamala Harris is now described, even by the BBC, as "Black" (with a definite capital b). In what universe is she black? Seriously. Does it now refer to anyone who is non-white? She is clearly brown. Sorry, Brown.

    Frankly, if I were African-American, descended from slaves, I would deeply resent this woman "appropriating" my ancestry of real and terrible suffering. She's Indian and went to Harvard. Yes, she's from a tough-ish background, but it really does not compare to slavery.

    How does this nonsense square with the tens of millions of minimum-wage white Americans in Ohio or Arkansas or Lousiane? The Trump voters? Answer: it doesn't
    The father of Kamala Harris is a black dude from Jamaica.

    Perhaps you should acquaint yourselves with some facts before you embarrass yourself once more.
    Or, alternatively, learn something yourself

    "Born on August 23, 1938 in Brown's Town, St. Ann Parish, Jamaica, Donald J. Harris is the son of Beryl Christie (Finnegan, through her second husband[citation needed]) and Oscar Joseph Harris, who were of Afro-Jamaican heritage"

    Her "Blackness" is pretty tenuous. Unless everyone with black ancestors can claim Blackness?


    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_J._Harris

    If anyone who has any Black blood is by definition Black then that includes trillions of Americans. Indeed all of us, as we are all descended from Africans

    Hyper race-awareness is a species of madness, a modern possession by demons.
    Her father was a black Jamaican, born to other black Jamaicans. What is the chance that her paternal ancestors were slaves? Close to 100%, I would think.

    To say she is not Black is absurd. Of course she has Indian heritage too.

    It's a completely different experience to being born into a segregated America where you grow up having to sit in coloured seats on buses or use different entrances to buildings. The experience of black Americans is a really horrible story of persecution, I don't think she will have had the same experiences in her life. She will have had a life more along the lines of what a black or brown person experiences in the UK, not comfortable and awful individual encounters with some nasty people but overall one of acceptance and, frankly, indifference to skin colour.
    She has spoken of being bussed in a school desegregation programme in childhood. Do you think she was not regarded as Black then, or had no insight into the African American experience?
    Why do you capitalise "black" as "Black"? Genuine question
    When it is being used as a "proper noun" rather than an adjective.

    https://englishgrammarhere.com/nouns/10-examples-of-proper-noun/
    So it's nothing to do with race. OK.

    https://www.cjr.org/analysis/language_corner_1.php
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,126
    edited January 2021

    kle4 said:

    Record vaccination number today....doing many times every other European country every day.....

    https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1352003566307848193?s=19

    Shut today and tomorrow in Chesterfields main centre ran out of vaccine yesterday.


    Been told they can only have enough for 3 days next week despite been set up as a 7 day a week operation
    As a number of us predicted, supply is going to be the issue, not delivery.

    Makes the push for 24x7 vaccinations look a bit stupid.
    I thought it was a trial, not a push.
    I was referring to the push in the media and by some on here; the trial is the result of that push.

    Either way, I'd say there are four possible constraints:

    1. Vaccine supply (including vials, needles, swabs etc.)
    2. Staff to give vaccinations and support the programme.
    3. People willing to be vaccinated.
    4. Vaccination site capacity.

    Of these, the only one that 24x7 vaccinations help with is: 4. Site capacity.

    Unfortunately, site capacity this is the least likely to be a bottleneck because it is easily address by booking additional venues (many of which are otherwise free due to lockdown).

    The 24x7 trial is a distraction. I suspect many promoting it were secretly hoping it would be a way of getting the vaccine earlier than their demographic would otherwise allow.

    The focus should be on supply, supply, and then more supply.
    It does seem that it would add little to the efforts, given the level that can be done already once supply is in place. I think a short trial is worthwhile to ensure, and frankly given there was a media push we're lucky Boris did not immediately pledge 24/7 vaccination even if it would do no good.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,436
    edited January 2021

    geoffw said:

    Harris is the daughter of a Stanford academic, where I suppose she grew up. Quite privileged I'd say, whatever her skin colour color.

    She grew up in the flatlands, which was predominantly a black area.

    Plus her parents divorced when she was seven, thus Harris has said that when she and her sister visited their father in Palo Alto on weekends, other children in the neighborhood were not allowed to play with them because they were black.

    https://www.latimes.com/local/politics/la-me-pol-ca-harris-senate-20150930-story.html

    But I love how white dudes in the UK like to say they no so much about how Kamala Harris was privileged and has no experience of racism.
    I get the horrible feeling this is going to turn into the new 'Birtherism' of the next few years. Harris is not poor enough and oppressed enough to be considered a proper Black.

    Yet more pointless arguments.
    Could you define "a proper Black"?

    I am old enough to find that phrase actively offensive. And I am hard to offend
  • Wouldn't blame if he was tbh, anything to occupy the 4 months until he becomes FM.

    https://twitter.com/MrDanDonoghue/status/1351971160825729026?s=20

    Reminds me of famous "I am not a witch" TV ad in 2010 Republican candidate Christine O'Donnell for US Senate in Delaware.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkwc-c5V7xg

  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,665
    edited January 2021

    geoffw said:

    Harris is the daughter of a Stanford academic, where I suppose she grew up. Quite privileged I'd say, whatever her skin colour color.

    She grew up in the flatlands, which was predominantly a black area.

    Plus her parents divorced when she was seven, thus Harris has said that when she and her sister visited their father in Palo Alto on weekends, other children in the neighborhood were not allowed to play with them because they were black.

    https://www.latimes.com/local/politics/la-me-pol-ca-harris-senate-20150930-story.html

    But I love how white dudes in the UK like to say they no so much about how Kamala Harris was privileged and has no experience of racism.
    I get the horrible feeling this is going to turn into the new 'Birtherism' of the next few years. Harris is not poor enough and oppressed enough to be considered a proper Black.

    Yet more pointless arguments.
    Sadly, it is over here as well.

    I've been told on more than one occasion that I cannot call myself an ethnic minority because

    1) I'm upper/middle class

    2) Privately educated/went to a top university

    3) Married a white person

    4) Have a high income job

    5) Father had a high income job

    So because of that I cannot experience discrimination, which is nice to know, if only someone had told those EDL supporters in Manchester 2009 who shouted 'You fucking Paki' at me that I'm not a minority.
  • Watching the video of Putin's Palace....there must be a lot of Billionaire's seeing that and being like this bloke...

    https://youtu.be/8dPzFUiY-tg
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,436

    Leon said:

    geoffw said:

    Harris is the daughter of a Stanford academic, where I suppose she grew up. Quite privileged I'd say, whatever her skin colour color.

    She grew up in the flatlands, which was predominantly a black area.

    Plus her parents divorced when she was seven, thus Harris has said that when she and her sister visited their father in Palo Alto on weekends, other children in the neighborhood were not allowed to play with them because they were black.

    https://www.latimes.com/local/politics/la-me-pol-ca-harris-senate-20150930-story.html

    But I love how white dudes in the UK like to say they no so much about how Kamala Harris was privileged and has no experience of racism.
    I get the horrible feeling this is going to turn into the new 'Birtherism' of the next few years. Harris is not poor enough and oppressed enough to be considered a proper Black.

    Yet more pointless arguments.
    Could you define "a proper Black"?

    I am old enough to find that phrase actively offensive. And I hard to offend
    No. That was the whole point. It is others who are insinuating she is not 'a proper black'. I am decrying the fact.
    So, from your point of view, she is a "proper Black".

    Got it.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,126
    Leon said:

    TimT said:

    Leon said:

    Foxy said:

    MaxPB said:

    Foxy said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    I liked Joe's dialled down speech and the occasionally informal moments in the pomp. They did a very good job today. Lovely to see everyone coming together.

    A new era.

    If only you were right. I fear it is bollocks.

    The Democrats are totally captured by Woke-ism. eg Kamala Harris is now described, even by the BBC, as "Black" (with a definite capital b). In what universe is she black? Seriously. Does it now refer to anyone who is non-white? She is clearly brown. Sorry, Brown.

    Frankly, if I were African-American, descended from slaves, I would deeply resent this woman "appropriating" my ancestry of real and terrible suffering. She's Indian and went to Harvard. Yes, she's from a tough-ish background, but it really does not compare to slavery.

    How does this nonsense square with the tens of millions of minimum-wage white Americans in Ohio or Arkansas or Lousiane? The Trump voters? Answer: it doesn't
    The father of Kamala Harris is a black dude from Jamaica.

    Perhaps you should acquaint yourselves with some facts before you embarrass yourself once more.
    Or, alternatively, learn something yourself

    "Born on August 23, 1938 in Brown's Town, St. Ann Parish, Jamaica, Donald J. Harris is the son of Beryl Christie (Finnegan, through her second husband[citation needed]) and Oscar Joseph Harris, who were of Afro-Jamaican heritage"

    Her "Blackness" is pretty tenuous. Unless everyone with black ancestors can claim Blackness?


    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_J._Harris

    If anyone who has any Black blood is by definition Black then that includes trillions of Americans. Indeed all of us, as we are all descended from Africans

    Hyper race-awareness is a species of madness, a modern possession by demons.
    Her father was a black Jamaican, born to other black Jamaicans. What is the chance that her paternal ancestors were slaves? Close to 100%, I would think.

    To say she is not Black is absurd. Of course she has Indian heritage too.

    It's a completely different experience to being born into a segregated America where you grow up having to sit in coloured seats on buses or use different entrances to buildings. The experience of black Americans is a really horrible story of persecution, I don't think she will have had the same experiences in her life. She will have had a life more along the lines of what a black or brown person experiences in the UK, not comfortable and awful individual encounters with some nasty people but overall one of acceptance and, frankly, indifference to skin colour.
    She has spoken of being bussed in a school desegregation programme in childhood. Do you think she was not regarded as Black then, or had no insight into the African American experience?
    Why do you capitalise "black" as "Black"? Genuine question
    For the same reason as African American, Latino, Hispanic, Pacific Islander, Native American, White, Non-White, Caucasian. It seems to be the practice when labeling race.
    OK. But what about "white"?
    I've no complaints.
  • MrEdMrEd Posts: 5,578
    Foxy said:

    The father of Kamala Harris.

    Obviously not a black dude.


    Presumably @Leon has so absorbed woke culture that he recognises that Harris senior had become culturally white through absorption into Western academic culture, and that his skin colour was irrelevant to his whiteness.

    (In case of doubt, I am taking the piss, and I believe Harris senior has done extensive work for Black causes)
    One thing that gets missed over here is that, because of the race laws in the US, people who may be 1/8 or 1/16 Black are actually considered part of the Black community as they were subject to the same laws.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,712
    edited January 2021
    Leon said:

    TimT said:

    Leon said:

    Foxy said:

    MaxPB said:

    Foxy said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    I liked Joe's dialled down speech and the occasionally informal moments in the pomp. They did a very good job today. Lovely to see everyone coming together.

    A new era.

    If only you were right. I fear it is bollocks.

    The Democrats are totally captured by Woke-ism. eg Kamala Harris is now described, even by the BBC, as "Black" (with a definite capital b). In what universe is she black? Seriously. Does it now refer to anyone who is non-white? She is clearly brown. Sorry, Brown.

    Frankly, if I were African-American, descended from slaves, I would deeply resent this woman "appropriating" my ancestry of real and terrible suffering. She's Indian and went to Harvard. Yes, she's from a tough-ish background, but it really does not compare to slavery.

    How does this nonsense square with the tens of millions of minimum-wage white Americans in Ohio or Arkansas or Lousiane? The Trump voters? Answer: it doesn't
    The father of Kamala Harris is a black dude from Jamaica.

    Perhaps you should acquaint yourselves with some facts before you embarrass yourself once more.
    Or, alternatively, learn something yourself

    "Born on August 23, 1938 in Brown's Town, St. Ann Parish, Jamaica, Donald J. Harris is the son of Beryl Christie (Finnegan, through her second husband[citation needed]) and Oscar Joseph Harris, who were of Afro-Jamaican heritage"

    Her "Blackness" is pretty tenuous. Unless everyone with black ancestors can claim Blackness?


    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_J._Harris

    If anyone who has any Black blood is by definition Black then that includes trillions of Americans. Indeed all of us, as we are all descended from Africans

    Hyper race-awareness is a species of madness, a modern possession by demons.
    Her father was a black Jamaican, born to other black Jamaicans. What is the chance that her paternal ancestors were slaves? Close to 100%, I would think.

    To say she is not Black is absurd. Of course she has Indian heritage too.

    It's a completely different experience to being born into a segregated America where you grow up having to sit in coloured seats on buses or use different entrances to buildings. The experience of black Americans is a really horrible story of persecution, I don't think she will have had the same experiences in her life. She will have had a life more along the lines of what a black or brown person experiences in the UK, not comfortable and awful individual encounters with some nasty people but overall one of acceptance and, frankly, indifference to skin colour.
    She has spoken of being bussed in a school desegregation programme in childhood. Do you think she was not regarded as Black then, or had no insight into the African American experience?
    Why do you capitalise "black" as "Black"? Genuine question
    For the same reason as African American, Latino, Hispanic, Pacific Islander, Native American, White, Non-White, Caucasian. It seems to be the practice when labeling race.
    OK. But what about "white"?
    If used as a proper noun (eg White Working Class, or White Power) then it is capitalised. If describing the colour of my car as an adjective, it is not capitalised.
  • I'm sure Sturgeon will be effusive in her thanks.....(but one does wonder why its being done now, not earlier):

    https://twitter.com/STVNews/status/1351926256456101899?s=20

    If you listened to Nicola’s press conferences, instead of just being snarky about her, you would know.
    What did Sturgeon say?
    “To answer your question about the Army, they have been involved in different points of our pandemic response all along. This is not as simple or a case of suddenly involving the Army.

    “The Army were based in this building for a quite significant time period last year, so we call on them when we think they have the particular expertise to help with particular tasks.

    “We are really grateful to them for that.”
    Delighted to be right that Nicola was effusive in her thanks.....but still wondering why this has not been done before now - did she say?
    Stop politicising our troops. It's an insult to them.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 62,766
    Biden is in the White House, probably already in the Oval Office says Hugh on BBC News.


    Praise the Gods.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,436

    geoffw said:

    Harris is the daughter of a Stanford academic, where I suppose she grew up. Quite privileged I'd say, whatever her skin colour color.

    She grew up in the flatlands, which was predominantly a black area.

    Plus her parents divorced when she was seven, thus Harris has said that when she and her sister visited their father in Palo Alto on weekends, other children in the neighborhood were not allowed to play with them because they were black.

    https://www.latimes.com/local/politics/la-me-pol-ca-harris-senate-20150930-story.html

    But I love how white dudes in the UK like to say they no so much about how Kamala Harris was privileged and has no experience of racism.
    I get the horrible feeling this is going to turn into the new 'Birtherism' of the next few years. Harris is not poor enough and oppressed enough to be considered a proper Black.

    Yet more pointless arguments.
    Sadly, it is over here as well.

    I've been told on more than one occasion that I cannot call myself an ethnic minority because

    1) I'm upper/middle class

    2) Privately educated/went to a top university

    3) Married a white person

    4) Have a high income job

    5) Father had a high income job

    So because of that I cannot experience discrimination, which is nice to know, if only someone had told those EDL supporters in Manchester 2009 who shouted 'You fucking Paki' at me that I'm not a minority.
    Unfortunately the phrase "ethnic minority" is now regarded as racist. Sorry. So that's a: FAIL


    "Not only does Bame erase identity, the defining and use of "minority" when referring to the global majority, is deeply problematic. Language is power: if you call someone a "minority", then their interests, passions, ambitions and potential also become "minority interests""


    https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/bame-black-lives-matter-protests-anti-racism-ethnic-minority-a9702831.html
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 29,410
    Hooray! Almost 48 hours of continuous rain has ended.
    Snowing heavily now.
  • MrEdMrEd Posts: 5,578

    Time for me rant once about middle class people pretending to be working class plebs, this author gets it.

    The new elites are working-class wannabes

    Once it was frowned upon to be nouveau riche, now we all want to prove we’ve risen on merit


    There’s a scene in Martin Amis’s memoir Experience in which he describes his children badgering him on a car journey: “Why do you say Fri-dee and Mon-dee and Thurs-dee” they want to know. After some embarrassed prevarication, Amis concedes that “I trained myself to do it in my teens because I thought it sounded posh … it used to be cool to be posh.” His sons respond with incredulity: “Did it? … Christ.”

    That conversation is a symptom of a fascinating social transformation. Middle class British people no longer pretend to be posh. Quite the opposite. According to a study published this week in the journal Sociology, “47 per cent of those in ‘middle-class’ professional and managerial occupations identify as working class”. What’s more, 24 per cent of people doing middle-class jobs whose parents also did middle-class jobs identified as working class too.

    On the basis of 175 interviews with people of various class backgrounds, the study’s authors theorise that by manipulating the stories of their class origins (often by reaching back to tales of less-privileged grandparents) respondents were justifying their social success as “legitimate” in the context of a supposedly meritocratic society that rewards talent regardless of background. According to contemporary morality it is better to have earned your success than it is to have been born into it.

    The idea is a recent one. Not so long ago, social elites were desperate to show they had not earned their positions at the top of society. Nouveau riche industrialists and merchants spent huge sums of money acquiring coats of arms and manipulating family trees in order to cultivate the impression that their status had nothing to do with hard work. Heredity was a far greater source of social legitimacy.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-new-elites-are-working-class-wannabes-7twdj7cfr

    Been going on for quite a bit. Who can forget Pulp's "Common People"?
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,436

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    geoffw said:

    Harris is the daughter of a Stanford academic, where I suppose she grew up. Quite privileged I'd say, whatever her skin colour color.

    She grew up in the flatlands, which was predominantly a black area.

    Plus her parents divorced when she was seven, thus Harris has said that when she and her sister visited their father in Palo Alto on weekends, other children in the neighborhood were not allowed to play with them because they were black.

    https://www.latimes.com/local/politics/la-me-pol-ca-harris-senate-20150930-story.html

    But I love how white dudes in the UK like to say they no so much about how Kamala Harris was privileged and has no experience of racism.
    I get the horrible feeling this is going to turn into the new 'Birtherism' of the next few years. Harris is not poor enough and oppressed enough to be considered a proper Black.

    Yet more pointless arguments.
    Could you define "a proper Black"?

    I am old enough to find that phrase actively offensive. And I hard to offend
    No. That was the whole point. It is others who are insinuating she is not 'a proper black'. I am decrying the fact.
    So, from your point of view, she is a "proper Black".

    Got it.
    Nope. She is just what she is. It is others who are trying to define her in some way that belittles her experiences and background. Hence my comment and the fact I was lamenting this is going to run on and on.

    Thanks in part to people like you.
    FFS. Man up and defend yourself
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 28,477
    ............
    Pro_Rata said:

    Scott_xP said:
    C'mon, the man clearly took Poker Face to heart.

    I mean, the chorus rather than the verses, but still.
    I guess Biden wanted the hippest chart-topper that 2010 had to offer.
  • Get thee an unbiased, hard hitting journo that’ll fluff for you like Laura.

    https://twitter.com/obornetweets/status/1351971567874560001?s=21
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,677

    geoffw said:

    Harris is the daughter of a Stanford academic, where I suppose she grew up. Quite privileged I'd say, whatever her skin colour color.

    She grew up in the flatlands, which was predominantly a black area.

    Plus her parents divorced when she was seven, thus Harris has said that when she and her sister visited their father in Palo Alto on weekends, other children in the neighborhood were not allowed to play with them because they were black.

    https://www.latimes.com/local/politics/la-me-pol-ca-harris-senate-20150930-story.html

    But I love how white dudes in the UK like to say they no so much about how Kamala Harris was privileged and has no experience of racism.
    I get the horrible feeling this is going to turn into the new 'Birtherism' of the next few years. Harris is not poor enough and oppressed enough to be considered a proper Black.

    Yet more pointless arguments.
    Sadly, it is over here as well.

    I've been told on more than one occasion that I cannot call myself an ethnic minority because

    1) I'm upper/middle class

    2) Privately educated/went to a top university

    3) Married a white person

    4) Have a high income job

    5) Father had a high income job

    So because of that I cannot experience discrimination, which is nice to know, if only someone had told those EDL supporters in Manchester 2009 who shouted 'You fucking Paki' at me that I'm not a minority.
    That's shocking but sadly unsurprising.

    I do believe we've come a long way in this country, albeit at a very slow pace. Still a long way to go but the overall trend over the 60 years of my life has been in the right direction with many changes for the better.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,126

    geoffw said:

    Harris is the daughter of a Stanford academic, where I suppose she grew up. Quite privileged I'd say, whatever her skin colour color.

    She grew up in the flatlands, which was predominantly a black area.

    Plus her parents divorced when she was seven, thus Harris has said that when she and her sister visited their father in Palo Alto on weekends, other children in the neighborhood were not allowed to play with them because they were black.

    https://www.latimes.com/local/politics/la-me-pol-ca-harris-senate-20150930-story.html

    But I love how white dudes in the UK like to say they no so much about how Kamala Harris was privileged and has no experience of racism.
    I get the horrible feeling this is going to turn into the new 'Birtherism' of the next few years. Harris is not poor enough and oppressed enough to be considered a proper Black.

    Yet more pointless arguments.
    Sadly, it is over here as well.

    I've been told on more than one occasion that I cannot call myself an ethnic minority because

    1) I'm upper/middle class

    2) Privately educated/went to a top university

    3) Married a white person

    4) Have a high income job

    5) Father had a high income job

    So because of that I cannot experience discrimination, which is nice to know, if only someone had told those EDL supporters in Manchester 2009 who shouted 'You fucking Paki' at me that I'm not a minority.
    What absolute stupidity. Not that any racist behaviour is known for its intellectual insight, but there's something about telling someone who has experienced discrimination that they are not even of an ethnic minority, to their face no less, that just really should make people stop and think for a second. Did they expect a positive response from you, as if providing enlightenment, or were they chastising you? If it is ok to ask.

    I do recall a clip of some Fox News personality I think from years back, when Herman Cain was on the scene, talking about their blacks being blacker. I don't recall in context if it was about skin tone or 'proper blackness'.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,126

    It’s a historic day, and Leon is banging on about how to measure the blackness of people.

    FFS.

    Frankly embarrassing.

    We know he likes an argument now and again, wait for one that's interesting.
  • It’s a historic day, and Leon is banging on about how to measure the blackness of people.

    FFS.

    Frankly embarrassing.

    It's like an attempted dead cat manoeuvre, but executed by something with shit for brains. It's really, really embarrassing to read.
  • Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    geoffw said:

    Harris is the daughter of a Stanford academic, where I suppose she grew up. Quite privileged I'd say, whatever her skin colour color.

    She grew up in the flatlands, which was predominantly a black area.

    Plus her parents divorced when she was seven, thus Harris has said that when she and her sister visited their father in Palo Alto on weekends, other children in the neighborhood were not allowed to play with them because they were black.

    https://www.latimes.com/local/politics/la-me-pol-ca-harris-senate-20150930-story.html

    But I love how white dudes in the UK like to say they no so much about how Kamala Harris was privileged and has no experience of racism.
    I get the horrible feeling this is going to turn into the new 'Birtherism' of the next few years. Harris is not poor enough and oppressed enough to be considered a proper Black.

    Yet more pointless arguments.
    Could you define "a proper Black"?

    I am old enough to find that phrase actively offensive. And I hard to offend
    No. That was the whole point. It is others who are insinuating she is not 'a proper black'. I am decrying the fact.
    So, from your point of view, she is a "proper Black".

    Got it.
    Nope. She is just what she is. It is others who are trying to define her in some way that belittles her experiences and background. Hence my comment and the fact I was lamenting this is going to run on and on.

    Thanks in part to people like you.
    FFS. Man up and defend yourself
    I don't have to. I am the one in the right here. You are the one dancing on a head of a pin. The fact you are the only one who can't see that is rather telling.

    I get the impression you are doing the online equivalent of a drunk trying to pick fights with everyone who looked at him funny this evening.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,126
    Floater said:
    One wonders how things would have progressed had they been able to shoot straight in response. Sad to think a tragedy may have cut off something worse.
  • EndillionEndillion Posts: 4,976
    Biden is on record as saying that voting for Trump disqualifies you from being black.
    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2020/may/22/joe-biden-charlamagne-you-aint-black-trump-video

    "Both sides" are very much at this one, and he at least should really know better.
  • EndillionEndillion Posts: 4,976
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    geoffw said:

    Harris is the daughter of a Stanford academic, where I suppose she grew up. Quite privileged I'd say, whatever her skin colour color.

    She grew up in the flatlands, which was predominantly a black area.

    Plus her parents divorced when she was seven, thus Harris has said that when she and her sister visited their father in Palo Alto on weekends, other children in the neighborhood were not allowed to play with them because they were black.

    https://www.latimes.com/local/politics/la-me-pol-ca-harris-senate-20150930-story.html

    But I love how white dudes in the UK like to say they no so much about how Kamala Harris was privileged and has no experience of racism.
    I get the horrible feeling this is going to turn into the new 'Birtherism' of the next few years. Harris is not poor enough and oppressed enough to be considered a proper Black.

    Yet more pointless arguments.
    Could you define "a proper Black"?

    I am old enough to find that phrase actively offensive. And I hard to offend
    No. That was the whole point. It is others who are insinuating she is not 'a proper black'. I am decrying the fact.
    So, from your point of view, she is a "proper Black".

    Got it.
    Nope. She is just what she is. It is others who are trying to define her in some way that belittles her experiences and background. Hence my comment and the fact I was lamenting this is going to run on and on.

    Thanks in part to people like you.
    FFS. Man up and defend yourself
    Am I the only one who thinks they're agreeing with each other, and is baffled by this turn?
  • OmniumOmnium Posts: 10,770

    geoffw said:

    Harris is the daughter of a Stanford academic, where I suppose she grew up. Quite privileged I'd say, whatever her skin colour color.

    She grew up in the flatlands, which was predominantly a black area.

    Plus her parents divorced when she was seven, thus Harris has said that when she and her sister visited their father in Palo Alto on weekends, other children in the neighborhood were not allowed to play with them because they were black.

    https://www.latimes.com/local/politics/la-me-pol-ca-harris-senate-20150930-story.html

    But I love how white dudes in the UK like to say they no so much about how Kamala Harris was privileged and has no experience of racism.
    I get the horrible feeling this is going to turn into the new 'Birtherism' of the next few years. Harris is not poor enough and oppressed enough to be considered a proper Black.

    Yet more pointless arguments.
    Sadly, it is over here as well.

    I've been told on more than one occasion that I cannot call myself an ethnic minority because

    1) I'm upper/middle class

    2) Privately educated/went to a top university

    3) Married a white person

    4) Have a high income job

    5) Father had a high income job

    So because of that I cannot experience discrimination, which is nice to know, if only someone had told those EDL supporters in Manchester 2009 who shouted 'You fucking Paki' at me that I'm not a minority.
    A very heavy burden of a list. Don't worry though I'll happily continue to discriminate against you because you're TSE. Actually especially so. In emergencies the whole pineapple thing can be visited, but for emergencies only.

    Hope that helps :)

    PS. I'm always a little jealous of those of us that have insights through their heritage into other cultures. A friend of mine's grandmother was a proper Zulu when Zulus were Zulus- how cool is that! Unfortunately my Scottish lowlander ancestry is lost to the past. Not sure it'd have been that interesting anyway, but I'd liked to have known.



  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,588
    edited January 2021
    Notable that the Netherlands has had more cases per head than the UK: 54,040 vs 51,492, but less deaths per head.

    https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

    Maybe it's because the percentages of people overweight and obese are significantly lower in the Netherlands.

    UK: overweight = 63%, obese = 28%.
    Netherlands: overweight = 53%, obese = 19%.

    https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/statistics-on-obesity-physical-activity-and-diet/england-2020
    https://www.euro.who.int/__data/assets/pdf_file/0018/243315/Netherlands-WHO-Country-Profile.pdf
  • kle4 said:

    geoffw said:

    Harris is the daughter of a Stanford academic, where I suppose she grew up. Quite privileged I'd say, whatever her skin colour color.

    She grew up in the flatlands, which was predominantly a black area.

    Plus her parents divorced when she was seven, thus Harris has said that when she and her sister visited their father in Palo Alto on weekends, other children in the neighborhood were not allowed to play with them because they were black.

    https://www.latimes.com/local/politics/la-me-pol-ca-harris-senate-20150930-story.html

    But I love how white dudes in the UK like to say they no so much about how Kamala Harris was privileged and has no experience of racism.
    I get the horrible feeling this is going to turn into the new 'Birtherism' of the next few years. Harris is not poor enough and oppressed enough to be considered a proper Black.

    Yet more pointless arguments.
    Sadly, it is over here as well.

    I've been told on more than one occasion that I cannot call myself an ethnic minority because

    1) I'm upper/middle class

    2) Privately educated/went to a top university

    3) Married a white person

    4) Have a high income job

    5) Father had a high income job

    So because of that I cannot experience discrimination, which is nice to know, if only someone had told those EDL supporters in Manchester 2009 who shouted 'You fucking Paki' at me that I'm not a minority.
    What absolute stupidity. Not that any racist behaviour is known for its intellectual insight, but there's something about telling someone who has experienced discrimination that they are not even of an ethnic minority, to their face no less, that just really should make people stop and think for a second. Did they expect a positive response from you, as if providing enlightenment, or were they chastising you? If it is ok to ask.

    I do recall a clip of some Fox News personality I think from years back, when Herman Cain was on the scene, talking about their blacks being blacker. I don't recall in context if it was about skin tone or 'proper blackness'.
    It was in a discussion about why poor kids (black and white) are at the bottom of educational league tables.

    My view has been that the life outcomes for people in this country is linked to where you were born in this country.

    My mind was blown by a stat about 5/6 years ago that there's so many kids in this country whose parents haven't hadn't jobs in years, if not their entire lives.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,126
    Omnium said:

    geoffw said:

    Harris is the daughter of a Stanford academic, where I suppose she grew up. Quite privileged I'd say, whatever her skin colour color.

    She grew up in the flatlands, which was predominantly a black area.

    Plus her parents divorced when she was seven, thus Harris has said that when she and her sister visited their father in Palo Alto on weekends, other children in the neighborhood were not allowed to play with them because they were black.

    https://www.latimes.com/local/politics/la-me-pol-ca-harris-senate-20150930-story.html

    But I love how white dudes in the UK like to say they no so much about how Kamala Harris was privileged and has no experience of racism.
    I get the horrible feeling this is going to turn into the new 'Birtherism' of the next few years. Harris is not poor enough and oppressed enough to be considered a proper Black.

    Yet more pointless arguments.
    Sadly, it is over here as well.

    I've been told on more than one occasion that I cannot call myself an ethnic minority because

    1) I'm upper/middle class

    2) Privately educated/went to a top university

    3) Married a white person

    4) Have a high income job

    5) Father had a high income job

    So because of that I cannot experience discrimination, which is nice to know, if only someone had told those EDL supporters in Manchester 2009 who shouted 'You fucking Paki' at me that I'm not a minority.
    A very heavy burden of a list. Don't worry though I'll happily continue to discriminate against you because you're TSE. Actually especially so. In emergencies the whole pineapple thing can be visited, but for emergencies only.

    Hope that helps :)

    PS. I'm always a little jealous of those of us that have insights through their heritage into other cultures. A friend of mine's grandmother was a proper Zulu when Zulus were Zulus- how cool is that! Unfortunately my Scottish lowlander ancestry is lost to the past. Not sure it'd have been that interesting anyway, but I'd liked to have known.

    I know virtually nothing of my heritage, such as it is, as one one side the parents hated the grandparents, and the other the grandparents hated the great grandparents. Made it hard to ask about info.

    I'm told I had an alcoholic irish gypsy as a great grandfather, and another great grand relative changed their name from Schwartz to Black and that's it.

    That sounds like a joke, but it's actually true. Maybe an ancestry site is the way to go.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,209

    Get thee an unbiased, hard hitting journo that’ll fluff for you like Laura.

    https://twitter.com/obornetweets/status/1351971567874560001?s=21

    To be fair, I'll bet you the Premier League pays 3x what the Government does.

    (Indeed, a fair number of Treasury and BOE economists do it for three or four years out of academia before joining the ranks of Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley.)
  • Omnium said:

    geoffw said:

    Harris is the daughter of a Stanford academic, where I suppose she grew up. Quite privileged I'd say, whatever her skin colour color.

    She grew up in the flatlands, which was predominantly a black area.

    Plus her parents divorced when she was seven, thus Harris has said that when she and her sister visited their father in Palo Alto on weekends, other children in the neighborhood were not allowed to play with them because they were black.

    https://www.latimes.com/local/politics/la-me-pol-ca-harris-senate-20150930-story.html

    But I love how white dudes in the UK like to say they no so much about how Kamala Harris was privileged and has no experience of racism.
    I get the horrible feeling this is going to turn into the new 'Birtherism' of the next few years. Harris is not poor enough and oppressed enough to be considered a proper Black.

    Yet more pointless arguments.
    Sadly, it is over here as well.

    I've been told on more than one occasion that I cannot call myself an ethnic minority because

    1) I'm upper/middle class

    2) Privately educated/went to a top university

    3) Married a white person

    4) Have a high income job

    5) Father had a high income job

    So because of that I cannot experience discrimination, which is nice to know, if only someone had told those EDL supporters in Manchester 2009 who shouted 'You fucking Paki' at me that I'm not a minority.
    A very heavy burden of a list. Don't worry though I'll happily continue to discriminate against you because you're TSE. Actually especially so. In emergencies the whole pineapple thing can be visited, but for emergencies only.

    Hope that helps :)

    PS. I'm always a little jealous of those of us that have insights through their heritage into other cultures. A friend of mine's grandmother was a proper Zulu when Zulus were Zulus- how cool is that! Unfortunately my Scottish lowlander ancestry is lost to the past. Not sure it'd have been that interesting anyway, but I'd liked to have known.
    Don't worry, it's all about context. All you need to do to be more interesting is go somewhere else.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,126
    Endillion said:

    Biden is on record as saying that voting for Trump disqualifies you from being black.
    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2020/may/22/joe-biden-charlamagne-you-aint-black-trump-video

    "Both sides" are very much at this one, and he at least should really know better.

    It was a comment from him that got a lot of criticism on here as I recall.
    Sunak tried that crap and he's been put in his box these last few months. Watch out, Pritster.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,436
    edited January 2021

    It’s a historic day, and Leon is banging on about how to measure the blackness of people.

    FFS.

    Frankly embarrassing.

    You used the phrase "proper Black". I rest my case with the judiciary.

    I agree it is an unedifying argument. But that is my point. The American Democrat identitarian Left's complete obsession with race/colour ends with an obviously decent, fair-minded Englishman - like yourself - using a very dubious, if not odious phrase in defence of his arguments.

    This way madness lies.

    Confession: I was brought up in a frankly racist country. It was casual (though uncomfortable from the off). Yet we have evolved. I was - correctly, to my mind - brought up to try and do better than this, specifically, I was taught to try and ignore skin colour. It is hard, it is human nature to notice differences, but it is do-able.

    Was society perfect by, say, 2015? Of course not. Racism was still a problem, and America, in particular, has a hangover from the horrors of slavery which requires a uniquely attentive response. America's combination of lax gun law and feeble yet militarised cop recruiting has made things especially and uniquely problematic: for them.

    But that is the point. From a British perspective. We don't have to endure this ordeal in the UK. We have imported American race issues when we don't actually have those terrible issues. This, potentially, makes things worse, for everyone.

    Enough!

    Let us stop. Detach from a maddened America. We were doing OK. We can go back to sanity.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 29,410
    kle4 said:

    Omnium said:

    geoffw said:

    Harris is the daughter of a Stanford academic, where I suppose she grew up. Quite privileged I'd say, whatever her skin colour color.

    She grew up in the flatlands, which was predominantly a black area.

    Plus her parents divorced when she was seven, thus Harris has said that when she and her sister visited their father in Palo Alto on weekends, other children in the neighborhood were not allowed to play with them because they were black.

    https://www.latimes.com/local/politics/la-me-pol-ca-harris-senate-20150930-story.html

    But I love how white dudes in the UK like to say they no so much about how Kamala Harris was privileged and has no experience of racism.
    I get the horrible feeling this is going to turn into the new 'Birtherism' of the next few years. Harris is not poor enough and oppressed enough to be considered a proper Black.

    Yet more pointless arguments.
    Sadly, it is over here as well.

    I've been told on more than one occasion that I cannot call myself an ethnic minority because

    1) I'm upper/middle class

    2) Privately educated/went to a top university

    3) Married a white person

    4) Have a high income job

    5) Father had a high income job

    So because of that I cannot experience discrimination, which is nice to know, if only someone had told those EDL supporters in Manchester 2009 who shouted 'You fucking Paki' at me that I'm not a minority.
    A very heavy burden of a list. Don't worry though I'll happily continue to discriminate against you because you're TSE. Actually especially so. In emergencies the whole pineapple thing can be visited, but for emergencies only.

    Hope that helps :)

    PS. I'm always a little jealous of those of us that have insights through their heritage into other cultures. A friend of mine's grandmother was a proper Zulu when Zulus were Zulus- how cool is that! Unfortunately my Scottish lowlander ancestry is lost to the past. Not sure it'd have been that interesting anyway, but I'd liked to have known.

    I know virtually nothing of my heritage, such as it is, as one one side the parents hated the grandparents, and the other the grandparents hated the great grandparents. Made it hard to ask about info.

    I'm told I had an alcoholic irish gypsy as a great grandfather, and another great grand relative changed their name from Schwartz to Black and that's it.

    That sounds like a joke, but it's actually true. Maybe an ancestry site is the way to go.
    I think what we all want to know is why did they capitalise Black?
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    Omnium said:

    geoffw said:

    Harris is the daughter of a Stanford academic, where I suppose she grew up. Quite privileged I'd say, whatever her skin colour color.

    She grew up in the flatlands, which was predominantly a black area.

    Plus her parents divorced when she was seven, thus Harris has said that when she and her sister visited their father in Palo Alto on weekends, other children in the neighborhood were not allowed to play with them because they were black.

    https://www.latimes.com/local/politics/la-me-pol-ca-harris-senate-20150930-story.html

    But I love how white dudes in the UK like to say they no so much about how Kamala Harris was privileged and has no experience of racism.
    I get the horrible feeling this is going to turn into the new 'Birtherism' of the next few years. Harris is not poor enough and oppressed enough to be considered a proper Black.

    Yet more pointless arguments.
    Sadly, it is over here as well.

    I've been told on more than one occasion that I cannot call myself an ethnic minority because

    1) I'm upper/middle class

    2) Privately educated/went to a top university

    3) Married a white person

    4) Have a high income job

    5) Father had a high income job

    So because of that I cannot experience discrimination, which is nice to know, if only someone had told those EDL supporters in Manchester 2009 who shouted 'You fucking Paki' at me that I'm not a minority.
    A very heavy burden of a list. Don't worry though I'll happily continue to discriminate against you because you're TSE. Actually especially so. In emergencies the whole pineapple thing can be visited, but for emergencies only.

    Hope that helps :)

    PS. I'm always a little jealous of those of us that have insights through their heritage into other cultures. A friend of mine's grandmother was a proper Zulu when Zulus were Zulus- how cool is that! Unfortunately my Scottish lowlander ancestry is lost to the past. Not sure it'd have been that interesting anyway, but I'd liked to have known.



    My great great grandmother was a Glaswegian. Does that count?
  • OmniumOmnium Posts: 10,770

    Omnium said:

    geoffw said:

    Harris is the daughter of a Stanford academic, where I suppose she grew up. Quite privileged I'd say, whatever her skin colour color.

    She grew up in the flatlands, which was predominantly a black area.

    Plus her parents divorced when she was seven, thus Harris has said that when she and her sister visited their father in Palo Alto on weekends, other children in the neighborhood were not allowed to play with them because they were black.

    https://www.latimes.com/local/politics/la-me-pol-ca-harris-senate-20150930-story.html

    But I love how white dudes in the UK like to say they no so much about how Kamala Harris was privileged and has no experience of racism.
    I get the horrible feeling this is going to turn into the new 'Birtherism' of the next few years. Harris is not poor enough and oppressed enough to be considered a proper Black.

    Yet more pointless arguments.
    Sadly, it is over here as well.

    I've been told on more than one occasion that I cannot call myself an ethnic minority because

    1) I'm upper/middle class

    2) Privately educated/went to a top university

    3) Married a white person

    4) Have a high income job

    5) Father had a high income job

    So because of that I cannot experience discrimination, which is nice to know, if only someone had told those EDL supporters in Manchester 2009 who shouted 'You fucking Paki' at me that I'm not a minority.
    A very heavy burden of a list. Don't worry though I'll happily continue to discriminate against you because you're TSE. Actually especially so. In emergencies the whole pineapple thing can be visited, but for emergencies only.

    Hope that helps :)

    PS. I'm always a little jealous of those of us that have insights through their heritage into other cultures. A friend of mine's grandmother was a proper Zulu when Zulus were Zulus- how cool is that! Unfortunately my Scottish lowlander ancestry is lost to the past. Not sure it'd have been that interesting anyway, but I'd liked to have known.
    Don't worry, it's all about context. All you need to do to be more interesting is go somewhere else.
    I'll sling my hook then....
  • OmniumOmnium Posts: 10,770
    Charles said:

    Omnium said:

    geoffw said:

    Harris is the daughter of a Stanford academic, where I suppose she grew up. Quite privileged I'd say, whatever her skin colour color.

    She grew up in the flatlands, which was predominantly a black area.

    Plus her parents divorced when she was seven, thus Harris has said that when she and her sister visited their father in Palo Alto on weekends, other children in the neighborhood were not allowed to play with them because they were black.

    https://www.latimes.com/local/politics/la-me-pol-ca-harris-senate-20150930-story.html

    But I love how white dudes in the UK like to say they no so much about how Kamala Harris was privileged and has no experience of racism.
    I get the horrible feeling this is going to turn into the new 'Birtherism' of the next few years. Harris is not poor enough and oppressed enough to be considered a proper Black.

    Yet more pointless arguments.
    Sadly, it is over here as well.

    I've been told on more than one occasion that I cannot call myself an ethnic minority because

    1) I'm upper/middle class

    2) Privately educated/went to a top university

    3) Married a white person

    4) Have a high income job

    5) Father had a high income job

    So because of that I cannot experience discrimination, which is nice to know, if only someone had told those EDL supporters in Manchester 2009 who shouted 'You fucking Paki' at me that I'm not a minority.
    A very heavy burden of a list. Don't worry though I'll happily continue to discriminate against you because you're TSE. Actually especially so. In emergencies the whole pineapple thing can be visited, but for emergencies only.

    Hope that helps :)

    PS. I'm always a little jealous of those of us that have insights through their heritage into other cultures. A friend of mine's grandmother was a proper Zulu when Zulus were Zulus- how cool is that! Unfortunately my Scottish lowlander ancestry is lost to the past. Not sure it'd have been that interesting anyway, but I'd liked to have known.



    My great great grandmother was a Glaswegian. Does that count?
    Steady on. There are limits.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,588
    I can't believe we're discussing what "proper black" means. How did we get here?
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,677
    Andy_JS said:

    I can't believe we're discussing what "proper black" means. How did we get here?

    @Leon
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 21,298
    Leon said:

    It’s a historic day, and Leon is banging on about how to measure the blackness of people.

    FFS.

    Frankly embarrassing.

    You used the phrase "proper Black". I rest my case with the judiciary.

    I agree it is an unedifying argument. But that is my point. The American Democrat identitarian Left's complete obsession with race/colour ends with an obviously decent, fair-minded Englishman - like yourself - using a very dubious, if not odious phrase in defence of his arguments.

    This way madness lies.

    Confession: I was brought up in a frankly racist country. It was casual (though uncomfortable from the off). Yet we have evolved. I was- correctly, to my mind - brought up to try and do better than this, specifically, I was taught to try and ignore skin colour. It is hard, it is human nature to notice differences, but it is do-able.

    Was society perfect by, say, 2015? Of course not. Racism was still a problem, and America, in particular, has a hangover from the horrors of slavery which requires a uniquely attentive response. America's combination of lax gun law and feeble yet militarised cop recruiting has made things especially and uniquely problematic: for them.

    But that is the point. From a British perspective. We don't have to endure this ordeal in the UK. We have imported American race issues when we don't actually have those terrible issues. This, potentially, make things worse, for everyone.

    Enough!

    Let us stop. Detach from a maddened America. We were doing OK. We can go back to sanity.
    I have never used the term “proper Black”.
    I am not an Englishman.
    Apart from that, cool.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,436

    Leon said:

    It’s a historic day, and Leon is banging on about how to measure the blackness of people.

    FFS.

    Frankly embarrassing.

    You used the phrase "proper Black". I rest my case with the judiciary.

    I agree it is an unedifying argument. But that is my point. The American Democrat identitarian Left's complete obsession with race/colour ends with an obviously decent, fair-minded Englishman - like yourself - using a very dubious, if not odious phrase in defence of his arguments.

    This way madness lies.

    Confession: I was brought up in a frankly racist country. It was casual (though uncomfortable from the off). Yet we have evolved. I was- correctly, to my mind - brought up to try and do better than this, specifically, I was taught to try and ignore skin colour. It is hard, it is human nature to notice differences, but it is do-able.

    Was society perfect by, say, 2015? Of course not. Racism was still a problem, and America, in particular, has a hangover from the horrors of slavery which requires a uniquely attentive response. America's combination of lax gun law and feeble yet militarised cop recruiting has made things especially and uniquely problematic: for them.

    But that is the point. From a British perspective. We don't have to endure this ordeal in the UK. We have imported American race issues when we don't actually have those terrible issues. This, potentially, make things worse, for everyone.

    Enough!

    Let us stop. Detach from a maddened America. We were doing OK. We can go back to sanity.
    I have never used the term “proper Black”.
    I am not an Englishman.
    Apart from that, cool.
    Apologies. I was replying to @Richard_Tyndall
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,209
    Leon said:

    President Biden and Vice President Harris just now heading down Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House.

    Seventy-two years ago, back in 1949, my father was part of the US Marine Corp honor guard at the inauguration of President Harry Truman.

    My Daddy Dearest was 19 years old, and thus not old enough to vote in 1948. If he HAD voted, almost certainly he'd have voted for Republican Tom Dewey NOT "Give Em Hell" Harry. Who

    Which didn't matter diddly squat to him on that day. For him, it was a proud day - for himself AND for America.

    A day like today.

    I still think that, flawed though he was, Truman was probably the best President of the 20th century.
    FDR says Hi!
    How about Ike. Presided over the final ascent of America to hegemony. Oversaw (I believe, I haven't checked) an unprecedented surge in American personal prosperity. Generally avoided wars. Genial.

    I miss the America that benignly ruled the world. We can already see what the future, non-American world is like, where China is entirely ascendant (which it is, already). It is not good

    Korea says "hi!"
  • Andy_JS said:

    I can't believe we're discussing what "proper black" means. How did we get here?

    Sadly a reflection that politicalbetting is not immune to ridiculous
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,209
    Leon said:

    The father of Kamala Harris.

    Obviously not a black dude.


    I am directly descended from the estimated 20,000 Homo sapiens - the population of Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire - who crossed from Africa to Europe many years ago. I am therefore black. Soz. I mean, Black

    https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2010/01/human-ancestors-were-endangered-species

    But you say I am not BLACK like Kamala Harris. How do you know? Perhaps you could check me against a colour chart, or put a pencil in my hair? I have no idea.
    Do you self identify as Black?
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 62,766
    kle4 said:

    Endillion said:

    Biden is on record as saying that voting for Trump disqualifies you from being black.
    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2020/may/22/joe-biden-charlamagne-you-aint-black-trump-video

    "Both sides" are very much at this one, and he at least should really know better.

    It was a comment from him that got a lot of criticism on here as I recall.
    Sunak tried that crap and he's been put in his box these last few months. Watch out, Pritster.
    I suspect she's doing it precisely because Sunak did it.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,126

    Andy_JS said:

    I can't believe we're discussing what "proper black" means. How did we get here?

    Sadly a reflection that politicalbetting is not immune to ridiculous
    I don't think there was ever a possibility of that, and quite the opposite in fact. But this particular type, not so much expected.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,380
    Amanda Gorman is the antithesis of Trump.

    Thank goodness today went off without incident.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,677
    kle4 said:

    Omnium said:

    geoffw said:

    Harris is the daughter of a Stanford academic, where I suppose she grew up. Quite privileged I'd say, whatever her skin colour color.

    She grew up in the flatlands, which was predominantly a black area.

    Plus her parents divorced when she was seven, thus Harris has said that when she and her sister visited their father in Palo Alto on weekends, other children in the neighborhood were not allowed to play with them because they were black.

    https://www.latimes.com/local/politics/la-me-pol-ca-harris-senate-20150930-story.html

    But I love how white dudes in the UK like to say they no so much about how Kamala Harris was privileged and has no experience of racism.
    I get the horrible feeling this is going to turn into the new 'Birtherism' of the next few years. Harris is not poor enough and oppressed enough to be considered a proper Black.

    Yet more pointless arguments.
    Sadly, it is over here as well.

    I've been told on more than one occasion that I cannot call myself an ethnic minority because

    1) I'm upper/middle class

    2) Privately educated/went to a top university

    3) Married a white person

    4) Have a high income job

    5) Father had a high income job

    So because of that I cannot experience discrimination, which is nice to know, if only someone had told those EDL supporters in Manchester 2009 who shouted 'You fucking Paki' at me that I'm not a minority.
    A very heavy burden of a list. Don't worry though I'll happily continue to discriminate against you because you're TSE. Actually especially so. In emergencies the whole pineapple thing can be visited, but for emergencies only.

    Hope that helps :)

    PS. I'm always a little jealous of those of us that have insights through their heritage into other cultures. A friend of mine's grandmother was a proper Zulu when Zulus were Zulus- how cool is that! Unfortunately my Scottish lowlander ancestry is lost to the past. Not sure it'd have been that interesting anyway, but I'd liked to have known.

    I know virtually nothing of my heritage, such as it is, as one one side the parents hated the grandparents, and the other the grandparents hated the great grandparents. Made it hard to ask about info.

    I'm told I had an alcoholic irish gypsy as a great grandfather, and another great grand relative changed their name from Schwartz to Black and that's it.

    That sounds like a joke, but it's actually true. Maybe an ancestry site is the way to go.
    That's how I found out that one of my great-grandmothers was Irish. Still plan to visit the stately home where she was born*.

    http://curraghmorehouse.ie

    (*... to one of the servants.)
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,436
    rcs1000 said:

    Leon said:

    President Biden and Vice President Harris just now heading down Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House.

    Seventy-two years ago, back in 1949, my father was part of the US Marine Corp honor guard at the inauguration of President Harry Truman.

    My Daddy Dearest was 19 years old, and thus not old enough to vote in 1948. If he HAD voted, almost certainly he'd have voted for Republican Tom Dewey NOT "Give Em Hell" Harry. Who

    Which didn't matter diddly squat to him on that day. For him, it was a proud day - for himself AND for America.

    A day like today.

    I still think that, flawed though he was, Truman was probably the best President of the 20th century.
    FDR says Hi!
    How about Ike. Presided over the final ascent of America to hegemony. Oversaw (I believe, I haven't checked) an unprecedented surge in American personal prosperity. Generally avoided wars. Genial.

    I miss the America that benignly ruled the world. We can already see what the future, non-American world is like, where China is entirely ascendant (which it is, already). It is not good

    Korea says "hi!"
    Actually reinforces my argument. Ike stood up to China. With actual guns. And got at least a decent score draw, arguably a narrow win (given the history of the Koreas ever since)

    OK. It is a tiny bit harder when China is the predominant power, economically, and America is secondary and weaker, but Trump managed to combine the worst aspects of appeasement and hostility in one. Derrrrr.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 21,298

    kle4 said:

    Omnium said:

    geoffw said:

    Harris is the daughter of a Stanford academic, where I suppose she grew up. Quite privileged I'd say, whatever her skin colour color.

    She grew up in the flatlands, which was predominantly a black area.

    Plus her parents divorced when she was seven, thus Harris has said that when she and her sister visited their father in Palo Alto on weekends, other children in the neighborhood were not allowed to play with them because they were black.

    https://www.latimes.com/local/politics/la-me-pol-ca-harris-senate-20150930-story.html

    But I love how white dudes in the UK like to say they no so much about how Kamala Harris was privileged and has no experience of racism.
    I get the horrible feeling this is going to turn into the new 'Birtherism' of the next few years. Harris is not poor enough and oppressed enough to be considered a proper Black.

    Yet more pointless arguments.
    Sadly, it is over here as well.

    I've been told on more than one occasion that I cannot call myself an ethnic minority because

    1) I'm upper/middle class

    2) Privately educated/went to a top university

    3) Married a white person

    4) Have a high income job

    5) Father had a high income job

    So because of that I cannot experience discrimination, which is nice to know, if only someone had told those EDL supporters in Manchester 2009 who shouted 'You fucking Paki' at me that I'm not a minority.
    A very heavy burden of a list. Don't worry though I'll happily continue to discriminate against you because you're TSE. Actually especially so. In emergencies the whole pineapple thing can be visited, but for emergencies only.

    Hope that helps :)

    PS. I'm always a little jealous of those of us that have insights through their heritage into other cultures. A friend of mine's grandmother was a proper Zulu when Zulus were Zulus- how cool is that! Unfortunately my Scottish lowlander ancestry is lost to the past. Not sure it'd have been that interesting anyway, but I'd liked to have known.

    I know virtually nothing of my heritage, such as it is, as one one side the parents hated the grandparents, and the other the grandparents hated the great grandparents. Made it hard to ask about info.

    I'm told I had an alcoholic irish gypsy as a great grandfather, and another great grand relative changed their name from Schwartz to Black and that's it.

    That sounds like a joke, but it's actually true. Maybe an ancestry site is the way to go.
    That's how I found out that one of my great-grandmothers was Irish. Still plan to visit the stately home where she was born*.

    http://curraghmorehouse.ie

    (*... to one of the servants.)
    Please don’t activate the Charles.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,677
    Biden setting the right tone imo. No point in stoking the fires now.

    “The president wrote a very generous letter,” Biden said, of Donald Trump. “Because it was private, I won’t talk about it until I talk to him. But it was generous."

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2021/jan/20/joe-biden-inauguration-donald-trump-impeachment-kamala-harris-washington-covid-coronavirus-live-updates
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,126
    eek said:
    Yay, I'm not average.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 49,868

    Leon said:

    The father of Kamala Harris.

    Obviously not a black dude.


    I am directly descended from the estimated 20,000 Homo sapiens - the population of Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire - who crossed from Africa to Europe many years ago. I am therefore black. Soz. I mean, Black

    https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2010/01/human-ancestors-were-endangered-species

    But you say I am not BLACK like Kamala Harris. How do you know? Perhaps you could check me against a colour chart, or put a pencil in my hair? I have no idea.
    Because I've seen what you look like.

    You couldn't be any more white if your name was Whitey McWhiteface.
    Is that the next one?
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,468
    eek said:
    Also sounds like a totally bollocks one. The average 66-year old? What is that when it comes to binary outcomes?
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,209
    MaxPB said:

    Foxy said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    I liked Joe's dialled down speech and the occasionally informal moments in the pomp. They did a very good job today. Lovely to see everyone coming together.

    A new era.

    If only you were right. I fear it is bollocks.

    The Democrats are totally captured by Woke-ism. eg Kamala Harris is now described, even by the BBC, as "Black" (with a definite capital b). In what universe is she black? Seriously. Does it now refer to anyone who is non-white? She is clearly brown. Sorry, Brown.

    Frankly, if I were African-American, descended from slaves, I would deeply resent this woman "appropriating" my ancestry of real and terrible suffering. She's Indian and went to Harvard. Yes, she's from a tough-ish background, but it really does not compare to slavery.

    How does this nonsense square with the tens of millions of minimum-wage white Americans in Ohio or Arkansas or Lousiane? The Trump voters? Answer: it doesn't
    The father of Kamala Harris is a black dude from Jamaica.

    Perhaps you should acquaint yourselves with some facts before you embarrass yourself once more.
    Or, alternatively, learn something yourself

    "Born on August 23, 1938 in Brown's Town, St. Ann Parish, Jamaica, Donald J. Harris is the son of Beryl Christie (Finnegan, through her second husband[citation needed]) and Oscar Joseph Harris, who were of Afro-Jamaican heritage"

    Her "Blackness" is pretty tenuous. Unless everyone with black ancestors can claim Blackness?


    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_J._Harris

    If anyone who has any Black blood is by definition Black then that includes trillions of Americans. Indeed all of us, as we are all descended from Africans

    Hyper race-awareness is a species of madness, a modern possession by demons.
    Her father was a black Jamaican, born to other black Jamaicans. What is the chance that her paternal ancestors were slaves? Close to 100%, I would think.

    To say she is not Black is absurd. Of course she has Indian heritage too.

    It's a completely different experience to being born into a segregated America where you grow up having to sit in coloured seats on buses or use different entrances to buildings. The experience of black Americans is a really horrible story of persecution, I don't think she will have had the same experiences in her life. She will have had a life more along the lines of what a black or brown person experiences in the UK, not comfortable and awful individual encounters with some nasty people but overall one of acceptance and, frankly, indifference to skin colour.
    I tend to be very anti-woke, but you are absolutely spot on that the US has a very different experience of race to the UK. And segregation is much more recent than people think.

    Martin Luther King was not shot in the distant past; he was shot in 1968. There were seats on buses reserved for whites in the lifetimes of most PBers. And as recently as the 1980s, elite US universities and schools had official "caps" on the number of African America, Jewish and Asian American students they accepted.

  • OmniumOmnium Posts: 10,770
    eek said:
    Not true, but if you like not true things then great.

    Fairly easy to see why.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,210

    Leon said:

    MrEd said:

    Disturbing. Not as disturbing as his sudden obsession with imps, but still.
    I wouldn't read too much into it.

    There's nothing wrong with having "woken up" to injustices that were previously there, and one didn't see or realise, and then to do something about them. It has reasonable goals in mind.

    The issue is that Woke (big W) has become a quasi-religion where it's first and foremost about putting yourself on display and signalling the purity of your credentials. There's no interest in moderation because it's always good to be seen to be more Woke, more angry, and more energetic about it, and it therefore has a maximalising tendency in defiance of common sense.

    That doesn't inspire action, rather it inhibits it, because practical action would otherwise suggest the world is a complex place. Moreover, its behaviour - seeing everything through increasingly ludicrous levels of intersectionality in absolutely everything, cancel culture, hectoring nuance, pulling down statues, and partial views of any alternative view - repells many people who'd otherwise be very sympathetic.

    It's so divisive because everyone who criticises the latter is assumed to oppose the former, and are often called bigots to boot, which many know full-well is disingenuous, whilst the Woke themselves are being entirely self-indulgent, often patronising and frequently hypocritical.

    So, yes, I hate unfairness and injustice to anyone on account of who they are. And I have contempt for Woke as a religion too as I believe to be divisive counterproductive nonsense for which you get judged when you call out their childish bullshit.

    Some of the worst people I've met in my professional life have been the Wokest because they use it to cloak deep-seated insecurities and give cover for highly disrespectful treatment of people in real life.

    Virtue and integrity comes from within, and real change requires practical action tempered by humility and good judgement.

    The Woke have neither.
    One thing to also point out with your comment @Casino_Royale - which I agree with - is that one of the fundamental reason why people who are Woke are generally some of the worst people to meet is because they are so self-righteous about their own beliefs that they believe it gives them carte blanche to be an absolute c*nt when it comes to day to day matters.
    The Woke-est people I know - and I know loads - are not always the worst, or the dimmest. Ultra-Brexiteers can be as bad, easily

    But they are, without exception, the most narcissistic, and self-absorbed
    Woke people aren't the brightest. A vegan diet doesn't help them either sadly.
    As I've revealed before, wokeness is vastly and objectively preferable to its opposite. And most people who are super-antagonistic to it ARE that opposite.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,126

    Biden setting the right tone imo. No point in stoking the fires now.

    “The president wrote a very generous letter,” Biden said, of Donald Trump. “Because it was private, I won’t talk about it until I talk to him. But it was generous."

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2021/jan/20/joe-biden-inauguration-donald-trump-impeachment-kamala-harris-washington-covid-coronavirus-live-updates

    "Don't tell anyone, but I'm glad you beat me, Joe - I f*cking hated being President"
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,677

    kle4 said:

    Omnium said:

    geoffw said:

    Harris is the daughter of a Stanford academic, where I suppose she grew up. Quite privileged I'd say, whatever her skin colour color.

    She grew up in the flatlands, which was predominantly a black area.

    Plus her parents divorced when she was seven, thus Harris has said that when she and her sister visited their father in Palo Alto on weekends, other children in the neighborhood were not allowed to play with them because they were black.

    https://www.latimes.com/local/politics/la-me-pol-ca-harris-senate-20150930-story.html

    But I love how white dudes in the UK like to say they no so much about how Kamala Harris was privileged and has no experience of racism.
    I get the horrible feeling this is going to turn into the new 'Birtherism' of the next few years. Harris is not poor enough and oppressed enough to be considered a proper Black.

    Yet more pointless arguments.
    Sadly, it is over here as well.

    I've been told on more than one occasion that I cannot call myself an ethnic minority because

    1) I'm upper/middle class

    2) Privately educated/went to a top university

    3) Married a white person

    4) Have a high income job

    5) Father had a high income job

    So because of that I cannot experience discrimination, which is nice to know, if only someone had told those EDL supporters in Manchester 2009 who shouted 'You fucking Paki' at me that I'm not a minority.
    A very heavy burden of a list. Don't worry though I'll happily continue to discriminate against you because you're TSE. Actually especially so. In emergencies the whole pineapple thing can be visited, but for emergencies only.

    Hope that helps :)

    PS. I'm always a little jealous of those of us that have insights through their heritage into other cultures. A friend of mine's grandmother was a proper Zulu when Zulus were Zulus- how cool is that! Unfortunately my Scottish lowlander ancestry is lost to the past. Not sure it'd have been that interesting anyway, but I'd liked to have known.

    I know virtually nothing of my heritage, such as it is, as one one side the parents hated the grandparents, and the other the grandparents hated the great grandparents. Made it hard to ask about info.

    I'm told I had an alcoholic irish gypsy as a great grandfather, and another great grand relative changed their name from Schwartz to Black and that's it.

    That sounds like a joke, but it's actually true. Maybe an ancestry site is the way to go.
    That's how I found out that one of my great-grandmothers was Irish. Still plan to visit the stately home where she was born*.

    http://curraghmorehouse.ie

    (*... to one of the servants.)
    Please don’t activate the Charles.
    Lol. "When my family were at Curraghmore House..."

    In fact, I am descended from Charlemagne.

    (We all are).
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,126
    edited January 2021
    TimT said:

    eek said:
    Also sounds like a totally bollocks one. The average 66-year old? What is that when it comes to binary outcomes?
    It does seem somewhat implausible, but it also feels like the kind of stat no one can be bothered to interrogate to find out.

    Down with old people!
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    Omnium said:

    eek said:
    Not true, but if you like not true things then great.

    Fairly easy to see why.
    Why?
  • Omnium said:

    eek said:
    Not true, but if you like not true things then great.

    Fairly easy to see why.
    AV referendum?
This discussion has been closed.