London Cycling Campaign condemns employee’s racist tweets – but stops short of sacking him

Seems reasonable of him. It's the behaviour, not skin colour, that matters, and by bringing it in he distracts from what LCC is *supposed* to be doing.

Still think Twitter is appalling.

I can kind of see where you're coming from but white people can also be subject to racist abuse.  Just because it doesn't happen when you're around doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Ok, please explain further. Not trying to antagonise but I genuinely want to know when this has happened to you in this country? 

I was mugged once (only time, about twenty years ago).

Had my wallet taken (this is in the days before I ever used a mobile phone).

Late at night, walking home. Black man, younger than me, walks alongside and tells me to give him my wallet; I say "No" and keep walking.

He catches me up, tells me to give him my wallet, I say "No" and he says "I've got a knife"; I replied" No, you haven't!" and kept walking.

He catches me up again, shoves me into a doorway and it turns out that he does indeed have a knife, reaches into my coat to get my wallet; I ask him not to and he says, "You're f-ing middle class white - you can afford it!" (actually, no, I really couldn't).

He was wearing very smart clothing (I've always thought it was French Connection), certainly more expensive than what I was wearing (typical office drone cheap suit and a coat from Oxfam).

Yet he'd described me as "white middle class" as if that justified his crime.

As you tell, its an incident that's kind of seared in my memory.

That's a rubbish thing to happen but it's not an example of the systemic racism that exists in Britain. 

I grew up in a northern town where me and my brother where the only 2 brown faces in a high school with 1200 kids. There were more incidents than I care to mention.  I was born in this country but there hasn't been a single job I've worked where my race hasn't been mentioned. The 'no, where are you really from?' is a classic I've heard loads of times. I was once told in a university seminar that 'if a dog is born in a stable that doesn't make it a horse' that was in the mid 2000's so not that long ago. 

I doubt your race has stopped you getting a job, had you searched everytime you to the US or stopped you getting housing like my folks back in the 70's.

We might have laws to protect against discrimination now but I don't think much has changed. I'm still astonished by some of the things I hear from time to time. Sad thing is I gave up trying to fight against it a long time ago. 
 

I just ride my bike and try not to worry about it but as a minority within a minority it's always something I'm a acutely aware of. 
 

In fairness, Rapha Nadal said that white people could be subject to racist abuse, not that white people were subject to systemic racism, so not quite apples to apples.

Doesn't invalidate your point about wider issues, of course. Though I do find myself bridling at the 'white people talking about racism' comment - I'm no authority but presumably I can throw in my tuppen'orth without being told to get back in my - white, middle class - box?

Compact Corned Beef wrote:

Though I do find myself bridling at the 'white people talking about racism' comment - I'm no authority but presumably I can throw in my tuppen'orth without being told to get back in my - white, middle class - box?

Like modern debate about acting: transgender folks have to be played by transgender actors, Russell T Davies (for example) will only cast gay actors as gay characters (I don't know whether he casts gay actors as straight characters?).  Difficult.  Pretty sure Leonard Nimoy had red blood in real life...

It must be difficult finding daleks to play those parts.

On the one hand, it's important that actors aren't all white-washed and all the best jobs given to a chosen few, but on the other hand, acting is about portraying different characters, so I don't see why there needs to be a strict matching of sexual identity to the characters portrayed. However, the film industry has a shocking history of using casting couches and blatant racism, so it's probably about time that we had a wider selection of actors.

I think I should have stayed in my box. 

Everyone is entitled to expressing their opinion/point of view without fear of retribution.. people getting sacked or kicked off social media for their speech, regardless of whether it's politically correct or not, is wrong. My government employer encourages employees to make comments supportive of minority interests, but makes it clear that any employee making comments anti minority interests, will be disciplined and likely sacked. 

You're wrong. People should not expect to be able to say any old crap without any consequences. Shouting 'fire' in a crowded cinema as a joke can lead to people getting injured as they rush to get out so why should the prankster not bear some responsibility?

I don't understand why you think that an individual is allowed to spout offensive crap and yet their employer is not allowed to exercise their own right in deciding who to employ.

There is also the conundrum of tolerance in society - a society can not tolerate those (e.g. Nazis) who seek to deprive others of their innate rights.

Free speech =/= freedom from responsibility

hawkinspeter wrote:

Free speech =/= freedom from responsibility

This is true but I also think we need formal safeguards in place so that certain speech is fundamentally protected.

Political opinions should be expressed entirely freely for the vast majority of employees (political parties/organisations obviously excepted).

Likewise religious views should be protected as far as reasonably possible.

I'm quite worried about freedom of speech in the UK. It needs to be formally protected like in the US otherwise we risk seeing our current rights gradually removed.

Rich_cb wrote:

hawkinspeter wrote:

Free speech =/= freedom from responsibility

This is true but I also think we need formal safeguards in place so that certain speech is fundamentally protected. Political opinions should be expressed entirely freely for the vast majority of employees (political parties/organisations obviously excepted). Likewise religious views should be protected as far as reasonably possible. I'm quite worried about freedom of speech in the UK. It needs to be formally protected like in the US otherwise we risk seeing our current rights gradually removed.

There are safeguards in place to protect people from wrongful dismissal, so what needs to be cleared up is the fuzzy 'bringing the company into disrepute' reason for dismissal. Unfortunately, that's always going to be a subjective interpretation as society gradually changes whith respect to what is considered appropriate or not.

We need to walk a line between allowing free expression and enabling violence (e.g. Trump's incitement to riot). Clearly a business should be allowed to get rid of a toxic employee that is associating the business with unpopular opinions, but it shouldn't be able to abuse that to ensure that all employees have a particular political opinion unless that's a key part of the business and the employee has a significant public prescence.

I think there should be a distinction between opinions that lead to violence and opinions that are merely unpopular (e.g. wing vs door mirrors) but it should also be recognised that private companies such as Twitter have no obligation to be impartial and can choose who to do business with.

However, we don't have free speech in the U.K. so I think your boat has already sailed a while ago (e.g. 'Spy Catcher').

Didn't say it was an example of systemic racism and I'm fully aware that as a white man in Britain I do enjoy a lot of systemic benefits.

That said, I was providing an example where as a white man I was targeted because of my 'race' and/or appearance, which does rather look like discrimination at best or racism at worst on that particular occasion, don't you think?

I think zeeridesbikes is seeking to suggest that the UK's majority white population is not subject to institutionalised racism.

Sadly, prejudices of all kinds are endemic amongst homo sapiens. Often people (of all ethnic groups) are not even aware of the assumptions they make about others based on their 'race' - its called unconscious bias. As a result, it is very clearly the case that minority ethnic groups are systematically disadvantaged as a result of these (mostly unconscious) processes across every area of social life (e.g. health, housing, criminal justice, employment, income, etc.). There are exceptions to this pattern, but it is far from accidental.

If people cannot see that it is because they do not want to look... 

Completely agree with this. 

Unconscious bias is not that unconscious.. I have a bias about pitbull dogs being violent because they have a reputation for being violent.. not all pitbull dogs are violent, but I'm not taking a chance.

brooksby wrote:

Didn't say it was an example of systemic racism and I'm fully aware that as a white man in Britain I do enjoy a lot of systemic benefits.

That said, I was providing an example where as a white man I was targeted because of my 'race' and/or appearance, which does rather look like discrimination at best or racism at worst on that particular occasion, don't you think?

Were you mugged brecause of being white? or was the comment at the end only related your being white?

I felt like I was targeted because I was white and was walking through an area of the city which is predominantly not-white.

brooksby wrote:

I felt like I was targeted because I was white and was walking through an area of the city which is predominantly not-white.

It's perfectly possible. A very unpleasant experience.

Let's be clear, as you say, that in the UK if you're white (and male) you are about as privileged as it gets - play your cards right and doors will open for you at every stage in your life.  I guess this is why some drivers feel so affronted on, like, the one occasion things don't entirely go their way - a cyclist holds their lane for all of 30s  - Cyclingmikey somehow gets hold of their Twitter rant, re-tweets and we all join in the take-down. 

The times you might be at a disadvantage because of who you are (I.e. UK white guy) are so vanishingly rare and immaterial, that they are comic, such as the Father Ted lingerie dept sequence, or the Not the Nine O'clock News Gramophone sketch, where Mel Smith is not so much out of place, as out of time. 

Your example, horrible thing to happen, is out of the same drawer as the motorists who claim to worry about being hit by cyclists, or try to make out cycling as somehow itself posing a danger.  The cave man part of our brain is hard wired to say "I was attacked by a tiger: avoid all tigers from now on" - fair enough in the circumstances - Grog's example.  But we have to do better. 

Going back to the LCC now ex-employee, it looks to me like he's dived/ been thrown under the bus not because the local race relations people called it, but because - irony - of the ravings of the anti-cycling brigade, who themselves will adopt any way-out tactic to be heard, and they don't care who or what is harmed in the process.  

A current tactic is to try to make LTNs some kind of class or race issue. Disadvantaged people live on main routes, don't they and so on. There is a little bit where I have some agreement here, which is people who scrape a living with some wretched van driving job - but all of which would be a lot easier if other folk left the SUV behind. 

Finally, the message people got from the old equalities legislation was crudely "don't talk about differences and all will be well". The newer approach is to highlight differences in experiences and act on them where the evidence supports this. Example: we know that in the hospital BAME colleagues are not taking up the COVID vaccine at the same rate as white - we record the ethnicity of our staff and we record the ethnicity of everyone having the vaccine. We then ask BAME colleagues to take part in communications to help address the issue. 

zeeridesbikes wrote:

Ok, please explain further. Not trying to antagonise but I genuinely want to know when this has happened to you in this country? 

Your thoughts seem to be that the only kind of racism to exist is when white people are racist towards people who have a different skin colour but the issue of racism is wider than just that, no?

Whilst it may not be as systematic as the more "common" type of racism (sorry, not really sure how else to describe it!) you can't deny that it does indeed happen. 

Not denying it at all. I've seen plenty of racism towards white people from my own family. Just wanted to gauge others experiences. 

Rapha Nadal wrote:

zeeridesbikes wrote:

Ok, please explain further. Not trying to antagonise but I genuinely want to know when this has happened to you in this country? 

Your thoughts seem to be that the only kind of racism to exist is when white people are racist towards people who have a different skin colour but the issue of racism is wider than just that, no?

Whilst it may not be as systematic as the more "common" type of racism (sorry, not really sure how else to describe it!) you can't deny that it does indeed happen. 

There is also the fact that the effect on the victim differs with frequency of abuse, just like any bullying. If someone gives me racial abuse (in spite of my profile pic I'm completely white, although that might be due to age...), unpleasant, intimidating or traumatic as it may be, it happens so infrequently I can usually recover quite fast. 

If the abuse is repeated and reinforced by chronic societal and institutional systemic abuse it is much harder to keep on top of it.

Although in principle you are correct that anyone can be victimised on account of any difference, the outcome in terms of harm to the individual, and for that matter wider society, is very much context-driven. As our wider context is that privilege and power dynamic is very much skewed in your favour, I believe that currently at least being a victim of racism is unlikely to be a serious issue if you are white (and male, and hetero, and affluent).

This is not to say that racism in any form is acceptable, or excusable. The above is a generalisation, I mean to say that it is broadly true. There will be situations where the inverse is the case where the power dynamic outlined above does not hold, and victims may not fit the usual stereotype. However, these are the exceptions rather than the rule.

My brother-in-law was stabbed in the next six times by a (not white, though also not black) gang who explicitly called out his skin colour as the reason they were stabbing him.

zeeridesbikes wrote:

Love a load of (presumably) white folks discussing what is and isn't racist...

Careful now, you're being racist.

The comments by the guy from the LCC were the topic of much debate in my cycling club recently. One of our committee members flagged them up. All of us in the committee agreed they were racist and unacceptable. I did say to the person who flagged up the comments to complain directly to the LCC and this action was taken. I don't know how many complaints the LCC received but one of them at least was from us.

Our club has about a 50:50 split of white and non-white members. Yes, I'm white but I've lived in an area with a large non-white population for several decades and I'm not totally naive.

Hey man that's good to know. Where I live now it's pretty mixed but the cycling clubs tend to be mostly white. That's not what stops me from joining, I just prefer to cycle solo or with a few mates. Kids and work mean committing a time each week is tough.