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Sept. 10, 2017 - Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin
25:36
This Week in Stupid (10⧸09⧸2017)
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Hello everyone, welcome to this week in Stupid for the 10th of September 2017.
It's been an interesting week, as it usually is.
British conductor sacked by US Music Festival after innocent joke with his African-American friend was labelled racist.
An acclaimed British conductor has been fired from a prestigious American music festival after a seemingly innocent joke he made to a black friend was labelled racist.
So fucking what if it was?
That doesn't matter unless the black person he was making the joke with took exception to it, and from the sound of it, he didn't.
Matthew Halls was removed as the artistic director of the Oregon Bach Festival following an incident in which he imitated a Southern American accent while talking to his long-standing friend, the African-American classical singer Reginald Mobley.
It is understood that a white woman who overheard the joke reported it to officials at the University of Oregon, which runs the festival, claiming it amounted to a racial slur.
Thank you so much, love.
You being a meddling busybody on behalf of people who didn't ask you to be a meddling busybody, when it's in fact none of your business, was really appreciated, I'm sure.
Thank you so much.
You're doing such a good service.
You've managed to stamp out some real racism there.
This chap was clearly a massive bigot.
You've really, really found the witch in this case.
Good job.
Shortly after, Halls, who has worked with orchestras and opera houses across Europe and the US, was told by a university official his four-year contract, which will have run to 2020, was being terminated.
Mobley, a counter-tenor who is regularly performing in the UK, has now spoken out to defend his friend, saying there was nothing racist about the joke and was describing the university's apparent treatment of Halls as deeply unjust.
Well, that's just internalised racism, isn't it?
How would a black person know what racism is?
It requires white women and the presumably white staff of the University of Oregon to tell them what real racism is.
You couldn't possibly have a lived experience that might be useful as a benchmark in this case.
What are you?
Some kind of Uncle Tom?
Perhaps some kind of house Negro?
I really think you should reconsider your point, Mr. Mobley.
As if your life experiences would be relevant to this.
A white woman heard someone saying something she didn't like.
I think you perhaps should know your place.
He has been victimised and I'm very upset about it, he told the Sunday Telegraph.
It was an innocent joke that has been taken entirely out of context.
Well, that's no reason not to ruin a man's career.
I mean, come on.
There was someone who interpreted that as being racist.
That was completely justified.
Mobley maintains that while racism should be challenged and ethnic groups made aware of each other's sensitivities, his friend has been the victim of a misunderstanding and overreaction.
Halls and Mobley had been chatting the reception last month during this year's Oregon Bach Festival, when the subject turned to a concert in London which Mobley had performed.
The singer who was born and raised in the southern state of Florida with the concert had an antebellum feeling to it, the sort of associated with Gone with the Wind and other rose-tinted representations of the pre-Civil War South.
In response, Mobley says that Halls apologised on behalf of England before putting on an exaggerated southern accent and joking, do you want some grits?
In a reference to the ground corn dish popular in the South.
How is that racist?
How is that fucking racist?
Racism means prejudice and discrimination of people on the basis of race from a belief that your own race is superior.
How did you extract that from imitating an accent from the South?
I mean that isn't a racial accent, is it?
It's not that only black people have that accent.
I'm from the deep south and Matthew often makes fun of the southern accent just as I make fun of his British accent.
Race was not an issue.
He was imitating a southern accent, not putting on a black accent.
There was nothing racist or malicious about it.
But what difference does that make?
This guy's been fired.
Now that can't be undone.
A white woman would have to be told that she was wrong.
We can't possibly have that.
An internal inquiry into the incident was understood to have been held as a result of the complaint.
However, Mobley was not invited to give evidence, and he says there is a deep irony in the fact that the authorities appear to have assumed on his behalf that he would have objected to the joke.
Well, I have to say we don't need to hear from the darkies on what's racist and offensive to the darkies.
What possible use would we have for your input into whether this was an offensive joke or not?
We're telling you that you're offended.
I'm the subject of a falsified story without having any chance to have my say.
My voice has been taken away in a conversation about race that involved me, and technically that's racist.
That may well be, but I like the fact that we don't care what Halls' opinion on this is.
I mean, he's the victim of what has happened here.
He's the victim of what's happened here, and it's amazing to me that his voice is just not important.
Why?
Because he's a white man.
But we need to know what the black person thinks, who wasn't offended, by the way, because this wasn't a racial joke.
But that's the important point here.
We don't get to hear from Halls.
We don't get to hear his opinion, because he's a dirty white untouchable, and we don't need to talk to him.
He should have known his place.
And I imagine he was probably drinking at the wrong fountain, too.
Perhaps he was sitting near the front of the bus.
The progressive interpretation of Muslim grooming gangs, particularly the one in Newcastle, which apparently is not an issue of race, it's about misogyny.
Which isn't true.
And it's also not an issue of race.
It's an issue of religion.
But let's have a look at how this is interpreted through the lens of intersectional social justice.
Of course, it can't be about race.
You couldn't possibly have a racial motive for brown people attacking white people.
That would be reverse racism.
And as they will tell you as often as you would like, reverse racism doesn't exist.
It describes structures of oppression and systems and power.
And so this group of brown men grooming and raping young white girls, well, too much privilege on behalf of the white girls for them to be considered to be the victims in this case.
So what we now have to do is change it to gender.
Yes, men raping young girls is legitimately a gender issue for intersectionalism.
So finally they can say something, but they can't condemn the fact that it's this group of men doing it.
No, no, no.
This has to be about all men.
This is possibly the most guardian line I have ever seen.
What's worse?
Rape or racism?
I think I'll just come out and say it.
Rape is way fucking worse than racism.
Way worse.
Rape is so much worse than racism that it's a facile comparison.
It's like saying what's worse, stubbing your toe or having your head cut off.
Well, I mean, I've got to weigh it up.
I mean, I'm not a fan of stubbing my toe.
is where the Guardian is in 2017 this is this is the current year Guardian I found myself posing that question after the Operation Sanctuary investigation was finally made public, revealing horrific abuse of girls and vulnerable and young women in Newcastle.
I mean, rape's bad, but is racism worse?
You know, I knew that they would eventually have to come to this question as well.
They would have to ask themselves, is it worse to be prejudiced against Muslim rape gangs, or is it worse to be raped?
I mean, I would have thought the answer would have been clear to anyone with a conscience, but apparently not.
Apparently to the ideologues who are given a platform at The Guardian.
This is something that is legitimately making them really think.
And this is something that really activates the old almonds.
Hmm.
I had been moved and inspired by the courage of the victims, testifying sometimes multiple times to the most appalling and intimate crimes.
I don't think they're testifying to the crimes.
But as I felt overwhelming anger at the men who had done this, men in my constituency, men who used girls and women as their property without respect for them or that thought for their futures.
But I was also angry at right wing attempts to make abuse and exploitation an issue of race and fucking religion.
Fuck the right wing.
Fuck them.
Their opinions should not be informing yours.
Do you understand?
Gangs of men systematically raped young girls on the basis that they weren't Muslim and they were vulnerable.
And you'll sat there going, hmm, but what about the right wing?
Fuck the right wing.
Fuck them.
And fuck you too.
On Saturday, the EDL will be marching in Newcastle.
Fuck the EDL!
Fuck the right wing.
Fuck the EDL.
And fuck you.
Pay attention to what's actually happening, you fucking ideologue.
And I have been told on social media that I was little better than a pimp for not warning white working class girls against Muslim men.
Well, you do seem to be the one providing cover for these men, given how you want to now talk about the right wing.
Oh, let me tell you about the right wing, but no, let's just make it about men.
Like, this is just something men do.
All men are pretty much gang rapists.
They don't usually get the opportunity.
Maybe more of them converted to Islam, but it's amazing, isn't it, that you make this about men.
And I was angry about those, mainly men who seemed intent on turning the rape of girls into a minor skirmish in the Great War on Imperialism.
I think you've rather lost the plot there.
This is not about a great war on imperialism.
This is about preventing the privilege of Muslim rape gangs to act unmolested by the police, to act unmolested by the papers, and even find defenders in those papers who would say, oh no, I'm very much against rape.
I'm very much against rape.
But let's not talk about what's happened or why it's happened.
Let's talk about misogyny.
Let's talk about racism.
Let's talk about the right wing.
Fuck these things.
Let's talk about Muslim bigotry against non-Muslims because that's what this all stems from.
You'll notice they weren't gang raping Muslim girls, right?
This is something you have observed, haven't you?
They were specifically targeting English girls on the basis that they were English and not Muslims.
They didn't have to have moral consideration for these girls because they didn't act like Muslims.
They weren't modest.
They didn't cover themselves up.
And let's be honest, nobody cared about them.
Nobody cared about them.
And you don't care about them either.
What you care about is protecting your fucking political position.
Fuck your political position and fuck you.
And then I became tired of my own anger.
Fuck you.
It is horrendous that with this recent destruction of so many young lives, there should come a sense of deja vu.
Well, it's only a sense of deja vu because it happens so fucking regularly.
Pick a northern town with a large Muslim population and you'll find a Muslim rape gang that was predating entirely on young white girls made up of almost entirely Muslim men.
There is a pattern here.
Stop pretending it doesn't exist.
Fucking hell.
I should have saved this story from the end because this is actually pissing me off.
Fucking hell.
But we as a society have been here before.
Oh really?
Oh have we?
Fucking really?
Well I mean that is true.
We could look at Rotherham.
We could look at Oxford.
We could look just pick a city.
Pick a fucking city.
We have seen violence against women reduce the crimes of a particular ethnic minority men against a particular group of white women with everyone else either sidelined or forced to take sides.
I think I'm going to become the first liberal suicide bomber.
This is pissing me off.
I'm going to go down and blow up the fucking Guardian for giving a platform to such rampantly narcissistic bigots like this piece of shit.
How can you try and make this about you?
It isn't about you and it is entirely about the fact that there are gangs, particular groups of ethnic minority men against particular groups of white girls.
Not even women, girls.
When I was growing up in the 80s, it was the supposedly overpowering lust of the African Caribbean men from which no white woman was safe.
I don't recall gangs of black men from the Caribbean going out and gang raping white women and young girls.
I don't recall that.
I mean, maybe I was just too young at the time to be reading the news.
I wasn't paying attention.
Maybe if I Google search, there'll be loads of them.
But in this case, do not worry, we don't have that problem.
We actually don't have the problem in the UK of gangs of young black men running around gang raping women.
That's not something that's happening here.
Do you know what is happening?
Gangs of Muslim men doing it.
That's what's fucking happening.
That's the reality of this country right now.
And you're going, yeah, but actually, let me talk about white men.
Let me talk about my experiences from the 80s.
Let me talk about me.
Let me talk about my feelings.
Oh, I'm tired.
Fuck you, you selfish shit.
These were the racial and sexual stereotypes that have been at the heart of so many lynchings in the United States.
How has this got to do anything to do with lynching in the United States?
How is this?
Where are you going with this?
There is absolutely no connection between the two.
There is no fucking connection at all.
So what?
Because there are racists in the United States who were lynching people 100 years ago, suddenly it's not such a bad thing that gangs of Muslim men were raping young girls?
What are you saying?
Fighting that stereotyping while at the same time condemning misogyny and sexism where it was found risks being called a traitor to both gender and race.
Yes, because you're finding yourself with a remarkable problem, aren't you?
How are these brown men oppressing white people?
In this case, young white girls.
But more importantly, how can we address this without violating our intersectional principles?
And the answer is, you can't.
That's the problem with intersectionality.
If you remove the agency of brown people, then you can't address it when they use their agency in a negative way.
You don't know what to say, which is why you're bringing up lynchings in the United States of black people 100 years ago.
That's why you're bringing this up, because there is literally nothing for you to say.
You have absolutely nothing productive to input into this conversation.
So why the fuck are you writing an article?
Shut up and fuck off.
What I would have hoped we had learned over the decades, indeed centuries, of documented sexual violence, just random sexual violence now.
Now this isn't about grooming gangs in Nottingham or Rotherham or Newcastle or wherever.
Now this is just random sexual violence.
Let's decontextualize what's happened because that's the only way I can address this issue.
Because I have to contextualize everything in a wider pattern of things that are actually unrelated.
But anyway, apparently documented sexual violence, rape is about power and power imbalances can form a part of any community cultural religion.
You know, I don't even agree that rape is just about power.
I think that rape is also about lust.
But it's a topic for another video and I would need to go into it in detail.
So it's been claimed that some cases of sexual abuse have not been reported or taken seriously because the perpetrators were from ethnic minorities and the authorities wanted to be culturally sensitive.
We know that is true.
You can thank Alexis J for her report into the Rotherham scandal.
This is quite horrifying.
Cultural sensitivity is a justification for serving lamb instead of pork.
It's no reason to stand by while children are raped.
Yes, brilliant.
Thank you.
I'm so glad we're on the same page on that.
But the problem is that people who write for The Guardian level accusations of racism like it's fucking raining.
And I don't know whether you've noticed, but referring to the earlier article we covered, merely an accusation of racism is enough to get someone fired.
One accusation of racism.
Where a black man is saying, you know what?
No, this wasn't racist.
No, this person's just misheard this or misinterpreted this or something like that.
One fucking accusation is enough to get a famous man fired.
Okay?
This is how dangerous these accusations are.
And the Guardian makes them on a daily basis.
Get fucked.
You are a problem.
You are an oppressive force in society.
And if you can't see that, then get in the helicopter.
And anyone who thinks that or is anything close to that is themselves being racist as well as perpetuating abuse.
Well, at least we can agree on something.
It also undermines the thousands of hours of investigation by officers of Northumbria Police and local safeguarding teams who poured limited resources into bringing the perpetrators to justice.
Yes, yes it does.
But to say as Sarah Champion did, that Britain has a problem with British Pakistani men raping and exploiting white girls, which is factually true.
Factual!
That is reality.
We do have a problem with this.
And I think this has been going on for such a long time, not only because there is a reason, a religious motivation, or at least an identitarian motivation, for them to do such a thing, but I think it probably is religious as well.
The British state is entirely complicit in this, as the Rotherham report has shown us.
The police would literally blame the victims in this case.
And as a feminist, I might think you would be against that, but you don't seem particularly bothered, so fuck it.
I guess they're the wrong kind of young girl being raped by the wrong kind of man.
But she thinks that this is saying either that Pakistanis are more likely to rape and more likely to rape white girls, or that the rape of white girls is more of a problem than the rape of, for example, white boys or brown girls.
Well, when the grooming gangs start picking on brown girls, I'm sure that you'll have a real case.
But until then, unfortunately, it seems to be Pakistani men forming gangs to rape young white girls.
I'm sorry that reality is difficult for you to interpret through the lens of identity politics.
I'm really sorry.
That sucks for you.
But that's your fucking problem, so fuck off and deal with it.
But what I love about this is the expropriation of blame.
It's like we have a huge problem with sexual violence against children and vulnerable adults.
This is the all lives matter argument versus the Black Lives Matter argument, but now it's convenient to reverse it.
Oh no, no, all rapes matter.
All of them.
They're all a problem.
Not these particular ones.
No, no, all of them.
And there must be, it must be men.
Oh, we need to address men.
That's the problem.
It's not that there is a specific clear motivation by a specific group of people against another specific group of people.
You intellectually dishonest piece of shit.
Not happy about this.
not happy this is this is really pissing me off After tabloid headlines about Muslim rapists, one of my constituents who was himself raped as a child expressed concern that his abuse did not raise the same kind of outrage and therefore the same level of awareness.
Well no, yours is probably an individual case.
Someone presumably that you knew exploited and raped you as a child, which is a crime.
Reported the corpse.
I'm sure the legal procedure will be followed.
That's not an organized gang.
And that's not one of dozens of organized gangs.
I'm sorry, but there is a problem with Pakistani communities and groups of men within these communities predating on white girls, vulnerable white girls, with no moral consideration for them at all.
They do see them as something to be used and abused, and it doesn't matter.
And the police probably reinforce this by not taking action sooner.
Many of the perpetrators were identified by family and friends, members of the communities accused of supporting these criminals.
Well, are you saying that these communities had no idea that this was going on?
Because I find that disingenuous.
Almost all of the perpetrators were of Asian Muslim descent, and it is right that the serious case investigation should consider what shared values, background, employment, or interests these men brought together.
Okay.
The problem appears to be that they were Muslim and that Islam has a real problem with women, specifically casting them as second-class citizens, and then it seems to have a real problem with Kufar, casting them as also second-class citizens.
And when you find these two categories combined in the person of, say, a vulnerable young girl who doesn't have a strong family life, who doesn't have anyone who cares about her, and who they realize they can actually take advantage of, especially when the police are going to pretend like it's not fucking happening.
Why wouldn't they?
You have to understand the mindset of these men because they didn't really think that what they were doing was wrong.
That's why they did it.
The idea that Muslim immigrants and their families have brought sexual abuse and violence against women to our shores is an insult to them.
Oh well, I mean, I wouldn't want to insult them.
God forbid they be insulted.
Don't worry about all of the rape gangs, but good grief, I don't want them to be insulted.
As well as to the generations of women and sexual abuse victims who have lived among us for centuries whose suffering has had no name or voice.
Bollocks.
Shut up, you fucking liar.
And you know you're lying.
You know that's not true.
You know that this is unrelated to other cases of sexual abuse, unless it happens to have been done under similar circumstances.
So in fact, maybe you're right.
Maybe we should be thinking of the other women and girls who are the victims of sexual abuse by Muslim grooming gangs.
Let's be specific here, since we can be.
There have been thousands and thousands and thousands of these girls.
I mean, we don't even know how many.
That's the problem.
We don't even know how many.
But we know it's in the thousands.
Possibly the tens of thousands.
Possibly even more.
We just don't know.
But this is where it gets great.
Nor does it help safeguard our children.
In the northeast, it would appear that the majority of those convicted of online grooming are white men.
Oh, that's relevant.
Because online grooming was what we were talking about.
Oh, no, wait, we were talking about real-world grooming and rape.
We teach them to be aware that there are people online, not just men, but anyone online, who's trying to groom them.
We teach them to be aware of dangerous predatory people online.
We should be teaching them about predatory behavior by Muslim men in real life, because unfortunately, that's something that happens in a specific way.
But don't worry, it doesn't mean we won't teach people about warning about predatory behavior in other groups, other people.
We don't need to actually categorize this by race or gender.
We can just say, look, if someone is acting this way to you, be careful.
Them acting in this way is the problem.
But she can't understand any of this.
Does that mean abuse by black Christian men is ignored?
Brilliant input.
You fucking moron.
Yeah, which means like, yeah, don't worry about it, black Christians.
Don't worry about it.
Nah, it's alright.
You do as you please.
No, of course it fucking doesn't.
What an asinine thing to say, this is, The Guardian is meant to be a respectable paper.
Where are you getting this from?
Stereotyping does not safeguard the vulnerable.
So sometimes it does.
You see a gang of Muslim men in the car driving along and they go up to you and you're a young white girl and they go, hey, do you want to get in, go for a ride?
We'll smoke some drugs.
Maybe you want to stereotype them.
Maybe, maybe just for your own good.
Maybe these are just a group of guys who are like, hey, maybe she'd like some drugs.
Maybe there's nothing in this or us.
Maybe it's between good Samaritans sharing our drugs around.
But maybe, just maybe, stereotyping might prevent you from being gang raped repeatedly.
Whoa.
Whoa.
Oh, how awful.
Awful, awful.
Oh, it's not all Muslim men.
Don't worry.
Not all of them.
Just the ones that are driving around in cars trying to pick up young girls, trying to ply them with drugs and drink.
Maybe those people can be stereotyped.
Maybe we can take that action as, for example, an indicator that those people have nefarious intentions.
Because that's what I would fucking do, and I think that anyone would do so.
You fucking loons.
Stereotyping does not safeguard the vulnerable, it merely makes them more vulnerable.
How?
How does it make them more vulnerable?
What is needed is raised awareness, I agree.
Mandatory PSHE, I don't even know what that is, and well-resourced community policing and mandatory training for all relevant agencies and identifying and reporting grooming indicators.
Yes, that would be nice, but unfortunately they were afraid of being called racist, which is in fact going back to your question.
So which is worse, rape or racism?
The answer, of course, is to reject any such choice.
If you're forced into the choice, the answer's rape.
And in this case, we were forced into the choice.
So unfortunately, the answer is rape.
Deal with it.
We must seek out and eradicate misogyny and sexism, wherever it may be.
No, you fucking inquisitor.
You're just declaring that eradicating misogyny and sexism, as in controlling other people's behavior, is more important than anything.
And this will permit you to do everything in the pursuit of this goal.
I don't even think you understand where this is going, but you are starting on a dark path that goes to a very bleak place.
No, we must not consider eradicating misogyny and sexism, wherever it may be, to be the highest value of our societies.
I don't like misogyny and sexism either.
I don't agree that we should have institutionalized misogyny and sexism.
And I don't agree that it's politically or socially acceptable to be misogynist or sexist.
But it's not the end of the fucking world.
Rape is worse than racism.
Rape is worse than misogyny.
Rape is actually a thing that happens.
Misogyny and racism are opinions that people hold.
And I'm not interested in what the thought police have to say about it.
Get fucked.
But the most annoying thing about this is that this is coming from the Labour MP for Newcastle upon Tyne.
I would really hope that people in Newcastle upon Tyne take it upon themselves to actually investigate what this Labour MP appears to believe because they seem to think that rape and racism are moral equivalents.
That they're just on the same.
And what we need to do is reject the choice between them because who could choose?
Who could say is rape worse?
Is racism worse?
I just can't decide for myself.
I can't figure this out.
I mean, this is just a moral equivalence.
Clearly, there's no difference between them.
Are you being brutally gang raped or did someone call you a nigger?
Basically the same thing.
Fuck off.
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