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That seems to suggest that the intent of the writer plays absolutely no part in this.

You can cause harm without meaning to. If I step backwards onto your foot with my massive, sweaty, haven't-cycled-for-5-years bulk, then it doesn't really matter that I didn't intend to crush your dainty little toes into useless floppy pancakes. If you say "fuck me, you've just crushed my toes!" the appropriate response is for me to say "oh shit, sorry, I didn't mean to step on your toes" and then get off your toes.

The wrong thing to do would be for me to continue standing on your toes while explaining to you that I am not, in fact, a toe-crusher, and that toe-crushing never even entered into my head, and people need to be less sensitive about accidental toe-crushing these days because I am definitely not a toe-crusher and you haven't even had your toes crushed anyway.

That would make me look like a dick, and your toes would still hurt.

"Many of my best friends are toes and they all agree that I've never crushed even one of them"

Great EILI5 for accidental racism

All true, but it does leave us with the no-less thorny problems of identifying whether harm has actually been caused, since this is clearly a less direct (for the lack of a better word) interaction than standing on someone's foot. It's obviously bollocks to assume that you cannot cause offence even when you intend none, but it's also bollocks to assume that nobody will ever take offence where none has been intended. I totally don't have a problem with someone saying "careful now, that could come over in a way that you don't intend" allowing room for clarification. I do have a problem with the default assumption being that something like that quote has any malicious intent or any real consequence.

This is a pretty valid point, and I definitely agree. I think however that there also needs to be a bit more room for people to admit what they said / wrote was, e.g., racist, without everyone immediately seeing them, i.e. their entire personality / character, as racists and completely writing them off. So basically, people need to be able to recognise sometimes that they did something wrong, reflect on that, and try to improve, but others also need to give them some space to do that.

This is of course with respect to people who aren't actually died-in-the-wool through and through racists who have no intention of changing anything and who don't recognise there's anything wrong with it at all - the point is not to give those a free pass.

And there is often room to do just that. It's more that in this case, and the referenced Danny Baker scenario, they didn't. Calling it "an error of judgement" or explaining why it wasn't racist, is not apologising. It's like when people say "I'm sorry you thought I was being a dick", that's not apologising for being a dick.

Isn't it because the term "racist" is by definition a judgment on the person saying something, not the statement?

The -ist suffix means a person who has a set of views. So by saying something someone says is racist, of course they become defensive and say they're not if it was accidental.

Calling it "an error of judgement" or explaining why it wasn't racist, is not apologising.

Hang on, those are 2 very different things. Saying that you had a lapse of judgement can be part of an apology; essentially, "sorry I made a mistake". Trying to explain why something "isn't racist" is a hiding to nowhere, but saying that there was no racist intent behind something is a perfectly valid thing to say.

It's like when people say "I'm sorry you thought I was being a dick", that's not apologising for being a dick.

Part of the problem here is people not being able to move forward with any kind of discussion unless the other person admits that they were a dick. Loads of people seem to feel that ending a discussion is preferable to doing the harder thing of tolerating the fact that the other person really feels that they haven't done anything wrong and still talking to them.

If someone is saying to you that they feel hurt by your actions, especially if it is a person of colour telling a white, middle class male that what they said was racist, it would take a monumental amount of blind privilege to try to discuss anything other than "fuck, you're right, sorry".

saying that there was no racist intent behind something is a perfectly valid thing to say.

Still not an apology.

indeed.

sounds about white to me.

Maybe.

Run a thought experiment on bothwell's toe post.

What if someone found the comparison of a momentary accidental stepped on toe with their personal experience of a lifetime of prejudice deeply offensive?

It's easy to say bothwell should just go, "fuck, you're right, sorry". But is it just as likely they would try and first explain their reason/meaning for a number of genuine reasons. Maybe our offendee's reaction seems so far from Bothwell's intended point they can't believe the offendee has correctly taken it on board or correctly read it.

Wow...

good to see there's never going to be a shortage of people coming out to bat for a white dude referring to a black man as an ape

He's a twice convicted drink driver (once three times over the limit), with dodgy investments in small media companies linked to ITV and even dodgier political views. So fuck the cunt...

Thank you

if it is a person of colour telling a white, middle class male that what they said was racist

Not sure what class or gender have to do with this, unless you're suggesting that those characteristics are predictive of being racist?

Still not an apology.

That's the point. It's not meant to be, nor should it be. If someone is defending themselves against an accusation of racism, they can't start that discussion with an apology for being racist because (i) it completely concedes the point under discussion and (ii) it would be completely insincere because they don't believe they've done anything wrong.

What I'm saying that they can do is apologise for their choice of words ("Sorry, that was a clumsy choice of words and I should have been more careful to bear in mind the historical context of those words."), while being adamant that their point was something other than racial (as @hugo7 pointed out, the interpretation could seem to be so far from the intent that jumping straight to an apology isn't seen to be as useful as clarifying the intent). In that situation what they need to do is avoid the bullshit complete non-apology of "I'm sorry you feel that way" as if their choice of words had nothing to do with it.

Oh come on. Most of what has been said in this discussion has been about how idiotic racist shit like this happens rather than defending his actions in any way.

Not sure what class or gender have to do with this

In this case, everything, that's entirely the point.

Really?! I thought we were talking about racism? If this comment had come from a working class woman everything would be fine?

Jesus wept, I'm out.

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Look. He's obviously a bell-end (Laurence Fox that is, not @stevo_com). I'm perfectly happy to talk about how it's really problematic for a white person to use the word "ape" in a discussion with a black person. I'd just like some clarification as to why class and gender are useful things to bring into the discussion. If an accusation of racism was met with "but I'm a woman!" or "but I'm working class!" that would be bullshit.

Brilliant !

racism = prejudice + power

Also Intersectionality I guess.

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