In the news

I'm surprised that no one's mentioned the fact that one of the Bristol Four is Rag n Bone Man's sis - unless I've missed it...

I am slightly confused by your direct criticism of the kids. I'd guess that they would say they were protesting against the institutional racism you say they benefited from. I think they probably did benefit from it but what would you have them do, ask to be treated differently in a system that doesn't accept that people are treated differently? Shouldn't the critism be aimed at the system and not these individuals, who are doing more than most to change it?

Also talking about cultural appropriation of BLM in the context of protests kinda logically leds to gatekeeping of who can and can't protest. Can privileged people protest for the unprivileged? Can majorities protest for minorities? Are their rules? Who makes up these rules? Won't gatekeeping ultimately help maintain the status quo?

Yeh read that earlier, can only imagine the excitement Maxwell's team had when the heard the juror bragging afterwards, surprised they were allowed to do media

I mainly wanted to distance myself from the other guy.

I was pointing out that rather than lazy stereotyping, my original point about representation wasn't just about how much they were paying for it/how much money the defendants had, it was about the general quality and muscle behind it.

Who defended them is in the public realm. And in the example I gave they weren't defended by the sort of person who's bread and butter is your average criminal damage case.

Rag n Bone Man

He should be locked up for crimes against decency

You are so anti-middle-class that you're coming across like a plain old Daily Mail-reading right winger.

Perhaps that's not what you are but whatever you're trying to say isn't really getting through.

I think I've repeated myself a few times. I'm not in favour of inequality, and I think we should consider things critically. This is particularly true where people in privileged or powerful positions are concerned.

In terms of the hotelier, my basic position was that she was a member of the bourgeoisie who was bemoaning the fact that she now found it difficult to get hold of proletarians to exploit.

How in the hell do you work out that to be a right wing position?

For anyone interested in the story Jingle Jangle is misrepresenting:

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/nov/22/cheap-food-drink-accommodation-hotelier-life-without-eu-workers

What's eating me alive is that if they had come from council estates, they would be behind bars now.

@edscoble dealt with that further up the thread.

As I think I said a while back, this was always going to be a Ken Dodd verdict. Poor old Lester got found guilty for the same offence.

She at least seems to appreciate EU immigrants, "“There is no chance we would be where we are now without the skills of people coming from other countries.”"

proletarians to exploit: Well people came there to work out of their own free will, like I did when I came to Northern Ireland, oh, nearly 19 years ago. Were all those people who worked for her exploited?

Many EU immigrants didn't all start with "high paid" jobs and some, like care workers, still don't have them. They just really wanted to live in the UK, and many of us stayed for all sort of reasons. But we got f-all say in all this.

Brexit is a well-off people project mostly if you ask me, perhaps take into account that the same people that used lower income/working class/whatever label you like East European immigrants to sell Brexit were unable to vote and just used, but she seems to actually =appreciate= us EU furrin's.

Just for my own sanity, which part of it am I misrepresenting?

The article clearly states that she and her family own the Headland Hotel - an enormous stately pile on a clifftop in Cornwall. The Hotel's own website refers to its new £10m 'Acqua Club'. Am I therefore misrepresenting her status when I refer to her as a member of the bourgeoisie?

In the article notes that the absence - post Brexit - of labour from Europe means that hospitality businesses will have to pay their employees more. Or have I misread it?

What do you do for work? Own a house in London too?

Your description of the article was something like "posh bird complains about Brexit", it was hardly nuanced.

How about the university workers striking over their pensions? What was the left wing argument for calling them lazy and trivialising their issues?

If you want a discussion about privilege where people consider things critically, "posh bird" was maybe not the ideal opening gambit

If you want a discussion about privilege where people consider things critically, "posh bird" was maybe not the ideal opening gambit

Agreed, it's a bit heavy-handed, particularly on this forum, although at the time I think I was trying to be deliberately provocative.

How about the university workers striking over their pensions? What was the left wing argument for calling them lazy and trivialising their issues?

I don't believe I called all university workers lazy, just some, which at the time I explained was based on my own observations during a brief career in academia.

In terms of a left wing argument regarding the issues faced by university workers - if you really wanted to you could take up a position that higher education has been commodified, and those who benefit from that process have directly benefited for the exploitation of another group (students) for their own financial gain. I think it's a consideration that many students are basically being ripped by the current system and that there is a relatively large academic 'class' that's doing quite nicely thank you on the back of that.

Worth a thought at least, no?

I don't believe I called all university workers lazy, just some

What industry is this not true of?

those who benefit from that process have directly benefited for the exploitation of another group (students) for their own financial gain.

What industry can you not apply this logic to in some way?

I'd guess that they would say they were protesting against the institutional racism you say they benefited from.

Precisely.

Summed it up better than I did (even if that's not their intention, it's still the right way of using privilege)

What industry can you not apply this logic to in some way?

The health service - our biggest employer?

Of course you can. And people do. I don't think they are right but they do.

I realised that the moment I wrote it.

I've started drinking now though, so probably best I leave the discussion for now.

Sure, worth a thought, but I've got a bunch of friends in unstable academic jobs and from this angle it's like attacking lazy Amazon workers because you don't like Bezos.

Anyway I'm not trying to have argument, just saying that if you put all those comments together they might not come across how you'd like them to. And probably am mildly frustrated because I've got COVID.

Enjoy your drink

Would love to see that cunt come down. Him and the fucking manny should be toppled and left in rubble as their monuments.

If I'm right, and this is just a bunch of posh kids that got a bit carried away on a jolly, they are a bunch of absolute twats for co-opting the BLM movement in their defence.

Whenever the middle classes start appropriating someone else's culture they need to be resisted, not hero-worshipped.

Do you not know what allyship is?

Your argument is coming across as "upper middle class white kids can't be BLM allies because they're too posh".

Supporting groups less advantaged than you and uniting to promote a common interest is cultural appropriation? Really?

What @dst2 already said, basically. And here are the answers to their questions.

Can privileged people protest for the unprivileged?

Yes

Can majorities protest for minorities?

Yes

Are their rules?

No

Who makes up these rules?

Fuck rules

Won't gatekeeping ultimately help maintain the status quo?

Yes

I think the main thing to consider with allyship and/or just wading in as white saviours is whether the actions are led or condoned by those affected, as far as I'm aware the BLM protest on the day and previous actions to sort out the statue weren't just white people barrelling in.

First they came for the Communists....as an example of allyship?.

https://thesecretbarrister.com/2022/01/06/do-the-verdicts-in-the-trial-of-the-colston-4-signal-something-wrong-with-our-jury-system-10-things-you-should-know/

"Plantation Place" quietly changed its name to 30 Fenchurch Street a few years ago.