PC Madness or making a point?

**MrMarkyMark** · 19 September 2016, 11:56

Originally posted by d000hg View Post

Paul Gascoigne guilty over racist comment - BBC News

When I first read this I thought it's crazy PC nonsense... akin to someone making a joke about being blinded by my white skin when I take my top off. On second reading I realise he didn't say it to the guy at the time, but as a joke to the audience. Which to me makes it stupid and inappropriate but hardly criminal if the statement was true.

What do people think?

Stupid, inappropriate, but not criminal, IMO.
I always think its the way people say things, rather than the words they say.

Gascoigne cuts a bit of a sad figure really with all his coke and booze problems, to be fair.

**northernladuk** · 19 September 2016, 12:04

PC Madness

I thought this was another Psychowibble life blog

**original PM** · 19 September 2016, 12:05

This was on a thread a few weeks back.

He has made a statement that dark objects are difficult to see in low light and if something bright is put on the dark object it makes it easier to see - this is actually statement of fact.

It is a carp joke but not a hate crime.

**VectraMan** · 19 September 2016, 12:09

Free speech and all that. Shouldn't be a matter for the police.

However in this case it was a security guard - i.e. he was in his workplace. And perhaps that makes it different.

**d000hg** · 19 September 2016, 13:14

Originally posted by original PM View Post

This was on a thread a few weeks back.

He has made a statement that dark objects are difficult to see in low light and if something bright is put on the dark object it makes it easier to see - this is actually statement of fact.

It is a carp joke but not a hate crime.

That was my thinking although I wondered does the fact something is true make it automatically OK as a subject to make fun of people about? If you said brown people "look dirty" that could be argued as true but would probably be racist. THe line between racist and racially insensitive I guess. But it seems now the latter is just seen as racism?

Originally posted by VectraMan View Post

Free speech and all that. Shouldn't be a matter for the police.

However in this case it was a security guard - i.e. he was in his workplace. And perhaps that makes it different.

What are the rules on free speech in the UK? It's not a license to say anything you please without consequence, as I understand it. If he said "I couldn't tell if that <N-word> was smiling" for instance?

**BrilloPad** · 19 September 2016, 13:18

Celebrities have to be more careful than the rest of us.

**sasguru** · 19 September 2016, 13:22

I would have thought that being insulted by Gazza would be akin to being savaged by a dead sheep.
I wonder if it was the black worker who complained or someone in the audience.
It is fair enough that no one at work should be subject to jokes about their appearance, though.

**MrMarkyMark** · 19 September 2016, 13:31

FTFY

Originally posted by sasguru View Post

I would have thought that being insulted by Gazza would be akin to being savaged by a dead sheep.
I wonder if it was the black worker who complained or some Liberal, handwringing, Guardian reader in the audience.
It is fair enough that no one at work should be subject to jokes about their appearance, though.

**elpato** · 19 September 2016, 15:17

"can you smile please, because I can't see you?"

...yeah, that's racist.

PC Madness or making a point?