Be Excellent To Each Other

I think that's just being sensible.

"What to do if you think it's happening to you" as in "arranged marriages are bad"?

Presumeably, yes.

edit: I assumed they are anyway. Was that predjudiced?

Coming over here, cleaning our stuff!

Now there is a good question. Arranged marriages have worked for generations in certain parts of the world, yet when something doesn't conform to the western view of the world, it is deemed a thing to be feared.
Surely if both parties are happy, then I don't see a problem? Sure, there are problems with forced marriages, but if you look into anything you can find issues.

One of the guys that works with me has just got married via an arranged marriage, he is perfectly happy with it.

A friend of mine is probably going to have to have an arranged marriage.

Just seems weird, but he's fairly cool about it.

So that's two reports of guys being fairly relaxed about it.

Mmmkay...

I think the purpose would be unwanted arranged marriages and them being bad. Rather than two willing parties.

Yes, perhaps it was described as "forced" arranged marriages, should have been clearer. Anyway - those, happening to 16 year old girls, was the point.

Chunky potential debate here. Is 'willingness' the same as being indoctrinated your whole life to believe that arranged marriage is an acceptable norm and that you're not expected to exercise free choice?

I also see how blokes getting a free shag-partner wouldn't see it as too troublesome for them. *shakes worm can*

Did you ever go to a country fair where one of the big crowd pleasers was cowpat bingo? Everyone would bet on a square, and whoever picked the one that Daisy shat on won. This is just like that, only IN SPACE.

Yes. This really is just like that

Dale Farm is IN SPACE???

I think Kern might be thinking of Astro Farm. Possibly confusing Gorps, Splodger, and Biff with the stereotypical view of travellers that has been discussed here.

Wrong thread.

Oh well.

Without wishing to be pernickity, I refer my friend the s9(1) Equality Act2010. To refresh his memory: race includes colour, nationality, ethnic or national origins, and the travelling community (gypsies, Irish Travellers and Roma, at the least) can be considered a race through traditions, practices and other aspects of their society that differs significantly from the status quo.

Oh well, in that case then anyone who objects against any non-standard lifestyle is RACIST.

Seriously, what stupid terminology.

Racist.

BEING FAT IS A RACE?

Awesome.

Seriously, though - I wasn't suggesting that one form of prejudice is worse than another, but that description of 'racist' is fucking stupid.

The clue is in the name.

We need a special name for ourselves that only we're allowed to use.

"Chunker"

The idea of dividing humanity into races based on the idea that there are genetic characteristics that divide us into particular groups is already stupid, that's why the quoted modern definition is actually far more useful and therefore forms a basis for law.

AFAIK the term 'racism' originally referred to the very belief that there are such things as human races.

Yeah, I was going to mention that - we are clearly the same race.

The broader biological term of a race is:



But for humans it's:



Which isn't very helpful and leads to people thinking it's racist to insult yorkshire men or people with ginger hair or whatever.

Malc

If it is, then it will be quite a slow moving one.

Depends if there's pie at the end.

But if the modern definition is more useful because the groups (or groupings) make more sense, then that indicates that the different groups do act differently from each other, therefore expecting them to act a certain way is probably sensible.

The thing that most people seem to struggle with (and I don't mean here in particular, I mean people in general) is that they're so frightened of being labelled *ist that they instantly oppose anything that seems the slightest big discriminatory, without stopping to think whether it's a good thing or not. There are situations where it makes sense to differentiate between race (and I mean the more literal meaning, where the skin is this colour and the person grew up in that country), but people are so terrified by the very idea that they dismiss it instantly.

I've been drinking. Can you tell?

Monday now, is it? Gonna be a long weekend for the Forward Intelligence officer embedded with the protesters then. He's going to miss the rugby!

Race should be defined as an inherant physical trait over which you can exert no control. Everything else is environmental, and cultural, surely? You can choose not to be a traveller, or fat, for that matter (willpower requirement aside). You can't suddenly change your race by not living in a caravan.

I'm happy to be labelled a culturalist, because some 'cultures' out there are fucking bonkers. Seems terribly inconsistent that I can criticise the behavior of a large group as long as that group doesn't also share a physical trait. It's perfectly reasonable to thinking a large group of people are arseholes because of how they act, rather than how they look.

So anybody that ever disagrees with me is a haemochromatosisist?

No they are just correct

Pretty much all of my school friends are in arranged marriages (my school was 97% Asian, mostly Indian Hindu at the time) and some friends are happy, some are not. Just as when any two people are put together, whether at work or school, etc, sometimes they'll get on, sometimes they won't. A couple of my school friends who are happy though... 'Happy' I believe, but listening to them talk of their happiness and happy homes makes me wonder if they know what it is to love.

A girl I'm living with now has a sister in law in a 'happy' arranged marriage, but she is actually gay. But she says happy, which I only can hear as 'free from grief and argument' which is not the same thing.

Still ongoing



So, it seems to me, that it is mostly protesters there now, no?

At my previous work place we were forced to go on 'equal opportunities and harassment awareness' type courses. While attending was a fucking chore, there were a few interesting parts during group discussions.

There was quite a range of nationalities there, and as it was a science-y type of place everyone was fairly switched-on. The part that sticks out for me was when we were discussing name calling and examples were given, and one girl (I forget where she was from, but I seem to recall it was somewhere around the south-east europe) didn't understand why 'Paki' was a derogatory term, as she'd only just heard it and assumed that it was just a contraction of Pakistani (kind of like Brit is to Briton I suppose), without any knowledge of the unpleasant way it has been used and the connotations of using it.

I guess there's something about context and perception in there. Possibly intent, too.



Can I just say though, this thread has been awesome. I love this place. What happened to AnonymousX anyway? I miss all the drahma it seems. Moar flouncing plz.

In they go!

Just reading on the BBC news that the police have had bricks thrown at them, and one of the protesters is complaining that they have been hit with a baton.

Yep, that will happen when you throw bricks at the police

Heh. Suckers.

Lets hope the Police get the bailiffs fees for this eviction as they are effectively doing their job for them.

Are the two idiots that concreted their arms into an oil drum still there? It'd be ace if they just cleared the whole place around them, leaving them in situ.


Essex police have confirmed that they've tasered a couple of people as they were worried about a stockpile of weapons.

I think the police thought that there was to be 'premeditated and organised violence' against the baliffs, so went it to prevent that. They are only ever on site to prevent a breach of the peace, which I guess they've done.

Turns out those people weren't quite that stupid.

About bastard time. My take on this is that during the originally BBC documentary, the travellers were intent that they wouldn't leave without a physical fight and were shown stockpiling gas canisters to that end. Then they realised they could try for the racial sympathy vote and cry human rights, during which they insisted they only wanted peaceful solutions and non-violent resistance. Once it became clear that actually, that fucking nonsense wasn't going to work, out came the bricks.



No, it won't.

SKy news just said that the lass they just removed was "Jonny Marble's girlfriend'. ANd just used the phrase 'professional protesters' when discussing the mix of people hindering and obstructing the rule of law.

Someone on BBC news just used the words "Full and final solution". Probably not a good idea.

EDIT: "Police are trying to bring the protestors off one by one" said the bbc

5live coverage of this morning was outstanding, especially the bit where a reporter asked a woman inside the camp...

"What is in that bowl you are carrying?"
"Petrol"
"And what are you going to do with that?"
"I don't know yet"

He makes a very sound point in that displacing this lot completely ignores the root causes of the issues at hand. I concur, but I also concur with those who say the rule of law needs to be upheld and bollocks to the expense. You can't integrate people into a society whilst at the same time demonstrating to them that the fundamental rules of it are avoidable if you tie enough trustafarians to your front gate. And yes, I know councils can be awful people and the government are a bunch of Torys and the polar bears are melting and whatnot but one can get into an ad hominem debate about any bloody thing and never come to any conclusions at all.

Do the right thing by law with the site, learn from mistakes on both sides and work co-operatively, regardless of how intractable many in the community have been, for a more harmonious and stable future for all.

Fucking hippy.