BJP wrote I hope @eejit replies to this topic since he seems to be an extremely educated person with interesting views.

Well I hope I can live up to this.

I'll just say from the outset that this is a very complicated issue and I tend to stay away from this discussion in regards to the US policing system.
No amount of nuance on that topic seems to be enough in my experience.

BJP - Tommy Robinson has been sorely mistreated by the mainstream media for the past 10 years or so and I understand why a lot of people are now doing a 180 on their view of him.
A lot of what he has been saying for the past 10 years has been proven to be accurate by events over the past few months.
I'd say he was proven right when Anjem Choudary was imprisoned, but that's beside the point, and I don't agree with VLC's characterization of him as an outright racist.

Now here is where I hope I don't lose you and I think you'll understand where I'm coming from here.
He says a lot of things which do make sense, but every now and again he drops a piece of rhetoric which - to an ordinary person - might sound extreme but not racist at all.
Take this as an example, he posted this the day before the general election:


That just sounds like a bit of pre-election hypberole to cause a bit of commotion, but it isn't racist and it fits with his and a lot of other people's ideology in a very broad sense.

But there was a poster created by the conservative party in the 1960's which read:


The similarity here is obviously quite striking, and I think that the similarities go beyond what could be reasonably attributed to coincidence.

This next one though proves it beyond any reasonable doubt for me, a mosque was vandalized with 'EDL' spraypainted on the wall, Tommy tweeted out this cartoon in response to it, trying to get across the idea that it was Muslims vandalizing their own mosques for sympathy.


That isn't the original cartoon though, this is:

This cartoon was used by neo-nazis to propagate the idea that Rabbi's were vandalizing their own temples.

I think that Tommy, a person who has been steeped in politics for years now and has dealt with the far right directly and indirectly, would know about this and I think this is his way of reaching out to the far right racists in the UK while allowing himself room for deniability.

It's a wink and a nod to them, which doesn't necessarily make him aligned with them ideologically.
I don't think Tommy Robinson is racist at all, it could just be that he has seen a way to get more support for himself and considering the guy has been railroaded by the media for most of his time in the spotlight, it doesn't surprise me that he is looking for allies wherever he can get them.

But this does say something about the far right and how they use people like Tommy Robinson, Milo Yiannopolous, Sargon [who I am a big fan of], and others like them as ways of reaching through to the more centrist people on the political spectrum and how they use language to slowly edge them over to their side in terms of voting.

And people on the far right have said that this is what they want to do and what they plan to do.

I'll not insult your intelligence by assuming you don't know who Richard Spencer is, but for anyone who doesn't know, he is the far-right Neo Nazi who was punched at a political protest in the US and was the flashpoint for the 'punch a Nazi' hashtag and he is actually a racist.

BJP, this is what he has said about people like Sargon:


All I'm trying to say here is to be a little more wary of how you promote people and to be aware of any undertones that might be present in their speech.

And VLC, in this day and age you aren't going to convince anybody that someone is a racist unless you show them proof.

VLC wrote Also, should people be allowed exercise their right of 'free speech' to promote racism like many controversial figures and groups do in the UK (e.g. Tommy Robinson, EDL, BNP etc..) ?

Yes.

People should be able to promote whatever they want as long as it isn't violence.
If someone says something racist to you then you tell them why they are stupid and wrong, you shouldn't be able to call the police and have them carted away for saying something you disagree with.
This is how authoritarian systems are bred and I am unspeakably happy that the US supreme court just ruled that offensive speech is protected under free speech laws.

VLC wrote 1) because he's a prick who led thousands of racists and still to this day creates racist propaganda (just because he's toned his voice down a bit and not shouting, doesn't mean he's not a racist) . 2) I'll get raged up with you and I don't wanna get banned

1) Tommy Robinson left the EDL when he saw the racist elements taking hold of it from the inside.
Just because someone accepts support from racists doesn't mean that they are themselves racist. Especially not when support for this person is stretched very thin and they become desperate, which Tommy Robinson certainly did.
2) If you can't have a reasonable discussion about something which would make you angry on this website then don't make a topic asking for views which contradict your own.

The big problem with the topic of racism is that people are very unwilling to draw lines which make sense.
Take me as an example. I don't think that Syrian refugees, refugees from North Africa, Eritrea, etc. should be allowed into the UK, Germany, France , etc.
Does this make me a racist? If yes, why? If I were to say my reasoning is because they are dirty foreigners and need to stick to their own kind, you'd be perfectly fine calling me a racist, but how many people actually believe this? The number is going to be extremely low.

How many are likely to have reasons which have absolutely nothing to do with race? The vast majority in my experience, including myself.

Whether it be crime statistics, which are far worse than I think are being portrayed on this topic, cultural sensitivity not for the purposes of preserving our 'superior western culture' but for the purposes of allowing these refugees to not have to go through the extra strife of settling in a country with completely different customs and values to their own and for the simple logistical fact that travelling farther is more difficult and unnecessary when there are much geographically closer options.

For instance, why ship a boat-load of refugees off to the Orkney islands, which has a completely different climate, customs, culture, etc. when a bit of political pressure could result in these people being housed in Saudi Arabia, which might as well be identical to the country they are fleeing from, but safer?

How often do these discussions get far enough for those against mass immigration to express these views before someone screams racism? Not often enough in my view.
This leads people to the conclusion that the vast majority of people against mass immigration must be racist, which simply isn't the case.

I saw this on facebook earlier and it honestly annoyed tf out of me. What should it matter what skin color / race the doctor that is going to be helping your son is. They went to college / university like every other doctor to get their qualifications, it shouldn't make a difference so long as your child is getting the help he needs.

President Trump's stance on immigration is not controversial, it is normal to actually deal with illegal immigrants in the US.

How is Tommy Robinson a racist?

Doesn't matter what race you are and where you come from, we're all flesh and blood so there for were all the same, and anyone who's racist is needs to have a long hard think about themselves!

Axl wrote President Trump's stance on immigration is not controversial, it is normal to actually deal with illegal immigrants in the US.

How is Tommy Robinson a racist?

Definition of Controversial(1) and controversy(2):

1) Giving rise or likely to give rise to controversy or public disagreement
2)Prolonged public disagreement or heated discussion.

It is controversial...

Also listen to Piers Morgan around 2.5/3 mins in towards the end of the video. That states why.

I would say no and in the case of that woman she's taking a step backwards in sanity. Any parent puts their child first and those actions reflect a very misguided person and I wouldnt take her example of idiocy as a template for how the majority of people act.

VLC wrote

Axl wrote President Trump's stance on immigration is not controversial, it is normal to actually deal with illegal immigrants in the US.

How is Tommy Robinson a racist?

Definition of Controversial(1) and controversy(2):

1) Giving rise or likely to give rise to controversy or public disagreement
2)Prolonged public disagreement or heated discussion.

It is controversial...

Also listen to Piers Morgan around 2.5/3 mins in towards the end of the video. That states why.

So Tommy Robinson is a racist because he decided to attempt to talk about the issues surrounding why the people who visit that Mosque were targeted, by branching that discussion out into a discussion about other Mosques around the UK, and not virtue signal with the rest of the country about how horrible the attack was, which is obvious?

Him pointing out hateful teachings at Mosques in response to a right winger attacking the people who visit a formerly - and arguably still - hateful Mosque isn't justifying the attack, and it isn't racist.
It's him trying to get his point across to people who are very resilient to the point he is trying to make.

He's a political commentator. His job is to comment on the politics of a situation. Not to sit there and talk about how sad he is that something happened.
If that is what he was being paid for then I could do his job and so could you.

I encourage everyone to watch all of this 'interview' because it's pretty incredible how ideologically driven Piers Morgan is. Just as a highlight, watch how outraged and offended he gets when Tommy Robinson starts quoting Sir William Gladstone on the Quran. Around 1:50.



Tommy says multiple times throughout this interview that he doesn't believe violence against Muslims is justified, he has joined a Muslim think tank to try to solve these problems, and he has apologized for what he said in 2011.

But still Piers Morgan says, "You are an Islamophobe who hates Islam, you basically think all Muslims are to blame..."
This is shameful on his part and there is a reason why Piers Morgan is one of the most hated news figures in this country.
If I was Tommy Robinson I would sue him for slander.

The only people who care about race is black people. Whenever there is a cop killing a black person they immediately want to blame race, doesnt matter the circumstance. Yet they do not blink an eye when a black person kills another black person. If black lives matter really did matter, there would be rallies for the death of all blacks, from both white and black killer, not just white.

I do not believe that racism is taking a step back. Think about how many more people we have in the world versus back when slavery was a very big thing. And compare how much racism there was back then to how little there is now.

There is always going to be someone who does not want to change. And we found that special someone in the video you shown us.

And it is normally the older generation of white people. It was how they were raised.

Younger generations are more likely to accept people for who they are, not what color their skin is.

We are moving forward, and are getting rid of racism.

But.....

I feel like the majority of today's racism is reverse racism(if that is a thing).
More nonwhite people are being racist towards whites.

It seems like I am always hearing about things like this. And maybe I am being brainwashed by the news, but that is how I feel.

I am sure that a majority of you guys are going to disagree with me, but I feel like the whole blm "movement" has a lot to do with it. I would compare the blm "movement" to a somewhat low level KKK.
They are not going around burning crosses and hanging people, but they are very racist. The only difference is that the blacks act like victims and the left accepts it, where as the KKK where not the victims.

Whites have to be careful about what they say or do, or else they are automatically a racist.

A white man could be called racist because he did something as simple as not hold a door open for a black man.

Not all minorities do this, but I have seen a decent amount of minorities do this... They blame white people for their problems.

I seen this one article about how black people wanted to be reimbursed because some of their older or dead family were once salves.

The news also plays a big factor in this.

Take cops for example.

Cops are being put under so much scrutiny right now. If they make they smallest mistake, then it goes on national news and the left think the cop is racist, sexist, etc.

Cops do not even have to be doing anything wrong and this is still what happens.

Look at the Michael Brown case. The cop who fatally shot him was just doing his job, and the media destroyed his reputation at least for a few months. The media made tons of money off of headlines like "Ferguson cop kills black unarmed male". And they play it off like the guy was a great person.

And it has a major affect on cops. For example, a cop might not do something that he normally would do because he fears that he might be called a racist and lose his job or worse.

With Donald Trumps controversial thoughts on immigration and Mexico; is this causing more whites to class blacks, Muslims, Mexicans or anyone without white skin as second grade citizens? Not only in the USA but worldwide.

I do not understand this argument. Trump is talking about ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS. ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS are not a race. You can be any race.... white, black, etc... and you can still be an ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT You can not be racist about a topic that has nothing to do with race.

And the whole Muslims thing? I do not like that someone is being judged based on their religion. But Islam is not a religion of peace.

It seems like every week we hear about a terrorist attack committed by a Muslim.

I like to take a point that the left has used for years and modify it.... "If getting rid of guns saves just one life, then it will be worth it". Well if that is the case, then "If getting rid of Muslims saves just one life, then it will be worth it". And the same goes for illegals.

Also, should people be allowed exercise their right of 'free speech' to promote racism like many controversial figures and groups do in the UK (e.g. Tommy Robinson, EDL, BNP etc..) ?

Obviously yes.

This is not North Korea. Most people are and should be allowed to say what ever they want to say to a certain extent.

VLC.... I sat in my chair for a solid minute or two adjusting my screen zoom in percentage because your text was larger than normal and I thought that some how I managed to mess with some setting. Then I realized that your text is just larger than normal and had to readjust it back.

And in case you are wondering why I did not just look for the numbers that tell you what percentage you are at, it is because I just switched over to opera and I do not know where that number is.