I didn’t hear Sarah Kennedy’s supposed gaffe although if I’m up and about I will listen in to her inane ramblings as inane ramblings are about the best I can cope with before the sun is over the yard-arm. Apparently Ms Kennedy stated that she had trouble seeing a black man in the dark:
“You know what happened to me yesterday. It was this black guy. It’s lucky he opened his mouth to yawn or do something and I saw him. He was wearing a black hat, black clothes and he was just invisible.”
This remark had the professional offence takers up in arms, sufficiently horrified were they that they saw fit to complain and they did so in their droves, so little else had they to do that day. And the Beeb, so willing to jump to the commands of the professional offence lobby that Kennedy has been “spoken to”.
Now, what exactly have we here? An anecdote recounting something that Kennedy saw the previous morning. Something very similar to what I saw the other morning – although in my case it was a cyclist on an un-lit road wearing dark clothing and without any lights or reflectors. Kennedy’s point was perfectly valid. It was a statement of fact. It seems that statements of fact are now “racist” and that people may not point out the blindingly obvious because to do so is “racist”.
Our society has been bending to the will of these nasty little fuckers for so long that no one questions them. An appropriate response to this pathetic stream of complaints would have been to ignore the complaints; to treat them with the contempt they so richly deserve. Frankly, if anyone gave me a ticking off such as Sarah Kennedy received, I’d have let them have both barrels and a hand grenade thrown in for good measure. In this country, we are supposed to be champions of something called freedom of speech – and freedom of speech means that you can recount an event without being gagged. There is no right not to be offended – if you don’t like what a radio presenter says, switch off or change to another station. True freedom of speech means that we tell the professional offence taking lobby that we have noted their complaint and are giving it the due concern it deserves – and then we ignore the fuckers!
Edit to amend typo – see comments.
Exactly. Sarah Kennedy didn’t speak about the incident to be racist, she made her comments in the context of a discussion about vision in darkness.
I don’t understand. Black man. Dark room. Can’t see. And what?
And, for any reasonable person, nothing. Sarah Kennedy was merely pointing out that on a dark road, she was unable to see this individual because he chose to wear dark clothing. As is usual, the PC crowd are playing a race card where none applies. Sigh…
I don’t get it. Were you the cyclist, or did you see (or not, as the case may be) that cyclist?
“Was” or “saw”. Sort of changes the meaning a bit.
I saw the cyclist – I was on my motorcycle – yes on rereading I see what you mean – I’ll amend accordingly. It was an unlit road on the outskirts of the city. The guy was a moron – dark clothing and no fucking lights. I only saw him at the last moment. Someone less alert may well have knocked him off.
As far as I see, Sarah Kennedy has done nothing wrong, it was a perfectly reasonable thing to say. I’d imagine a black person wearing black clothes in darkness would be hard to see. I can’t see where the problem lies?