back to article Another anti-immigrant rant goes viral in America – and this time it's by a British, er, immigrant tech CEO

Another day and another racist rant in America has gone viral. This time the perpetrator appears to be a British founder of a cloud computing consulting company based in San Francisco. The outburst occurred at a July 4 family birthday party at the Bernardus Lodge and Spa in Carmel Valley, California. According to the family …

  1. Version 1.0 Silver badge
    Unhappy

    We hear these stories all the time

    And it's always portrayed as poor behavior - it certainly is, but we never ask ourselves how come this keeps happening? How did we bring these kids up to be such racist monsters? What happened to them as children that makes them think it's alright to behave like this today even though almost everyone agrees that it's bad? Sure, we need to deal with the problem but we need to ask ourselves what we did that caused the problem.

    1. BenDwire Silver badge
      Meh

      Re: We hear these stories all the time

      Racism isn’t getting worse, it’s simply getting captured on film (or pixels)

      I've been alive a long time, and most of my social network are not racist. We've be taught that people are equal regardless of gender or the tone of thier skin. That doesn't mean that everyone is as competent for a particular job, but that decision is purely down to ability.

      However, I do note that a lot of people (e.g. influencers & celebrities) desperate for 'likes' seem to take it upon themselves to expose events that would have paled into insignificance in earlier decades. Rightly or wrongly, this is the new normal, and people need to think far more before venting off in public. But behaviour like this sells newspapers / generates clicks, so it's self-amplifying.

      Let's be careful out there ...

      1. jason_derp

        Re: We hear these stories all the time

        "I've been alive a long time, and most of my social network are not racist."

        Eh. I don't know. I'm pretty sure most of the people I know are racist, but they're pretty sure that they're not. It's not really a binary thing. Everybody is racist to some extent. Some people just also happen to be c#$ts. It's not very helpful to for people to think they can go their whole life being comfortable being on one side of the imaginary line of "is/isn't racist". I think it'd be more useful to realize that every person has prejudices and biases, and you should never be complacent with yourself. Be constantly challenging and dissecting your own thoughts and behaviors to find flaws and turn them into improvements.

        Goes along with the whole idea that people find it much easier to be lazy and become complacent with their social standing, the healthiness of the democracy where they (maybe) live, security of food and water supplies, etc. Or I'm a needy libtard who reads philosophy books. Whatever works.

        1. Gene Cash Silver badge

          Re: We hear these stories all the time

          > I'm pretty sure most of the people I know are racist, but they're pretty sure that they're not

          I was raised by horribly racist relatives in a podunk shithole in the Deep South. They thought "Roots" was a comedy, and Kunta Kinte was too uppity and needed to be beaten again. That was the point I realized something was wrong and started trying to get out of there. I think I was 14. My grandfather used the "n-word" at least 3 times a day. My grandmother swore "well, I'll be John Brown!" and JB was a famous abolitionist.

          I'm probably pretty racist but I try not to be.

          1. Schultz
            Go

            "I'm probably pretty racist but I try not to be."

            The above is a much healthier attitude than that reflected by the statement "We've be taught that people are equal ..." farther above. It's not what you've been taught that matters. It's your own actions and words that matter.

            Our brains always make assumptions about others -- this is how it works. If we blindly trust that gut feeling, it might make us a racist or a sexist .... This is not because we make a conscious decision to be racist or sexist, but because our brain extrapolates from past experience. I know a women who is a bad driver, but this doesn't make all women bad drivers and I should check that assumption before voicing it. Otherwise I am a sexist and nothing I have been taught will change that fact.

          2. keithpeter Silver badge
            Pint

            Re: We hear these stories all the time

            ..."That was the point I realized something was wrong..."

            Which is I imagine how change happens. Wondering what lead you to the insight? Peer group? Television from outside your immediate family? School?

      2. Oh Matron!

        Re: We hear these stories all the time

        When Brexit happened, a friend, who is Finnish, and I had a conversation, and I asked why there had been a resurgence of far right beliefs across Europe. She replied that it had always been there, it was just more obvious now due to social media, etc.

        Gobshites like this need making an example of. I'd be amazed if he lasts the day.

        1. NerryTutkins

          Re: We hear these stories all the time

          I think it is true. I also think that people are selectively racist.

          I know a friends mother, who's on facebook. I know her personally, and she was always nice to me (my wife is south american), she has friends from her son's time in the middle east where we used to be, who are arab muslims, and her son now has a partner from the far east.

          Yet, she reposts stuff from Britain First or whatever replaced them, 'AllLivesMatter' type things, the kind of social media stuff that is from hard right groups, but carefully crafted and toned down to try to appeal to people on a more traditional or patriotic level.

          I used to think that maybe a lot of racists would change views if they only knew a few non-white people and realized they were no different, and could be perfectly nice people. But even when they do, it does not seem to change their underlying view that somehow all the non-whites they don't know are a problem, and just use the fact they have some black/non-white friends to argue they are not racist.

          1. Ben Tasker

            Re: We hear these stories all the time

            > I used to think that maybe a lot of racists would change views if they only knew a few non-white people and realized they were no different, and could be perfectly nice people. But even when they do, it does not seem to change their underlying view that somehow all the non-whites they don't know are a problem, and just use the fact they have some black/non-white friends to argue they are not racist.

            Yeah, you seem to get that "get rid of all the forners, apart from the bloke in the kebab shop, he's alright" effect instead. It never occurs to them that what they're saying could also be reduced to "keep the bloke at the kebab shop here, but kick his entire family out, cos I like him, but don't know them".

            Thankfully, a lot of those types of people tend to declare themselves quite early on, but starting sentences with "I'm not racist, but..."

          2. LucreLout

            Re: We hear these stories all the time

            I used to think that maybe a lot of racists would change views if they only knew a few non-white people and realized they were no different, and could be perfectly nice people.

            Where you have gone most wrong in this, is assuming that racism is a white people thing. It isn't. It's a people thing. All races of people are just as racist as the next. Where your premise is wrong you can't really be surprised when your argument falls; that is after all how things are supposed to work.

            My view would be that because skin colour is extremely visible it sticks in peoples minds and when they encounter a bad experience its due to the black/white man rather than just chalking it up as that guy being an arse. Thus over time the skin colour comes to be associated with negative feelings. Where they have a positive experience, such as a friend of a different colour, its not black/white Jerry that gets the positive association, just Jerry.

            I've been called all sorts of things by people of all races. Some of those things have been negative, some have been positive, but by ascribing each interaction to an individual rather than a group, bias can be avoided whether that bias is positive or negative.

            1. Elledan

              Re: We hear these stories all the time

              In the end, racism is just another type of discrimination. Discrimination is something which we are all guilty of to some extent, it's just that not all of us are the victim of it. When it's not the amount of melanin in one's skin, it is one's hair colour, being Irish/German/Japanese/etc., or one's sexual orientation or something equally silly to get upset about.

              I have found myself being met with outright revulsion, plain rejection, and morbid fascination when people discovered what makes me a minority. Even though I should have an easy life as a moderately intelligent, Caucasian woman, the fact that I'm intersex (twin-in-one, also known as a true hermaphrodite) somehow means that I'm repulsive, a liability for a (Christian) GP or just another attraction at the freak show.

              I wish people could just treat people like me like... well, a person. Because that's what we all are, all of us silly homo sapiens.

              1. cbars Bronze badge
                Pint

                Re: We hear these stories all the time

                "Discrimination is something which we are all guilty of"

                It would be very boring if we all had the exact same opinions, and it would be hard to navigate the world without the ability to "tell 'things' apart".

                Now, incorrectly categorising negative behavioual attributes, or social status, or whatever - due to a low sample size/measurement error/invalid theoretical frameworks.... that I agree is sloppy analysis and we should educate ourselves.

                Guilt has nothing to do with it being wrong - sounds very American/puritan to me.

                Cheers, homo sapiens!

                1. Elledan

                  Re: We hear these stories all the time

                  Yes, 'guilt' is a poor phrasing, I realise. I did add the 'to some extent' to it, but that would still imply that there is any guilt one should assume.

                  It's really about intent, I think. If you intend to discriminate to do harm (treat people differently due to some characteristics which they cannot help), then yes, that's wrong and you are not a nice person in that case. But if you discriminate between strawberry and chocolate milk because you like the latter more... well, that's just fine even it may upset some people who are on #TeamStrawberryMilk :)

                  1. Anonymous Coward
                    Anonymous Coward

                    Re: We hear these stories all the time

                    As a person with psoriasis I've met some (anti)social situations. But I cannot hide the fact that I was repulsed by a young boy, in Tanzania, who had to suffer the same fate. I am prejudiced against people who have the same 'abnormality' as myself. BAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

                    He was in a way worse position, me having access to the best health care and medication to improve my looks.

                    I have really strong opinions, but I came to the conclusion that one is entitled to ones opinion/feeling/emotion, one just has to have realise that one doesn't have to act as an asshole towards others just because of ones own biases.

                    Just walk away.

                    My parents are severe narcissists, no cause to be a jackass to them, but I chose to not see them anymore in my lifetime. It is hurtfull to them, but I shield myself to the hurt they cause ME by avoiding their presence.

                    Being a human/homo sapiens, is just that, we are conscious of our own shit.

              2. Ghostman
                Happy

                Re: We hear these stories all the time

                Hi person. Greetings from the Byron, Ga. USA. Home of Middle Georgia Raceway where the 1970 Pop Festival was held.

                Smiley because, well sometimes one is needed.

        2. veti Silver badge

          Re: We hear these stories all the time

          "Making an example" of him is exactly the worst possible thing to do. It won't improve anyone’s attitude, it will simply feed into the paranoid, us-v-them siege mentality that got Trump elected.

          We need to show bigots that we're *better* than them. Not just "opposite". Opposition fuels opposition.

          Trump is currently trying, with some success, to frame the election as a choice between him and his cronies on one side, versus a crowd of violent antifa and angry black people on the other. If he succeeds in making people believe that's the choice, he will win. Do NOT play into that framework, however satisfying it might feel. It's a trap.

      3. Piro Silver badge

        Re: We hear these stories all the time

        I think it's getting worse. Growing up, equality was the mantra. Now the left wants non-white supremacy and segregation. All this focus on identity politics is really dragging down the quality of discourse today.

        1. Mooseman Silver badge

          Re: We hear these stories all the time

          "Now the left wants non-white supremacy and segregation"

          I assume you can cite sources for this? If not, why are you spreading such bollocks?

    2. Snake Silver badge

      Re: We hear these stories all the time

      The answer is dead-nuts simple but people never want to hear the truth: adults pass it down to the children. Sometimes actively, passing or communicating comments and judgments regarding others; sometimes passively, by not correcting aggressive, demeaning or hateful behaviours whilst they grow up.

      Children aren't born to hate, as the old saying goes, and I fully agree with. The hate is socially communicated and it is up to humanity to stop it. But seeing that children are born in the middle of war zones, during famines, and other things that, IMHO, should almost be classified as "crimes against humanity", humans are in no rush to fix, just about EVERYTHING, because these things end up serving [someone's] personal agenda(s).

      For me that makes humanity fundamentally morally corrupt. But that's a personal observation that I've only had to accept in recent times, for I had better hopes for humanity than they are willing to often show. I, in no way, ask anyone else to hold this view, so in reading this YMMV.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: adults pass it down to the children

        this can be true, and it can be nonsense. In my case it was nonsense, I definitely know it wasn't passed down to me. But then, I came to the UK and quickly reviewed my innocent and naive expectation that all people are brothers and sisters (nevermind lgbt++, etc.) And I'm not suggesting the UK or Brits are racist, or more racist more than any other nation. But race tensions were always present here, both in media, and in everyday life, even though not always affecting me. I happened to work in a few pretty shitty jobs with "multi-colour" (in newspeak "multi-ethnic") people from all over the world. When I got to know them slightly better, I discovered (shock, horror), they were all racist, or strongly nationalist, or both. Some relatively hostile towards everybody "but their own", some bitching against "the others" behind their back. To cut a long and meandering story short, I think we like people who are like us, look like us and act and think like us (internet bubbles ahoy), and we treat everybody else out of that "like us" category with more or less suspicion and / or disdain and / or hostility. Never mind the causes, my point (pretty gloomy on a gloomy day) is that I don't think it can be mended, no matter how many years of education and / or shaming and legal restrictions, even though these are pretty essential to keep our racism in check. But I have no hope it can be actually fixed, erased, removed. And the harder we repress it, the harder it seems to re-bounce. Of course, my basic premise, i.e. negative feelings towards "the other" can't be removed - this can be wrong. However, I don't see that people are getting any more "naturally tolerant" towards "the other". I can see their expression of hostility becoming more and more restricted by legal and social norms, but that's not removal, that's mere suppression.

        1. NumptyScrub

          Re: adults pass it down to the children

          The UK has been casually racist for decades if not centuries, so you are spot on there. Also you are spot on with the "us / not us" distinction that we naturally gravitate to, being the underlying cause of bigoted behaviour.

          Looking back at my early behaviour as a child I would argue that we do pick this up young; I was, back then, what I would now consider a racist little shit. And it was not that I specifically decided that non-white people somehow had less value, it was that UK society at the time had this undercurrent of non-white people somehow having less value which I picked up on. My childhood era is one containing Jim Davidson's line of "Chalky" jokes, and where Robinsons marmalade still had the offensive icon on the label, and the artist who drew TinTin apparently used to work at Robinsons. Friends of mine still use racially charged terms for anatomy without even thinking about it because "that's what we've always called that". I'm not going to mention which part of anatomy, but I'm pretty sure any UK citizen over the age of 30 can work it out. And it is an inherently racist term, no matter that "nobody means anything bad by it" when they use it.

          There will always be an "us and them" mentality as this is default brain behaviour, that we probably cannot eradicate. But we can work to stop the denigration and ostracising of "them" based purely on being "them" instead of "us". We can work to stop the use of slurs, we can work to stop the implicit messaging of "less worth" based on language and phrasing, all of which gives kids the opportunity to grow up without similar (unconscious?) bias getting baked in to their world view. I try to be less of a shit now, but it is worrying how easy it is to slip back in to 80s UK mindset and say something which is unacceptable now, and quite frankly should be unacceptable now.

          1. tiggity Silver badge

            Re: adults pass it down to the children

            I'm a UK citizen over 30 & can remember golly on jam but totally confused by your racist anatomy term reference

            I can think of some religiously loaded terms (e.g. grace of god tendon for biceps brachii tendon as its just behind the big arm blood vessel often used for giving injections or taking blood - its a big hard tendon and it stops a clumsy needle wielder poking the needle deep into the arm when they misjudge the force required (typical learner error))

            Maybe the term you describe is just one that's not used much in areas I have lived as plenty of slang quite localised.

            1. Richard Jones 1
              Unhappy

              Re: adults pass it down to the children

              Likewise, I am in the area without light over the body term that could be termed racist.

              I do remember my welcome to a Middle East where I noted that a foreman was truck driving vice the scheduled rest-day driver. He said the driver had a few days off, compassionate leave as his wife burned herself to death. Forget race, I was shocked, however, it soon became worse. I offered my shocked idea of it being terrible. The foreman said not to worry she was only the forth wife, then describing her in colour-related terms.

              She came from a country whose nationals were despised by residents of his Middle East country. Old Gulf hands will know what I mean by that.

              So yes, every race and ethnicity has its xenophobic traits, only some get modified over time.

              In this case I guess the person in question was also dyslexic and misspelled his consulting company, perhaps he meant SolidHate?

            2. NumptyScrub

              Re: adults pass it down to the children

              Ok fair enough, I thought it would be fairly obvious but that is obviously not the case. It's a slang term for the male urinary meatus, aka the hole where wee comes out, and I honestly am staggered by how long I considered it acceptable to use in conversation. It's amazing how you can develop blind spots like that for conversation practises.

              1. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: adults pass it down to the children

                Prick? Dick?

                I really don't have a clue, I don't live in the UK nor the U$A and not a native speaker of English.

                Here in The Netherlands we have some detective-series (books/TV) with the main character yielding the name Dick de Cock. Met C-O-C-K. De Kok is a regular Dutch name, lol.

                The writer must have had some degree of knowledge of the english language. BIG lol.

          2. eldel

            Re: adults pass it down to the children

            So - I happened to notice a couple of months ago that 'Jokers Wild' was available on DVD. For those of you under the age of around 50 this was a very successful comedy show on ITV in the late 60s/early 70s. We watched it as a family and my memories of it are of a very funny program. So I purchased and duly took delivery.

            Ye <deity> it's bad. The racism and misogyny just ooze out of every syllable. And yet 50 years ago this passed for completely acceptable light entertainment. So for the younger generations lambasting us boomers for being systemically racist - well, yes - we probably are because we were raised in an environment where it was the norm. But at least some of us recognise it and are trying to do something about it. Might I suggest that the current proclivity for rancid intolerance is something that we don't want to carry forward for another half century otherwise you can look forward to your grandchildren treating you with the same disdain.

      2. Cynic_999

        Re: We hear these stories all the time

        "

        Children aren't born to hate, as the old saying goes

        "

        I'm not so sure about that. We are born with many survival instincts, one of which is to distrust/fear anything that is different to what is expected, or perceived as being "not normal". I worked for a time in a job that required me to visit remote African villages. Many babies would scream and cry the first time they saw me, and young children would run away - because they had never seen a white person before and so were frightened of the unfamiliar. This was neither learned behaviour nor was it racism.

        Dogs in predominately white neighbourhoods will bark at blacks, whilst dogs in predominately black neighbourhoods will bark at whites. No training required.

        Kids in kindergarten will often ostrasize and even attack any child who is markedly different to what they have been exposed to. Ginger hair. A physical deformity. An unfamiliar accent. Too fat. Too thin. These are unlikely to be predjudices that have been passed to them from their parents.

        On the contrary, we have to learn *not* to fear (and thus hate) those who are "different" rather than the other way around.

        1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

          Re: We hear these stories all the time

          Yep, humans are herd animals or, as it's more commonly known amongst allegedly thinking creatures, tribal. How that tribe is defined varies from situation to situation. Sports fans, political party members, neighbouring towns, neighbouring countries, and so on from the micro to the macro. People will always identify with one group more than others so "others" become the "enemy" at some level.

          1. Mooseman Silver badge

            Re: We hear these stories all the time

            "People will always identify with one group more than others so "others" become the "enemy" at some level."

            That's true for some people, certainly - I have never understood the utter tribalism of football supporters, or the conviction of people from one county in the north of England that they are better than people from another northern English county.

        2. Mooseman Silver badge

          Re: We hear these stories all the time

          "Kids in kindergarten will often ostrasize and even attack any child who is markedly different to what they have been exposed to"

          Really? I have never, ever come across an example of this behaviour without there being a parent influencing it. Young children are extraordinarily tolerant of others' physical differences, they don't seem to "see" the physical differences without it being pointed out to them by an adult (and I mean real physical differences, not a slightly different hair colour)

      3. Palpy

        Re: Children aren't born to hate

        But there is an innate recognition of "Us" and "Them" which can be triggered by skin color. Dr. Robert Sapolsky, in his book "Behave", page 85:

        "Our brains are incredibly attuned to skin color. ... By one hundred milliseconds [after seeing a face], brain function already differs in two depressing ways, depending on the race of the face (as shown by neuro-imaging). First, in a widely replicated finding, the amygdala activates. [nb: the amygdala is involved in fear, anger, and recognizing threats.] Moreover, the more racist someone is in an implicit test of race bias, the more activation there is. ... So if whites see a black face shown at a subliminal speed, the amygdala activates."

        In other words, whether our skins are pinkish-beige or brownish, Homo sapiens innately label a face as "Us" or "Them" before we even consciously recognize that we have seen a face.

        To continue (on page 86):

        "Our attunement to race is shown in another way, too. Show a video of someone's hand being poked with a needle, and subjects have an 'isomorphic sensorimoter' response -- hands tense in empathy. Among both whites and blacks, the response is blunted for other-race hands; the more the implicit racism [as determined by tests of race bias], the more blunting."

        Neurology is not destiny, however. Sapolsky later notes that neuro-imaging shows that once the consciousness recognizes that it has seen a face, the prefrontal cortex (PFC) can moderate the activity of the amygdala (and the fusiform face area, which is also involved in face recognition). Essentially, the PFC can "outvote" that initial "Us-or-Them" response, turning a Them into an Us.

        It's shown in the commonsense observation that to a racist, "all Pakis are rotten, well, except the kebab guy on the corner, who is a good chap". It's individuation: a particular Them is turned into an Us when he or she becomes an individual who is not just "pretty much like Us" but actually is "an Us".

        How that feels: I'm pinkish-beige, and I live in an overwhelmingly pinkish community. I was in a convenience store waiting for a friend to show up. There was a dark-brown man kind of uneasily wandering around looking at things. Shoplifter? Vagrant looking to score? -- to my eternal discredit, I was suspicious. Then I remembered seeing a young brownish-beige kid go into the restroom earlier. Oh! The guy is a father, and he's probably wondering if he should go and help his son, or whether it's time to let the child handle whatever is keeping him in the restroom. That fast, the man became an Us. (We ended up having a pleasant conversation about the trip his family was taking, and various other topics. And his 5-year-old finally came out of the restroom and everything was fine.)

        Perhaps, and this is my own speculation, people who have very low indices of racism have internalized this mental behavior. They habitually bring their PFC to overrule the innate "Us-or-Them" reaction, and immediately individuate almost everyone as an Us. But I dunno; I ain't no neuropsychologist.

        Sapolsky's book is damned good, IMHO. Much food for deep thought.

  2. IGotOut Silver badge

    He's not an imigrant

    He's white.

    If you are anything else, you are an immigrant, even if your family have lived there for multiple generations.

    1. Glen 1
      Paris Hilton

      Re: He's not an imigrant

      Given the pushback in these very forums against some benign name changes, its hard to tell if you're being sarcastic...

      1. BrownishMonstr

        Re: He's not an imigrant

        He's saying it the way some people perceive it to be.

        If you are white some people won't see you as an immigrant and won't say "fuck off back to your own country".

        1. big_D Silver badge
          Facepalm

          Re: He's not an imigrant

          I've experienced that. I am the "right sort" of immigrant. I've been out with people of diverse races (East European, Turkish, African and me, a Brit). They were called bloody immigrants, when I pointed out I was also an immigrant, I was told "yeah, but you don't count!"

        2. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

          Re: He's not an imigrant

          "If you are white some people won't see you as an immigrant and won't say "fuck off back to your own country"."

          Unless you are Polish or Romanian in the UK. Spanish, French, German, Italian, and of the Scandi countries etc are ok of course, most of the time. It's odd, because you can't tell by looking but for some reason Poles and Romanians in particular often get discriminated against while other Europeans don't.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Headmaster

      Re: He's not an imigrant

      That may be the perception of white people. But it's wrong.

      I'm white. And an immigrant in one of the whitest countries in the world (Norway). I'm still an immigrant.

      When I'm back in the UK, if anyone asks, I can say I'm an expat, because that's what I am to the people in the country where I was born. (I expatriated myself from the UK.) Anywhere else I choose to live in the world, I'm an immigrant.

      If you think differently, you're wrong. Both semantically and grammatically.

      1. Chris G

        Re: He's not an imigrant

        One of the absurd things I come across as a Brit living in Spain, is the number of British 'immigrants' here who harp on about immigrants and slag off the Spanish who have welcomed them to come and live in Spain.

        Some of them become quite upset when I inform them of their status as an immigrant.

        Being of a swarthy disposition, there are times when I say nothing and don't let on when I hear British accents, I just let them think I am local.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: He's not an imigrant

          Yep, I knew a fair few people like that when I was in Spain too.

          I've also witnessed my fair share of speaking-loudly-and-slowly-in-English moments. Yo no hablo Español perfectamente, pero yo intentar.

          As much as Spain relies on tourism and foreign investment, I'm pretty sure they wouldn't miss the British for a moment.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: He's not an imigrant

            ...yo intento. *sigh*

    3. NerryTutkins

      Re: He's not an imigrant

      I can see this is obviously satire of the beliefs of many people in the US. I guess the downvoters didn't get it.

      My brother is white British, lives in North Carolina, and has never experienced any kind of anti-immigrant sentiment, even though his accent marks him out as an immigrant. I am sure many of the white people there would regard him as more entitled to be a neighbour than a black family who've been Americans for generations.

      1. eldel

        Re: He's not an imigrant

        Yup. Spot on. In 19 years as a Brit in the US the only time I've been told "fuck off back to your own country" was by a somewhat inebriated faux Irishman in Boston just after St Patrick's day. I'm not sure exactly what he was referring to though. Especially given that my grandfather was Irish and I'm eligible for an Irish passport.

        It's kinda weird sometimes. We lived in Texas for 4 years and there's some seriously racist assholes there (as well as some of the kindest and most welcoming people I've ever encountered) who are virulently anti-immigration yet somehow we were always excluded from the "they ought to be sent home" list.

    4. Mooseman Silver badge

      Re: He's not an imigrant

      Exactly - you're not an immigrant if you're the right colour (at least in their heads), you are an expat and therefore somehow superior.

  3. cantankerous swineherd

    if the great and the good are getting worried we're doing it right.

  4. First Light

    Alcohol reduces people's inhibitions. This guy has probably thought those thoughts for a long time, it only came out because he's drunk. I'm not sorry for this guy, because for every guy or woman who gets in trouble for this behavior these days, millions of minorities have been discriminated against for decades, if not centuries. So the fact that it's going public is a good thing. It is a consciousness-raising exercise and apparently lots of people need their consciousnesses raised.

    I don't see what this has to do with the Harper's letter, which is about preserving open reasoned debate. I don't believe the Reg should have shoehorned it into this article. The two issues do not go together, as the racist guy is just being a duck. The Harper's letter is about people expressing rational opinions and being destroyed for them because those opinions do not meet some kind of cultural litmus test. Yes, the method of trashing people's lives may be the same in both cases, but drunk racists and rational thinkers are not in the same category at all.

    1. ragnar

      Plenty of people signing that letter are not "rational thinkers" because they've a track record of ignoring the scientific and medical consensus about the validity of transgender people. The letter may have had innocuous wording, but several people signing it are bigots based on their prior behaviour.

  5. Neil Barnes Silver badge

    I would like to deeply apologize to the Chan family.

    Which of course makes it all right, then?

    Don't act that way in the first place, and there is both no hurt caused and no need to apologise. If you are prone to such outbursts when drunk, don't get drunk - it's really not difficult.

    1. BebopWeBop

      Re: I would like to deeply apologize to the Chan family.

      Unfortunately, some people can not. On occasions that I have been blootered, I have been told that I am a little silly but very benign. Hits people in different ways, but at least I generally avoid it.

      1. Mooseman Silver badge

        Re: I would like to deeply apologize to the Chan family.

        this means "I am deeply sorry I was caught on camera", nothing more.

    2. You aint sin me, roit

      Sorry I lost control...

      ... and couldn't stop myself from saying what I really think.

      Alcohol lowers inhibitions, it doesn't make you call someone minding their own business "a fucking Asian piece of shit". Unless you already have those thoughts in your head. Booze might have caused the mask to slip, but it revealed the man for what he is.

    3. DrXym

      Re: I would like to deeply apologize to the Chan family.

      Gotta wonder if he goes off on angry outbursts like this all the time and we only know of this one because he was recorded doing it. It wouldn't surprise me if it turned out he has form for being a dick.

    4. MiguelC Silver badge

      Re: I would like to deeply apologize to the Chan family.

      And the comment he posted to the video, was he sill drunk?

      He just apologized after getting exposed to the world and its dog, as a mitigation attempt

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    mad internet

    "It goes on: “The free exchange of information and ideas, the lifeblood of a liberal society, is daily becoming more constricted. While we have come to expect this on the radical right, censoriousness is also spreading more widely in our culture: an intolerance of opposing views, a vogue for public shaming and ostracism, and the tendency to dissolve complex policy issues in a blinding moral certainty.”"

    While for sure, I think those racist comments were totally unacceptable, I'm happy someone opens the above debate.

    The interwebs has become a really toxic place where wearing the "wrong" color of socks will ridicule you entirely.

    You now have articles outing people that allegedly cheated their wife ! It's not illegal, and is a personal matter, but people,

    even journalists, now feel they're right in putting this online.

    example: https://www.tweaktown.com/news/73427/assassins-creed-director-gets-caught-cheating-on-wife-leaves-ubisoft/index.html

    1. AVee
      Holmes

      Re: mad internet

      What's happening right now is good old mob justice. This used to be a pretty common thing for centuries, but generally considered a bad thing. So it was gradually brought under control with things like police, judges, prosecutors, lawyer. And principles like due process, innocence until proven guilty, etc.

      And now it's coming back, so why could that be. Are the things that are supposed to replace it broken perhaps?

      1. ShadowDragon8685

        Re: mad internet

        I don't think we've properly seen mob justice yet.

        Mob justice looks rather like a lynching. What we're seeing now is largely furious people demonstrating in numbers and fury not seen since the '60s, and businesses and officials panicking because they realize how close they ARE to mob justice.

        Because, as you say, the systems that are supposed to replace mob justice have proven to be broken; moreover, now they're shitting themselves dry because an awful lot of the protestors ARE NOT THEMSELVES BLACK.

        This is, quite literally, the bougie nightmare scenario. Racism in the US was engineered as a response to classism; see, way back in the days before it was even the U.S., there were an awful lot of very poor whites in America; very often indentured labor. Effectively slaves in the old-timey Roman sense. When not toiling, they spent their time associating with people of similar social station to themselves; freed blacks who had often bought themselves (and in some cases, themselves owned black slaves!) and even the black slaves and occasionally the more adventuresome and gregarious natives.

        And that terrified the shit out of the property owners, because they realized that they were vastly, VASTLY outnumbered if all of those poor whites and the enslaved blacks joined in solidarity and rose up. So they started treating the whites better, the blacks worse, and said "hey, at least you're not a *slave!*"

        And that worked. The racial divide was, while I won't say always there, massively exacerbated as a means of controlling the lower-classes. If the divide was small, the property-owners drove a wedge into it, then hammered that wedge with a sledgehammer.

        1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

          Re: mad internet

          "Mob justice looks rather like a lynching."

          That still happens every now and then in some southern US states.

      2. AdamWill

        Re: mad internet

        Plus, you know, it's important to keep a sense of perspective about just how terrible the consequences of so-called 'cancel culture' are.

        I'm familiar with some of the specific examples that open letter cited and I do think a few of them could've been handled better. Sure. But, you know, perspective. A handful of generally extremely privileged white people got punished kinda clumsily for pretty minor alleged transgressions. This is a bit regrettable, yeah. AFAIK, most or all of them 'fell' immediately into similarly cushy and privileged jobs to the ones they had before.

        This is hardly the worst human tragedy of our times.

        For most people, the alleged evils of cancel culture don't even amount to this, they amount to "some people were mean to me on Twitter", which, you know, again, perspective. Some people have been way meaner to JK Rowling on Twitter than she really deserves (and that whole newspaper front page thing was a really bad idea on someone's part), but she has not been 'cancelled' in any practical way. She still has a giant platform to say whatever she thinks. She still has multiple publishing contracts. She's still, AFAIK, working on multiple major movies that are coming out in future. She's not exactly been banished from society, has she? Ditto Atwood, Chomsky and co - they all don't exactly seem to have any trouble getting their perspective in the news any time they feel like doing it...

  7. Noodle

    I know it's a bit off topic, but what's with the peculiar capitalization of "White" and "Black" in this article? Colours aren't names or proper nouns, so it's a bit odd.

    1. Jim Mitchell

      https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/05/insider/capitalized-black.html

    2. MOH

      They are now, apparently

    3. diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

      Style guide

      It's our emerging style, in line with AP et al, to cap up White and Black when referring to race.

      C.

      1. regadpellagru

        Re: Style guide

        And races don't exist in Homo Sapiens. Black skin, white skin, same race.

        Sapiens is a different race than Neanderthal, but sadly, the latter is extinguished.

        Sadly, even hacks forget this :(

    4. Cynic_999

      They are proper nouns when used to denote race or ethnicity.

      1. Noodle

        Well ok, I guess that explains it.. although it seems insultingly reductive to simplify the many and varied peoples originating from Africa and Europe to "Black" and "White" but I suppose not surprising given the creeping infantilism of culture these days rendering everything into simplistic binary concepts.

  8. Aristotles slow and dimwitted horse

    He may have been taught, but Mr. F**ktard didn't learn a thing...

    "I would like to deeply apologise to the Chan family. I can only imagine the stress and pain they feel. I was taught to respect people of all races, and I will take the time to reflect on my actions and work to better understand the inequality that so many of those around me face every day."

    Isn't this just the standard boilerplate apology due to being caught out? A better apology would have been to suggest that he is going to dig an 8ft trench, jump in it, and then ask a random stranger to fill it in with a digger.

    1. BrownishMonstr

      Re: He may have been taught, but Mr. F**ktard didn't learn a thing...

      So, nothing short of suicide/death would be a better apology?

    2. DrXym

      Re: He may have been taught, but Mr. F**ktard didn't learn a thing...

      Well it's slightly better than a "sorry that you were offended" non-apology but it still feels like desperate damage limitation. I expect his personal life and his business are well and truly demolished by this.

      1. Prst. V.Jeltz Silver badge

        Re: He may have been taught, but Mr. F**ktard didn't learn a thing...

        well lets hope so.

        of course its " desperate damage limitation" , it doesent matter how eloquent the apology , its still just obviously to protect his business.

      2. Mooseman Silver badge

        Re: He may have been taught, but Mr. F**ktard didn't learn a thing...

        Or the Priti Patel-style "I'm sorry if you feel you were offended"

  9. Pascal Monett Silver badge

    "I was taught to respect people of all races"

    Yes, that is certainly what you were taught, but that isn't what you took away from that teaching.

    Alcohol has the peculiar effect of revealing who you actually are. If you're a nice guy to be with when sober, and a misogynist asshole when drunk, then you are a misogynist asshole but, when sober, you listen to that little voice in your head telling you not to do that.

    So, deep down, this guy is actually a racist, xenophobic asshole. I do hope he reflects deeply on that, because it's going to take a long time to root that out.

    1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      Re: "I was taught to respect people of all races"

      "Alcohol has the peculiar effect of revealing who you actually are. If you're a nice guy to be with when sober, and a misogynist asshole when drunk, then you are a misogynist asshole but, when sober, you listen to that little voice in your head telling you not to do that."

      Isn't this why it's called "The Demon Drink"? ie when sober, you listen to the angle on your shoulder and when drunk, the demon ion the other shoulder wins out.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: "I was taught to respect people of all races"

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaPp90i3T5A

        I've always liked how the guitar was acting as totally drunk :)

        Also, lyrics !

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    When will people learn

    that in this day and age there is no such thing as a private conversation. Once a secret is known by more than one person, it is not a secret any longer.

    Keep your thoughts (good or bad) to yourself people and you will save yourself a lot of grief in the long run.

    I don't have a clue about what, if anything has been posted on Social Media (Zuckfart and the like) about me. I really don't care and as long as I continue to boycott each and every one of their particular cesspits then it will remain like that.

    1. Paper

      Re: When will people learn

      100% agree. Obviously racism is never good. But it's also not worth expressing ANYTHING publicly in this day and age, that isn't very privately between you and your best friend.

      1. AdamWill

        Re: When will people learn

        And yet you wrote this comment...

      2. Prst. V.Jeltz Silver badge
        Headmaster

        Re: When will people learn

        100% agree. Obviously racism is never good. But it's also not worth expressing ANYTHING publicly in this day and age, that isn't very privately between you and your best friend.

        Whut?

        did you mean

        a) "The only things worth expressing in public are the things that are private between you and best friend" ?

        b) "Dont say anything in public you wouldnt say to your best friend"

        c) other

        a & b dont make any sense, to me at least.

  11. Potemkine! Silver badge

    "popular justice" is no justice at all

    Public lynching is as despicable the action of this bastard.

    The official justice should take care of that, as long as there a laws to protect people from being harassed because of their ethnic origin.

    1. codejunky Silver badge

      Re: "popular justice" is no justice at all

      @Potemkine!

      The issue with things like this is the collateral damage. I hope the other business does not suffer from this nor even the guys business as it would likely affect his employees and his opinion is likely unrelated to the service it provides people.

    2. DrXym

      Re: "popular justice" is no justice at all

      Lynching isn't a word that you should really use in the context of this.

      1. Cederic Silver badge

        Re: "popular justice" is no justice at all

        I disagree. Too many words fall out of use for fear of offending people, and it's entirely unnecessary.

        Lynching is bad, no matter who the victim is, or how much they may or may not deserve it. Using the term is appropriate, not least specifically because it isn't always just.

        1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

          Re: "popular justice" is no justice at all

          My feeling on the use of the word lynching is that it brings back memories of old Westerns. No Western was complete without the lynching of a horse thief, murderer or sheep farmer. It's just american for hanging. It's become more racially charged since even the US outlawed hanging as an official means of execution and become linked to racist rednecks and the KKK in certain states.

          Sometimes words or symbols get hijacked and sometimes you have to fight to take it back and stop it being associated with "bad" things. eg the hijacking of the English flag some years ago by the far right. We fought and took it back. Whether "lynching" is one of those words or symbols that needs to be taken back is another matter. There's less use for it nowadays other than in old Westerns and history.

          1. John Arthur

            Re: "popular justice" is no justice at all

            "It's just american for hanging"

            There is hanging by the state after a fair trial and hanging by a mob. Lynching is the latter.

          2. Mooseman Silver badge

            Re: "popular justice" is no justice at all

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_lynching_victims_in_the_United_States

            Lynching is not "just hanging" - it's mob violence, usually inflicted on someone from a minority without and actual "crime" other than being not white in the wrong place.

            Being socially lambasted is not lynching either. The poor man is being called out for what he is, boo hoo. Unless a mob of people drag hi being a vehicle or string him up he isnt being lynched, sorry if that offends people who complain about language.

        2. DrXym

          Re: "popular justice" is no justice at all

          Go and look up what an actual lynching is. It's not this.

          This was a public shaming. If you want to reach for a metaphorical comparison to a physical punishment then pillorying would be a better example.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: "popular justice" is no justice at all

      We all know that for minor crimes the law usually can't be bothered (or have time & resources to intervene), so there is unlikely to be anything that would've come out of a simple call to the police. Also it's a risk due to a 'high-powered' CEO giving his account.

      The outcome may be over the top with detrimental consequences that go further than the crime might normally warrant, however the Internet and social media has created an echo chamber for all mindsets. It is easy to fall into a trap that most people think x or y based around your followers, or 'freinds' or likes on social media and the masses amount of available material and groups supporting your views, however awful.

      Stoking the fire of public outrage collapses that world view and can hopefully lead others to realise that there is not public consent for these views or actions. Views from the president down have allowed racists and bigots the platform to feel safe to air their views. Massive public push-back is one of the few ways to try to rectify that.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I'm prepared for the down votes

    But we've only seen a little clip of what happened, do we know for certain Chen and co were not denigrating Afro-Americans, the French or British, etc. before his drunken rant?

    Only last week there was the viral video of a gun seemingly pulled for no reason on an Afro-American woman, turns out she was a ranty bitch that was banging on the car of the gun owner.

    I've had numerous BBC, no, not that BBC, or that one, but British Born Chinese (their chosen designation) friends and from my small sample size they were far more openly racist than my white, West Indian or Indian, British friends.

    Just throwing it out there, none of use were there, and a tiny clip after the action started may not be representative of the whole affair.

    And now I can be punished for not being part of group think and daring to give a different perspective. Do I think his actions were justified or reasonable? It's of no consequence what I think, I don't know the guy and never will.

    1. jotheberlock

      Re: I'm prepared for the down votes

      You shouldn't be drawing a gun on someone unless you intend to shoot them. Being 'a ranty bitch' is, strangely enough, not a good reason to threaten to murder someone.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I'm prepared for the down votes

      The fact that he continued a racist rant on social media and the fact he wrote a boilerplate apology rather than make a statement regarding what happened and how he was really the hero of the day suggests it was just a racist rant.

      People do have a right to reply - although very limited now-a-days due to how fast 'stories' move through the Internet, but usually if an alternative narrative is available it becomes available quite quickly.

    3. MatthewSt

      Re: I'm prepared for the down votes

      So it's OK to be racist if they were racist first?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: I'm prepared for the down votes

        Right back at ya Mr Street, so you agree the BLM are a gang of thugs too, or is it OK for them to be racist since some nasty men were a couple of hundred years ago?

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I'm prepared for the down votes

      Pretty sure the staff would've asked both parties to leave if it was "6 of one and half a dozen of the other".

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: I'm prepared for the down votes

        No mention in the post of "six of one..." the inference I took was that he could have overheard people of another race talking down his or a third, or forth race. He was obviously very drunk, so it'd be expected for him to be shown the door.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    sufficiently shocking that internet sleuths raced to name and shame

    I'm shocked, I thought they did it because they felt ouraged! :D

  14. stevebp

    You complete the article with the news that JKRowling et al have signed a letter against the hate culture on the internet that inhibits free speech. I don't see the connection to this story at all? This man's behaviour was totally unacceptable, as was the other stories you mention afterwards. There is a world of difference between political, religious and economics discourse, and hate speech, violent abuse, threats and trolling - whether you agree with J K Rowling or not, she is allowed an opinion and is allowed to voice it without people being personally hurtful, spiteful and abusive to her in return. It is impossible to avoid someone being 'offended' by what you say, since the offence comes from them, not from you. I believe Voltaire had something to say about it...

    1. Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

      whether you agree with J K Rowling or not, she is allowed an opinion and is allowed to voice it without people being personally hurtful, spiteful and abusive to her in return

      The tabloids have been doing it for years so it's no surprise many do the same when the internet for them is little more than a 'letters page' with little moderation, when there's an 'anything goes' attitude, when hate is considered a legitimate part of free speech.

  15. David Austin

    Own Your Words

    Outside of hate speech, You are perfectly entitled to say whatever you like.

    Likewise, other people are also perfectly entitled to think you're kind of a jerk for saying that, and want to distance themselves from you.

    While there's certainly a nuanced debate to have on cancel culture, genuine redemption, and how far back the public record goes now, quite a lot of these complaints come from people that understand the first part, but forget the second part.

    1. codejunky Silver badge

      Re: Own Your Words

      @David Austin

      "Outside of hate speech, You are perfectly entitled to say whatever you like."

      Unfortunately that doesnt work. Because what is hate speech? How can it be defined and how can it be put into a framework which stops legitimate expression?

      "Likewise, other people are also perfectly entitled to think you're kind of a jerk for saying that, and want to distance themselves from you."

      That is the only real reaction that is useful and acceptable. Personal choice.

      1. David Austin

        Re: Own Your Words

        Most countries, including the UK, has a legal framework in place to define hate speech. It's not going to cover the grey and borderline cases, but it seems to mostly cover the things society at large have deemed to be hateful, rather than hurtful things to say.

        It's personal choice, but nothing from telling others your choice and why you did it, and if the wanna do it too, then sure, why not?

      2. 96percentchimp

        Re: Own Your Words

        "Likewise, other people are also perfectly entitled to think you're kind of a jerk for saying that, and want to distance themselves from you."

        They're also entitled to say you're a jerk, *in public*, and for other people to support, repeat and amplify that opinion. And if your employer, or your customers, subsequently choose that they don't want to be associated with a jerk, then that is the consequence of your personal choice.

  16. disgruntled yank

    Just which week?

    The Central Park incident occurred on May 25, which is not "just this month" or even "just last month".

    According to today's New York Times, the man Ms. Johnson called the cops on, Christopher Cooper, does not support the DA's decision to bring charges.

    1. Outski

      Re: Just which week?

      Firstly his name is Christian Cooper, and secondly, the article refers to the recent decision to charge Amy Cooper (note the same surname), not the incident itself.

      Facts matter.

      1. disgruntled yank

        Re: Just which week?

        Yep, you're right. Have an upvote.

      2. Prst. V.Jeltz Silver badge

        Re: Just which week?

        Firstly he got the name slightly wrong , ok , never mind

        Second , he said the exact same thing as you .

        Whats the distinction you were trying to make with #2 ?

  17. Paper

    Mob is bad

    This guy made a very clearly nasty racist rant and the concequence is social shaming and possibly a boycott of his company by a few. And he nominally got banned from a restaurant he likely would never return to anyway.

    On the other hand that dog walker who called 911 - had her dog confiscated, lost her job, shamed relentlessly in every avenue online, and is facing jail time, even after issuing a sincere apology. Well she's a smallish woman and he's a large tall guy...

    So yeah, society is backwards.

    Imo, best thing the dog walker could have done is no acknowledgement, no action. If you say and do nothing, it's hard for anyone to accuse you of anything. Just walk away.

    Also, top best thing is to not be racist.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Mob is bad

      Sorry she took an intentional and deliberate action to lie to the police and have him face potentially serious consequences, had it not been for the video.

      As bad as a rant is, what she did is IMO much worse. She was willing to lie and even put someone in jail, damn the consequences. As badly misused as the word is used now, this is a good case of white privilege. A black man in the US would not have a chance.

      She (and probably you) needs to understand that destroying someone else’s life maliciously is a far more serious thing.

      She deserves to suffer more than this racist wacko, just like a murderer must over a thief.

  18. dryad

    Colonize the World and Complain about Immigrants - the irony of it all !

  19. Daedalus

    The flip side

    An ex-pat living in France - no not Dabbsy - is tweeting the tale of a couple of Brexiteers who were shocked, shocked, to find that their plans to retire to Provence had been torpedoed by EU residency rules. They sent their bellend of a son to "negotiate" with the local mayor, as if he could change things. Son is several levels less intelligent than Karl Pilkington and, after miraculously finding his way to the Dordogne (losing his shoes along the way), he managed to get himself pepper-sprayed and offered accommodations in the local jail.

    Which would be off-topic except that the pro-Brexit, anti-EU crowd took it upon themselves to punish the tweeter for demonstrating what Brexit meant for Brits. With help from a friendly IT person or two he managed to get back online, and some eager purveyors of Brexit purity are now having conversations with the competent authorities.

    1. AdamWill

      Re: The flip side

      that turned out to be fiction, but it was great and amusing and entirely believable fiction...

      1. Daedalus

        Re: The flip side

        Not revealed as fiction so far....

        ObCorrection: it's Bordeaux, not Provence.

  20. ifm

    Is el Reg really capitalizing White and Black now?

    1. Mark192

      Yeah, as we move away from a binary definition of genders we're apparently meant to move further towards a binary definition for race.

  21. Big_Boomer Silver badge

    Scumbag

    People like him do this kind of crap quite often, but it's not until they get caught out that they suddenly "realise" that it's unacceptable to behave like that. Inside your head or in the privacy of your home, think and do what you like, but when you let that kind of crap out in public you get what you deserve. Yes, social media does seem to be punishing this scumbag but from what I saw he deserves far worse than what's happened so far.

    Before social media and near universal video capable phones he would have gotten away with atrocious behaviour like this indefinitely, and it would have seeped into his business relationships leading to racist recruitment and probable racist abuse of staff/colleagues. These days these scumbags get outed pretty quickly and suffer the consequences. I feel sorry for others that are affected by this who have nothing to do with him because idiots can't tell the difference between 2 companies, but the alternative would be for him to remain unidentified and to carry on with his tribal bullsh!t to the detriment of all.

    Personally, If I video'd something like this I'd probably send the video to the Police but they don't have time to try and identify/prosecute someone who would only get 5 minutes Community Service if found guilty.

    1. Solid8 Consulting Ltd

      Re: Scumbag

      I can't begin to explain the pain and hurt this episode has caused us. I do feel for the family that was on the receiving end of it too, and I totally applaud the waitress.

      We've had 4 days of being bombarded with abusive calls, horrific email, malicious attacks to our website and systems as well as countless death threats, threats of rape too. even when I pick up the phone and they hear it's a woman, I'm still being told to die in the most graphic ways.

      I'm shocked and saddened by this weeks events and even when everyone forgets about this which is just a matter of a few weeks, our company, our innocent family run business will still be left with negative reviews on google and we will always carry the marks because it's near on impossible to shake this off. Afterall, whats the first impression of Solid8 Consulting Ltd when people google us. it's not good and it wont recover for years.

      This has been really costly for us, short term due to the resources we have had to find to keep running and long term, well who knows. We may well need to re-brand or simply change company name to shake this off but thats more cost and why should we have to.

      Thanks to all of you that have supported us and understood we, the Solid8 Consulting Ltd from England, really does not have anything to do with this. we've just been the unlucky ones thats been dragged through it.

      All my very best wishes to all

      Emma

  22. anthonyhegedus Silver badge

    Trump

    Trump, by not condemning these racists the right way,he just enables them. He just gives slightly less credence to the people against racism, and doesn't condemn enough the people who do racist things.

    All it takes is a bit of validation from the orange man-child and that'll influence just a few people to be just that bit more racist.

    1. codejunky Silver badge

      Re: Trump

      @anthonyhegedus

      "Trump, by not condemning these racists the right way,he just enables them"

      Why? He is condemning the thugs, terrorists and criminals tearing things down and wrecking livelihoods and actually causing serious physical harm to people.

      One man ranting and being dealt with easily and without violence pales in significance at the level of the president.

      1. Teiwaz

        Re: Trump

        Why? He is condemning the thugs, terrorists and criminals tearing things down and wrecking livelihoods and actually causing serious physical harm to people.

        Yes, but to Trump, anyone who disagrees with him or merely gets in the way of a photo-op is a thug, terrorist and/or criminal.

        1. codejunky Silver badge

          Re: Trump

          @Teiwaz

          "Yes, but to Trump, anyone who disagrees with him or merely gets in the way of a photo-op is a thug, terrorist and/or criminal."

          Maybe. But in this case he is actually condemning actual thugs, terrorists and criminals especially when the governors were refusing to act appropriately

      2. anthonyhegedus Silver badge

        Re: Trump

        No, he's condemning people who are trying to change things because he won't. They're not thugs and terrorists, unlike the people in white pointy hats he loves so much. You get gun-nut loons who wave guns at people just because they're anti-racist, and he thinks they're worthy of praise. He is a thug and a criminal himself. And hopefully about to be revealed as a paedophile too

        1. codejunky Silver badge

          Re: Trump

          @anthonyhegedus

          "No, he's condemning people who are trying to change things because he won't."

          There are always people trying to change things. One legitimate way was electing the president to run the country. Looting, injuring and destroying are not legitimate in a democracy.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Trump

            That this racist idiot praises Trump is proof enough that your arguments over semantics aren’t at play in the real world. Trump’s speeches feed these people. He has enough speech writers to pick the words and have people like you play the sympathy ‘semantics’ violin for him.

            You have to be really gullible to think that Trump is some poor misunderstood sod.

            No.. much worse than gullible.

          2. Mooseman Silver badge

            Re: Trump

            Funnily enough a lot of the thuggish behaviour was done by people pretending to be BLM protestors, like far right groups. Obviously they are fine people according to your president. A man, lets not forget, who mocked a disabled journalist on TV, so clearly he is of the highest moral calibre.

            1. codejunky Silver badge

              Re: Trump

              @Mooseman

              "Funnily enough a lot of the thuggish behaviour was done by people pretending to be BLM protestors, like far right groups"

              Like far right groups? Such as far left groups? Far whatever way, if they are acting like criminals they are criminals and are causing damage.

              "Obviously they are fine people according to your president"

              Not my president. In a literal way, I am not in the US and never lived there.

              "A man, lets not forget, who mocked a disabled journalist on TV, so clearly he is of the highest moral calibre."

              I hope you dont think I believe him to be of the highest moral calibre?

              1. Mooseman Silver badge

                Re: Trump

                "Like far right groups? Such as far left groups? Far whatever way, if they are acting like criminals they are criminals and are causing damage."

                No, far right groups pretending to be BLM with the intent of conning people like you, which seems to have worked.

                1. codejunky Silver badge

                  Re: Trump

                  @Mooseman

                  "No, far right groups pretending to be BLM with the intent of conning people like you, which seems to have worked."

                  Eh? So far right groups dressed and marching with extreme left scum ripping down statues that the left want removing against the opinions of the right? Far left protesters smashing up shops and looting are actually right wingers dressed like the lefty protesters and joining the lefty protesters to cause damage?

                  Or are they left wingers until they do something criminal and then they are disowned and assumed to be extreme right?

                  From what you are saying mooseman these extreme lefties must be blinding idiots to be used this way and the extreme righties fucking genius's.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Trump

      "Trump, by not condemning these racists the right way,he just enables them. He just gives slightly less credence to the people against racism, and doesn't condemn enough the people who do racist things.

      All it takes is a bit of validation from the orange man-child and that'll influence just a few people to be just that bit more racist."

      Trump is a mythomaniac, and dement president, who likes nothing more to oppose every people in the hope to be seen as the recourse.

      Black people vs. White, rich vs. poor, religion X vs religion Y etc ...

      I do think this strategy will fail in the future, but nothing is sure.

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