South Yorkshire Police
This is from last September but I’m pretty sure I hadn’t seen it until just now, though I’m well familiar with South Yorkshire Police’s dedication to scouring out “hate crimes” in places like Norfolk.
In addition to reporting hate crime, please report non-crime hate incidents, which can include things like offensive or insulting comments, online, in person or in writing. Hate will not be tolerated in South Yorkshire. Report it and put a stop to it #HateHurtsSY pic.twitter.com/p2xf6OLoQZ
— SouthYorkshirePolice (@syptweet) September 9, 2018
Hate crime is an incident or crime, which is perceived to be motivated by prejudice or hostility against a person’s race, faith, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity.
So much to question in that. First, hate crime is an incident or crime? A crime can be a crime or an incident? I.e. not a crime, but an incident? But so then how is it a crime? How can it be not a crime and a crime? The tweet clears that right up by saying “in addition to reporting hate crime, please report non-crime hate incidents.”
Then – notice anything missing? It’s the one that’s always missing. Sex. It’s quite all right to insult women, you see. “Gender identity” is protected, “faith” is protected, but sex is not. Women just have to put up with it, including threats as well as insults. Jess Phillips for instance:
Just leaving Westminster and and man ran down the street along side me asking me about why Carl Benjamin shouldn't be able to joke about my rape. Shouting "I pay your wages".
— Jess Phillips (@jessphillips) May 7, 2019
Then – faith? Really? So I can’t talk publicly about the Catholic church’s relentless campaign for forced pregnancy? I can’t ask why women are required to “cover up” while men are not? I can’t object to the arrest of an artist in Poland for having posters of “the Virgin” Mary with a rainbow banner wrapped around her head?
Don’t get me wrong – I have nothing against cities campaigning against bullying and harassment. I think bullying and harassment should go all the way away.
But the particulars matter.
There’s also the “perceived”. I would have thought evidence would be required.
latsot, if they had to produce evidence, that might keep them from getting women fired. Can’t have that.
Certainly not, but we’re talking about the actual police here, so it’s not only about who gets fired, but about who gets arrested and goes to prison. It’s about who these bullying arseholes decide they can coerce into silence even if not (quite yet) into jail. It doesn’t matter why, it only matters that they can.
It’s only a matter of time. Britain’s love affair with fascism gets stronger every day and this is just one example. Brexit is certainly not going to improve matters, assuming it ever happens. It doesn’t matter anyway, our attitudes are already back to where they were in the 80s.
Here is a whimsical but awful example of what attitudes here were like in the 80s. One of the most popular breakfast cereals had spokes-cartoons who were fucking skinheads. They were bovver-boys (and one token bovver-girl) wearing git big boots all the better for the kicking of brown people out of the country. Seriously, cereal wearing boots, jeans, t-shirts and braces, exactly the uniform associated with racists. And this was considered normal.
We are *way* past that level of cartoon racist intolerance now. The police don’t care who they attack as long as they get to exercise and expand their power. The bobby on the beat is increasingly becoming a figure of fear and we’re delighted about it, for fuck’s sake.
latsot @3:
I just looked the Weetabix Gang up.
Not only do they look like classic skinheads, they’re total bullies, threatening us, telling us we’ll eat Weetabix if we know what’s good for us.
http://www.poetv.com/video.php?vid=14546
Yeah, that was back when we had one channel with adverts and the adverts were like that.
Are you all really so eager to be like the US? I don’t recommend it.
That reminds me of a conversation I had nearly 20 years ago now with a (very liberal in most ways) friend of mine. He had made a trip to Israel, and was very impressed with their police. He said if you stopped to talk to a child on the street, there would be armed police men jumping out and pointing automatic weapons at you. He waxed rhapsodic about how nice it would be to have that here…I kid you not.
I don’t know if the anecdote is true, but one thing I do know – anyone who wants that sort of police state has no call to consider themselves any sort of liberal. And if he thinks his kid will be any safer in that world (which is why he wanted it, for his own kid), he needs to think again.
That is my point and the heart of my concern.
I have some knowledge of how the police force works in Jordan. There are a lot of secret police and they are looking for things you probably wouldn’t expect. Get on public transport and there’s either a secret police officer or a panopticon-like expectation of one. Same online. And that’s Jordan, there are much more despotic places.
To answer your question: Yes. Britain very very much wants to become like that.