Stoner Kebab
New Member
Morrissey is not the enemy. Monsanto is.
Learn to garden. I'm serious.
Learn to garden. I'm serious.
Morrissey racist? He's just stirring the storm in his proper English builder's tea cup
By Neil McCormick - Telegraph blog
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/cultur...storm-in-his-proper-english-builders-tea-cup/
He isn't rascist.
He just hates people in general.
Required reading. Thank you. Neil's column should end this silly debate. It won't, of course, but Neil deserves a bear hug anyway.
I admire the fact that Morrissey still feels the pain, and will always speak up for animal welfare; I just wish he'd do it in a more constructive, less knee-jerk emotional way. Just a word or two of difference, and maybe we'd be discussing animal welfare in China, not bogus charges of racism.
I don't know how anyone can view such cruelty and not be revolted. It does not bode well for humans everywhere that such torture is condoned anywhere.
Some people take perverse delight in discovering and pointing out the "inconsistencies and hypocrisies" of people who “preach” about something that isn’t popular. Remember that whole “OMG, Morrissey was seen eating at a steakhouse” rumor? I know people who were positively GLEEFUL that he was “caught.” Many people WANT to believe the worst. Of course, it was total bullshit, and as I recall, Morrissey and PETA made sure that people knew it was bullshit.
I think context and personality should be the way to judge this matter.
If Nick Griffin (Leader of the British National Party) said those words then I would use it as further evidence of his sick racist mind.
But it was Morrissey. Who I've known for nearly 30 years (through his work - which is his life laid bare) and who could never be racist.
If Nick Griffin used the word 'n*****/nigga' we would all know he was being derogatory and racist.
But when a black rapper uses that word it is from a different perspective and carries a different message.
So if you can't distinguish between the words of a fool and those of a genius then that's your problem not Morrissey's and it's not for him to correct.
And, let's be honest here, we can't pretend that he's been "had" by the evil media again; this has happened far too many times for that to be the case.
...
On stage, as a fraud, he'll run off and then come back and claim he just can't possibly sing while there's a scent of cooked meat in the air. In his private life, he sits in the Cat & Fiddle meat-house restaurant as happy as could be, smelling cooked lambs, cooked cows, cooked fish, cooked pigs......
So what is bullshit, again? Probably the guy who made a music video promoting self-righteous attacks on fur-wearing senior citizens ("Everyday Is Like Sunday") while he was still sporting leather shoes and cruising around in leather-seated sports cars. Is PETA gonna make sure I know that he wasn't really a regular celebrity customer of The Cat & Fiddle, to such an extent that they use his name to promote themselves on their web site? This is an organization that says research on animals to treat and cure diseases should be abolished even as their own Senior Vice President injects insulin into her body every single day to stay alive. Oh, but the people who do that research and gave that bitch her insulin should have mail bombs sent to their family residences, according to Morrissey by way of his endorsement of the Animal Rights Militia.
I'll just say this: if you don't have respect for your common man you are nothing.
I wonder just how many thousands of people around the world learned this very sentiment, or at least had it reinforced, by...Morrissey?
I don't know if Morrissey is racist or not, because I don't really know him. But I do know this, which should be obvious to everyone: Morrissey likes to mouth off and give outrageous statements when speaking to the press; now, I would really respect him if those statements were all provocative and intelligent, but, let's face it, sometimes they're just plain stupid and offensive. And, let's be honest here, we can't pretend that he's been "had" by the evil media again; this has happened far too many times for that to be the case. He just seems to enjoy stirring things up, even when he's making himself look like an ass in the process. I don't feel I need to jump to his defense this time, because I wouldn't do that if some celebrity I don't care about said the same. He doesn't deserve to be left off the hook just because he's Morrissey.
That said, his statement was not as extreme and offensive as some people seem to think. He didn't say that the Chinese were sub-human, or that they were not human, as some posters seem to think. A subspecies is a biological classification that simply means that there are multiple subspecies within a species; for instance, Canis Lupus is a species, and it includes 39 subspecies (including subspecies of domestic dogs and wolves). It doesn't imply that any of the subspecies is inferior to another, and it mostly definitely cannot imply that a subspecies is not a part of the species: in fact, that would be a contradiction in itself. By definition, belonging to a subspecies of the human race would mean that you are most definitely human; so, if Chinese were actually a subspecies, every human in the world would also belong to a subspecies of humans, the only question would be how many subspecies there are.
So, if the statement were "the Chinese are a subspecies", technically it wouldn't be offensive in itself - it would just be scientifically completely inaccurate, and in this day and age, ignorant. The idea that there are such things as subspecies of humans is an outdated one and has been debunked by modern science. We now know that there are no subspecies of humans, there is only Homo sapiens. There is a connection to racism, however: the classification of humans into "races" or "subspecies" has been used in the past to justify racism, antisemitism and white supremacism. Believing that there are such things as human subspecies doesn't necessarily lead to the idea that some of them are superior over others; however, it works the other way round - it's difficult to claim that one 'race' is biologically and genetically superior or inferior, if it's a fact that there is no biological basis for the classifications of humans into 'races' (which is why you'll find those outdated classifications of humans into 'subspecies' like the one copy pasted earlier, at far-right websites). And it's even more likely that a belief that humans can actually be classified into subspecies would lead into another form of racism, a prejudice towards the so-called 'interracial' marriages, and people of 'mixed' origin - towards ideas such as that 'races' should not mix, calling people 'mongrels' and comparing them to mules and such nonsense.
Now, I think that nobody really believes that Morrissey is so ignorant and misinformed to actually think that the Chinese are a subspecies. And, he did not say that...
However, contrary to what some other posters have said, I think that context in which those words were said actually makes them far more offensive. "You cannot help but feel that the Chinese are a subspecies" because they treat animals so cruelly? He made a sweeping generalization about all Chinese, a group of some billion people, and implied that they are so cruel that he almost feels like they are somehow biologically significantly different from the other members of the human race? That is both offensive and incredibly stupid. First there is the stupidity of generalizing people based on their ethnic background or nationality (the kind of stupidity that is also at the core of all racial, ethnic and national prejudices). And besides, Morrissey himself should be well aware that the rest of the human race have also been horrible to animals. I think we all remember his boycott of Canada over the seal issue - I don't remember him saying that the Canadians were a subspecies...
The worst thing in all this is that he's really harming the cause he is advocating. These kinds of statements add fuel to the views that animal rights activists are hypocritical wackos who love animals but hate their fellow humans. I am a vegetarian and a champion of animal rights, but above all I am a human rights champion. Now, there is nothing wrong if one feels the opposite and cares more about animal rights than human rights, but it is very troubling if someone cares for animals but doesn't seem to give a shit about human rights abuses. I'm not saying that's the case with Morrissey, but that is the impression that he creates in public with statements like these, or his support for extremist actions like sending mail bombs to the scientists who experiment on animals. I doubt that he's even serious with half the stuff he says, but all he can achieve this way (besides some publicity for himself) is hurt the chances of the issue of animal rights being taken seriously by the mainstream public.
Precisely, which is why it is I find it ironic that he would yet again engage it inflammatory language against a whole country in order to prove a point about animals rights.