Watch out for Angry Mobs

Recently a man in Florida was beat up because of suspicions that he sexually assaulted a child. COME ON, USA, DON'T BE THAT GUY!!

By "that guy", I of course mean the UK. Gary Glitter, convicted pedophile, didn't want to leave Vietnam. Fair enough, the weather's great, and he obviously had access to girls. But one reason he gave for not wanting to return to Britain was that he feared for his safety.

The Angry Mob is alive and well in Britain, just look at the latest Angry Mob, the anti-facists protesting MP Nick Griffin of the BNP appearing on the BBC's show Question Time. Anti-facists, facists, I've said before that the hard-left often looks like the hard-right. To-may-to, to-mah-to.

Of course, in the UK they're not known as "Angry Mobs". They're known as "People". Or "Protests". These "Protests" have caused serious injury to suspected pedophiles before.

It is a little worrying that these Angry Mobs are called Protests. It seems the government in the UK doesn't discriminate. Angry Mob, Protest, Domestic Extremist... To-may-to, not To-mah-to?

But to return to the topic, come on, Americans. You're better than gross cowardly viglanteism. You love lawyers! You love the Constitution! You love "innocent until proven guilty"! Let's not be all Middle Ages Angry Mobs with pitchforks.

Irony?

Imagine my surprise after reading an opinion article blasting attitudes towards women to see this lovely juxtoposition. Gee, New York Times, where's your editor?

Stupidity of Neds

In the last few years I've been here, I've heard of -- and finally witnessed -- an odd phenomenon. Groups of young adults will set fire to something, and then when the fire engines are called in, would throw things at them and chase them off. Apparently this has been going on for far longer than I've been here. This generally increases in the fall in the lead up to Bonfire Night (Guy Faulkes Night).

During the weeks before Bonfire Night, fireworks are sold in grocery stores. The tradition is that families and friends would get together, maybe have a bonfire, and then light off some fireworks. That doesn't officially happen until November 5th, though, so all those fireworks in the supermarket get eaten up by bored teenagers and young adults on their week-long fall break.

Tonight, whilst in the middle of my yoga, I heard a commotion outside on the street. Typical Scottish yelling "FUCKING [blah blah blah] FUCKING [blah blah]", but this time it was punctuated by a clang and a dog's deep barking. I opened the curtain to peek out and saw a fire engine slowly maneuvering over the speed bumps down the street to leave the neighbourhood while being followed by three running males. They were actually chasing the fire engine. I didn't see where they went after that.

I would call the police, but what with the victims being fire fighters, the police most likely already know. And my vague description of "two or three males between 5'6" and 5'11"" wouldn't be very helpful.

I simply do not understand how this is a sport to them. I can understand throwing bricks and (what sounded like) metal at police cars, being that they may get hassled by the police regularly anyway, or even trains, being that most of them have probably never left their own street. But fire engines? These are men and women who put their lives in danger so that your fancy big screen TV won't be destroyed by your neighbour's chip pan fire! They're generally working-class people without much education, but with courage and a sense of duty. Not posh! So why attack them? There is no logical reason for it.

The only reasons I can think of is that maybe they didn't want the fire fighters to put out whatever fire they had started. Either that, or there's some historic grudge against fire fighters. Fire fighters do have a history of going on strike in this country, for example, once in 2002 and even (apparently) the other day in Yorkshire. But even then, the vast majority of the population seems to think that fire fighters shouldn't be attacked.

I sincerely hope that those hoodies die in a horrific chip pan fire.

PS Happy Bithday me.

My New Favourite Toy

Possibly one of the most useful toys I've seen: the free demo at Textwise Semantic Signatures. Apparently, this blog currently talks about:

Society/Issues/Race-Ethnic-Religious Relations
Society/Issues/Human Rights and Liberties
Society/Issues/Violence and Abuse
Society/Issues/Territorial Disputes
Regional/Europe/United Kingdom/Scotland

Neat, eh? Go ahead, try it with any article, it's pretty accurate (for the most part).

Reality, virtual or otherwise: 2

No, I can't just leave it alone.

Ok, so some messed up teenagers threw themselves off a bridge in Glasgow. Ok, fine, I respect their decision. But you know what, the whole virtual memorial thing is a bit creepy.

So one question raised in this Guardian article is whether it's a good thing that grief has moved from the private sphere to the public sphere. (They blame Diana, but I'm sure it happened looooooong before that.)

I question the actual genuineness of the emotion displayed. Can a person really have hundreds or thousands of "friends" as their social networking sites suggest? Even the cyberbullying mentioned earlier has a quote that says "you can have 60 people bullying you on the internet, but in real life there wouldn’t be 60 people beating you up". If people "friend" you for shallow or superficial reasons, or people bully you because they forget you're a human, it stands to reason that few of those internet mourners actually give a crap.

I wonder what the average ratio is, of real to virtual human interactions. What proportion of all those "friends" are really "friends"? What proportion of the people who write on websites such as Gone Too Soon or Missing You are feeling genuine care for the person they memorialise?

A cynic would say that all sadness felt at someone else's death is the rising of the fear of our own death. This doesn't detract from the reality of the fear/sadness that the shallow git is feeling, but it does detract from its validity.

Reality, virtual or otherwise

"Cyberbullying". There have been campaigns against it in both the UK and the US. Both are aimed at young people. The UK government's website is through the Need to Know young people site. The US website is more explicit, stating: "Once adults become involved, it is plain and simple cyber-harassment or cyberstalking. Adult cyber-harassment or cyberstalking is NEVER called cyberbullying." The strict minor-only definition of cyberbullying does not appear stand in the UK, as model Liskula Cohen used the phrase to the Independent that she was cyberbullied by a blog.

The tagline from one of my favourite websites is: "It's just a website!" meaning that people shouldn't take what is said on the forums so seriously all the time. Och, people just take things so seriously online. And yet at the same time, seem to forget that at the other end of the computer connection is another human being. Selfish selfish selfish.

But the line between libel and bullying is thin. Both the US and the UK are strongly against libel (I'm not sure which one more so). I suppose that's one upside to all this cyberbullying stuff:

The case has helped to clarify which terms of insult are libellous, such as "ho", which are merely wounding, like "skank"....
The court sided with Cohen, citing defamation "concerning her appearance, hygiene and sexual conduct".

Ever wanted to know the difference between a skank and a ho? Well, thanks to the New York courts, we now know.

Good news on the Freedom of Speech front

In the US, all 50 states have laws against animal cruelty. A couple of years back, in response to "crushing" fetish videos that involved women stepping on kittens (among other lesser creatures like spiders), congress banned images of animal cruelty. The Supreme Court has just ruled that such laws are unconstitutional.

Animal Cruelty and Free Speech (October 5, 2009) NYT editorial

So now it is legal in the US to possess images of illegal acts, while in the UK it is illegal to possess images of legal acts.

Hooray for common sense.

Racism - Differences in "race" in the US and UK

It always perplexed me, that most census forms here in the UK, or Equal Opportunity forms given as part of a job application, list not just "White", "Black", "Asian" etc, but go right deep into the ethnic background of the applicant. Asian include Indian, Pakistani, but sometimes Chinese is its own group. Black include Afro-Caribbean. White includes English, Irish, Scottish and Welsh. I always choose "White: other" and handwrite "American". This is most likely because the definition of "race" in the UK includes "ethnic origin".

The law defines racial grounds as including race, colour, nationality or ethnic or national origins. (Equality and Human Rights Commission)

In fact, this sample form doesn't even use the word "race", it uses "ethnic background". Why is it that only Blacks are "British" here? This other form also uses the term "ethnic origin", but noteably combines all white people into either "British" or not-British. All of the other categories are broken down by country. Yet the form says that "Ethnic origin questions are not about nationality, place of birth or citizenship. They are about colour and
broad ethnic group. UK citizens can belong to any of the groups listed." What does that mean? Aren't all UK citizens just "UK"? (or whatever British term they choose.) I've even seen the word racism to apply to discrimination against "gingers" (people with red/ginger hair).

Part of my confusion stems from the American look at racism. Ask most Americans what the different races are in the US, and you'll hear White, Black, Hispanic, Asian and (in some places) Native American. This can be seen in the list of references on the Wikipedia article on racism: "A poll on black, hispanic and asian americans on race relations", "red, white and black", "where black and brown collide", "both white and red". Ask people for an example of racism and they'll mention black people. Ask what defines race and they'll say the colour of your skin.

It isn't strictly true that race in the US is only colour. The US Constitution's 15th Ammendment (1870) reads:

Amendment XV
(Ratified February 3, 1870)

Section 1

The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

Section 2

The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Race and color are separate items! Yet you'll often hear the phrase "racial and ethnic minorities" such as over here are the Racism Review blog. (In the same blog, the author uses the phrase "colorblind" as an opposite to racism.) In their recording of Hate Crimes (here, 2005), the FBI distinguishes between race crimes (black, white, native, asian) and ethnicity crimes (hispanic). Technically speaking, hispanic is not a race in the US. Yet crimes against hispanics can still be called racist.

Here's my conundrum: Race is biological. I am white because my parents were white, and there is nothing I can do to change that. I am American, though, because I was raised in America. While it was not a choice offered to me at birth, I do now have to choice whether or not to join another white ethnic group, such a converting to a different religion, or changing my citizenship. If I changed my religion or citizenship, I would still check same US census box. Would my British census box change? Would I call myself English, as I'm marrying an Englishman? Or would I be Scottish because I live in Scotland? Or would I still be American as I speak with an American accent?

In a sense, I suppose I'm not the only one. This blog asks people from Taiwan to write in TAIWANESE on the census forms instead of checking the Chinese box. The difference between "race", "colour" and "ethnic group" varies in other countries as well.