A tweet by Lord Sugar in which he commented on a picture of a crying Chinese child with the words "The kid in the middle is upset because he was told off for leaving the production line of the iPhone 5." has be reported as racist.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-24421453
Normally in these case, I can see the scope for offence even if others don't or think the complaint petty. But in this case it reads as a comment on business practice in the PRC. Try as I might I cannot see a potential hate crime angle to it.
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I saw that noted elsewhere, silly half witted finger pointing from the professionally offended troublemaker.
Items like this lay smoke screens round real issues of racism, own foot shot.
Few people in the public eye dare make jokes any more, little wonder, i hate this new puritanical age.
Last edited by: gordonbennet on Mon 7 Oct 13 at 11:35
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I am no fan of Lord Sugar in any way shape or form, but by no possible standard can this be described as "racist".
The "R" word has been hijacked by many groups who wish to smear others having views with which they disagree.
It has now become a meaningless insult.
Generally, the curse of political correctness is having the effect of stifling robust debate on many legitimate issues.
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There are laws and regulations against racism these days. I read that a Tottenham Hotspur fan has been arrested, and another cautioned, for taking part in a chant that included what is called 'the Y word' APPLIED TO THEMSELVES!
I know a few black people who ought to be run in for the same sort of thing. Really this insensitivity to ourselves must be stamped out at all costs. While it persists we will suffer endless humiliation and distress. Only stupid faffing twits can save us.
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I, too, am no fan of Lord Sugar. It was just the sort of dimwitted remark in bad taste that I would expect from a spiv.
What offends me is the lazy journalism that makes an issue of this sort of rubbish.
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Careful now, Mike. Someone might construe 'spiv' as racist! ;-)
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No, it wasnt racist, but I dont mind if they try and bring the bearded one down a peg or two, just to prove how barking mad things have become.
A kid at school once called me a Nazi because my grandfather was German - today I would be a victim of a hate crime, in 1994 I broke his nose and he shut up about it.
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I can't help feeling that breaking the noses of stupid ignorant people won't really improve them much.
The German master at one of the schools I went to was a Sudeten Czech of Jewish extraction who had come to Britain as a refugee, post-war I think. He was a nice shy anxious small guy, no harm in him at all, even when driven beyond distraction to the point of caning someone: he was no good at it and his canings didn't hurt. His heart just wasn't in it.
He was referred to and even addressed as 'Fritz' and there were continuous gibes of the nazi salute variety. Yup, a whole class of 20 or so mainly middle class boys in Plymouth, the A stream too, really asking to have their noses broken.
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>>I can't help feeling that breaking the noses of stupid ignorant people won't really improve them much.<<
He never said it again, improved things from my perspective :-)
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You probably did the right thing Stu, although you might have discouraged that bit of malice without inflicting permanent injury. But difficult to gauge that sort of thing exactly!
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It made FoR feel better I guess. Alan Sugar's remark may be ill-judged but is probably Applist at the very most. Much ado about nothing.
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I don't know why people feel the need to start off by saying they're no fan of Lord Sugar. Ok, he hams it up on The Apprentice but he's a working lad done good, made a pile and created a lot of jobs for people over the years. He not only saved Tottenham Hotspur from going down the pan (Good reason for me to hate him) but went to HMRC when he discovered the club had been less than honest with their accounting and cleared off all that was owed. He's quite outspoken about the duty to pay your fair share of taxes and puts his money where his mouth is, unlike the Guardian for example who are all holier than thou on tax avoidance and were then exposed as milking the system for all it's worth.
More like him and we'd all benefit.
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>>and puts his money where his mouth is
He's many things, but not a hypocrite. I admire the bloke, right from the days of the Amstrad Sat Box - which is one reason that older parts of Sky aren't all that struck with him.
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"I admire the bloke, right from the days of the Amstrad Sat Box"
I've not admired the bloke right from the days of Amstrad 'Hi-Fi' stuff.
Mind you, that tweet wasn't racist.
Professional people, and those in the public eye really should know better than to use Twitter.
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>> >>and puts his money where his mouth is
>>
>> He's many things, but not a hypocrite.
I don't admire the bloke, his autobiography is full of falsehoods and self congratulatory overblown crap. Everything that went wrong was someone else's fault or an a conspiracy against him.
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>>a conspiracy against him.
There were a couple.
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Lord Sugar Tweet 'Racist' - -
