AOG -
/// First of all, the evidence that the callers you refer to is seriously flimsy. If you are aligning ethnicity with accents, have a listen to Trevor MacDonald - born in Trinidad, sounds as British as a listed building! ///
It was not a Trindadian who spoke like Trevor MacDonald who phoned in, obviously if it was of course I couldn't guess his ethnicity. It was a gentleman with a broad West Indian accent. //
And there you have it – by your own admission, you are ‘guessing’ at someone’s racial origin based entirely on his accent, and without sight of the gentleman concerned. As I said, that is a flimsy basis for your assumption. To refer again to my point about Trevor MacDonald, you cannot assess ethnicity from an accent, not with any degree of accuracy anyway, a guess is the best you can do, but at least you have shifted your position on that point to something more reasonable.
/// Secondly, the entire ethos of free speech is that anyone is free to criticise anyone else within the bounds of the law - and that is how and why phone-ins exist. ///
Obviously you don't listen to many (if any) LBC radio phone-ins, anyone criticising Blacks or Asian in the way these two callers were, are immediatly cut off. //
I am outside the broadcast range of LBC, so I will concede your point on that aspect of the discussion.
/// If you were only allowed to criticise Muslims and others not born in the UK by being a Muslim, or not born in the UK, your contributions to the Answerbank would cease instantly. ///
// Don't confuse AnswerBank or any other internet outlet, with the general media. //
I have no idea what you are talking about – we are on AB, what do other outlets have to do with anything we are discussing?
/// The notion that any British person criticising another culture would be deemed as racist demonstrates yet again that you do not appear to have a firm grasp on the meaning of the term which you love to use so much. ///
// By your reckoning, it should be those certain others on AB and not me, that you should accuse of not having a firm grasp on the meaning of the term racism, after all it is them who regularly dish out the word racist, I should know I have it levelled at me, just for holding an opinion over the introduction mass multiracism and multiculturalism to this country. //
Again, not what we are discussing. For the record, as a Moderator, if I see a direct reference to anyone as a racist, I will, and have done on your behalf more than once, delete it. But again, that is not what we are discussing.