A disgrace to both Women and the Left?

[anotheoldgit]

http://www.dailymail....foothills-Punjab.html

Oh dear David Starkey has upset someone for speaking his mind, was this woman right to call him a racist, a bigot and a troll?

Seems not everyone agreed with her.

/// As Miss Penny continued speaking, Claire Fox, director of the Institute of Idea think tank stood up and told the journalist who has written for The Independent and the Guardian, that she was a disgrace to both women and the left. ///

[Duncer]

Agreed.

[boxtops]

^^ and that doesn't apply to everyone by any means(not worded very well), but if the men have that mind-set then they see young white women as easy game.

[ummmm]

I don't know about Eamons past regarding bullying....I agree with his sentiments though. Gentle teasing is now considered bullying, by some!

[jno]

such thinking is not uncommon among white men too, boxtops. It would seem far more plausible to see it as based on gender rather than based in the Punjab; but for some reason Starkey didn't. I have no idea what Fox's position is, since it isn't in the report, but I can't see that anything Penny said is a disgrace to either women or the left.

[boxtops]

Not my field of expertise jno, I guess the recent court case has brought the Asian connection into the public view.

[Duncer]

As someone who worked in the Middle East for many years, I can assure you that there is a fairly large contingent who think of white women as nothing but trash. It is a prevalent belief, but certainly not representative of all from that culture. However, to see any group as "lesser" as they undoubtedly do, is as vile and racist as you can get. One of my biggest condemnations is, with the excetrion of a very honourable few, the lack of criticism/censure from within their own culture.

[boxtops]

Thank you duncer - that is what I was trying to convey, the perception of trash culture.

[Duncer]

It is also the one-way perceptions of racism that get on my moobs.

[ummmm]

Trash because we are afforded the rights their women are denied.

[boxtops]

No so much that, ummm.... a lot of the girls they preyed on were in social services care or on the streets - and some of the young women I know really don't have self-respect, which I find very sad.

[ummmm]

I know that Boxy....I meant the men that Duncer referred to. The men that repress/oppress their women in their native countries.

[sandyRoe]

I think all youngsters, boys and girls, have an innate sense of their own worth. But it doesn't take too long in an abusive family, or care, to knock it out of them. The adults who abused them appeared to give what they might have needed most, care and attention.

[Duncer]

My time out there led me to believe that they repress them because they are afraid of them, or what they might become.

Sandy is spot on though when he says that they fell prey to these paedophiles because they offered what we all need - the feeling of being wanted/needed, and a bit of time, care and attention.

[andy-hughes]

David Starkey is an intelligent accademic who seems to delight in causing upset by posing trenchant ill-informed bigoted views under the wel-known guise of 'belief in plain speaking'.

I am sure that another 'plain speaker' could refer to Mr Starkey as a 'raging sodomite' - but that scarecly does justice to the concept of repect for other people which we try and engender in our society.

Mr. Starkey's views pander to base racism, the fear and lack of understanding of another culture which manifests itself in the simple belief that the appalling behaviour of a minority informs the standard behaviour of the majority.

If you extrapolate that logic, then the next homosexual deviant who rapes a child can be used to beat the Mr Starkeys of this world over the head for their own individual - and utterly unconnected - lifestyles.

Simple racism is beneath a man as educated as Mr Starkey who simply delights in grandstanding in public. Perhaps he feels his reputation as an academic does not receive the attention he feels he deserves - so he seeks that attention by posing as an ignorant racist blow-hard who simply scatters racist invective about with a scatter-gun approach, knowing he will hit a target eventually - as happened in this instance.

Mr Starkey manages that difficult task - concealing an intelligent and enquiring mind beneath the exterior of a loud-mouthed ignorant bullying fool.

Shame - but as with anyone in this position, his ramblings should be dismissed for what they are - ramblings of a spoilt egotist, and not confused with what he would appear to suggest they are - relavent and evidence-based sociological comment.

[jno]

hear hear, andy

[ummmm]

The fact he said 'entrenched in foothills of the Punjab or whatever it is.'

Whatever it is??? Makes me believe that you're 100% correct, Andy.

[andy-hughes]

I honestly believe that Mr Starkey constructs his diatribes to contain as many conversational cluster-bombs as he can possibly infuse into them.

Sadly, being academically intelligent is no assurance of the posession of basic common sense, and the ability to express a cogent opinion succinctly.

In Elizabethan times, Starkey would have been popular at court - with a hat with bells on, and a stick with an inflated pig's bladder strung to it - but times, and attitudes have thankfully moved on.