Is Andy Cole British?

[sp1814]

Apparently not...at least \'not ethnically\' according to BNP activist Joey Barber:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1219538/BBC-storm-BNPs-notorious-activists-invited-Radio-1-insult-Ashley-Cole.html

The story raises a number of questions...

1. Taking Mr Barber\'s comments at face value, and as Ashley Cole\'s mum is a white British woman called Sue Cole, doesn\'t this mean that Ashley is ethnically \'half British\'?

2. Does anyone outside the BNP actually use the term \'ethnically British\'? It\'s a new one on me. People normally refer to their race, or their nationality (as in \"I\'m white\" or \"I\'m Indian\" or \"I\'m black - rather than \"I\'m ethnically British\").

3. There\'s a reported quote from Mark Collett (the BNP\'s head of publicity): \'AIDS is a friendly disease because blacks, drug users and gays have it.\' Do you think the silent majority actually agree with those sentiments.

4. The BBC are being attacked for allowing this to be broadcast. I think they should be priased to the rafters. Am I wrong

5. Why does Joey Barber look like a member of a boyband?

[sp1814]

AOG

Is Ashley on record as saying that he would call himself \'Black British\'?

If not, then that assumption is a bit of a leap.

[mallam]

"As for Ashley Cole, he's 100% British, makes no difference if he classes himself as Black British, (and I don't know that he does), he's British."

Well if he does or did, wouldnt that be racist? Strange how youre not allowed to call yourself White Br, innit? Playing into the hands of the BNP, perhaps?

[ItchyMoti]

I stopped getting the Independent on Sunday after reading James Daley'S lies . I may try the Beano

[mallam]

"They're just a bunch of upstarts who will eventually get their comeuppance."

The BBC switchboard was jammed in all but nomenclature with calls in support of these obscenities. They are using this as a defence for broadcasting them. Is Jack Straw still in? Bottled, in all prob. Cant be bothered to check.

[sp1814]

mallam - no, it certainly wouldn't be racist at all to call yourself 'white British'. It would simply be regarded as a description. There's absolutely no racist overtones real or implied in that.

In fact, I've filled out forms (passport, driving licence) which ask which racial group I belong to. Never thought of those as being racist in any way. It's just information.

[CJ242]

The BNP are ignorant, pathetic and vile!!!!!!!!!!
End of discussion!!!!!!

[TCL-MUMPING]

mallam, you said " Strange how you're not allowed to call yourself White Br, innit?"

In the last Census, eighty-seven per cent of the population of England and 96 per cent of the population of Wales gave their ethnic origin as White British.

[mallam]

Alun, 3 black and 3 white would be fine by me, and it is of me you ask the q.

TCL, sorry I, meant " Strange how PC-wise you're not allowed to call yourself White Br, innit?"
I dont suppose the 'innit' was much of a clue, but I was parodying the 'attitude'' of the Marks and Joeys who think like that. And if you think about it the whites who call themselves "White British" are likely to be doing so with 'attitude', and so are the blacks who call themselves "Black British". It's the combination that does it. (I take "you fat git" in my stride, but "you fat English git" as blatantly attitudinal, wouldn't you?) Such is connotational semantics. But "White British" sounds more gratuitous than "Black British". Such is sociolinguistic pragmatics.

[andy-hughes]

The complaint against the BBC is not that they allowed these two individuals to platform their confused illiterate unfounded views, which comes under the 'Give them enough rope ...' scenario -

it's that they were presented as a couple of 'young supporters' which they are patently not - in that they are both high-ranking active members of the BNP. That's like bringing on Alastair Darling and saying he is a 'gentleman who supports the Labour Party' - he is, but he is also far more than that.

So, the complaint is not that this material was broadcast - but that the interviewees were misrepresented to the listening public, and that is an issue which should be addressed.

As for the nonsense they both quoted, that can be taken as the effects of groundless rhetoric fed into empty minds - the bedrock of the BNP.

Nationality and ethnicity are an accident of birth - to try and claim that you have a 'right' to an area of the planet based on nothing more sunstantial than it being the place you were born is an arrogance that defies belief.

These two young men should be greatful that our freedoms - to which they have contributed presicely nothing - allow then a platform for their nonsense, when in other countries they would be enjoying a soundproof cellar / rubber hose interface experience.

[sp1814]

mallam

I totally didn't get the irony in your post.

I withdraw my previous response to you.

andy-hughes...really well summed up.

[TTG]

If you are born in Britain you are British simple as that.

[Lonnie]

This phrase of andy's I think just about sums it up.

'These two young men should be greatful that our freedoms - to which they have contributed presicely nothing - allow then a platform for their nonsense, when in other countries they would be enjoying a soundproof cellar / rubber hose interface experience'.