Burnley condemns 'White Lives Matter' banner

[1964white]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/53145201

I don't wish to be controversial as this is a sensitive subject

I have good friends whose skin colour are not white however,

Surely all lives matter don't they ?

[rrfierce]

Its obviously a protest again Black lives matter, but it stinks a bit of double standards.

We've had had BLM rammed down our throats for the past 4 weeks yet someone cannot say white lives matter?

I don't really get why one is acceptable but the other isn't

[YorkshireSquare]

I think to go around saying 'White Lives Matter' or indeed 'All Lives Matter' completely misses the point of BLM, in fact it almost proves to enforce it.

On a purely football club related point though, if you were a fan of a football club why would you do that to your team? Burnley have enough to deal with, players not signing new contracts etc, and they could still push for a European place but instead they have to commit a lot of time and energy to condeming this behaviour. The players seemed genuinely rattled and pissed off by it, could it have contributed to their 5-0 thrashing last night?

[HarryofOz]

Well said Alex and Sara

[Bally]

Unfortunately I think the BLM movement is causing more racial tension

[1964white]

Unfortunately I think the BLM movement is causing more racial tension

I think so too Bally, the protesters don't realise that on the day George Floyd was undeservedly murdered by a police officer, six black people were killed by six of their own race which was barely mentioned in the media.

I have three non-white friends & they've never experienced racial tension to the degree the media are reporting well not that I'm aware of, we are a multi-race society with the majority of us getting on with each other.

[danhirons]

Unfortunately I think the BLM movement is causing more racial tension

I have to agree - especially with it going way too far with things like television shows being amended or removed (little britain etc.). Obviously the original idea/message was very good but it's going so far that it's just starting to p*ss people off and incite tensions rather than bringing people closer together. Soon every TV show will be required to have a perfect quota of white/black/people from other ethnicities in order to be broadcast!

[weasel]

What we have seen is the ridiculous decisions made by tv people, banning Little Britain, Fawlty Towers etc, because they don't understand the points breing made and panicking as they don't want to alienate black viewers.

The taking a knee campaign is all well and good but it isn't going to change the minds of anyone who is racist and will antagonise some as shown last night. All it can do is show that the majority of people don't want to see people judged differently because of their race/skin colour. It won't change the opinion of a racist cop but hopefully the people above the racist cop will see that the majority of people don't agree with what happened and they will get tougher on weeding out the racist cops.

You aren't going to ever stop racism. You will always have people not liking people of a different colour and that goes for some blacks who will hate whites and not differentiate between a white person who isn't racist and a white person that is - they will simply hate all white people.

[YorkshireSquare]

...especially with it going way too far with things like television shows being amended or removed (little britain etc.)

In some cases this is done with good reason. In some cases it is an overreaction which in many ways distracts from the cause.

Most black people I know don't care about Little Britain, they just don't want to get stopped by the police more often than a white person, or have equal oportunities in terms of education and employment.

[jimmy90]

Soon every TV show will be required to have a perfect quota of white/black/people from other ethnicities in order to be broadcast!

I don't think this is possible, but there will be affirmative action taken to correct institutional, accidental and deliberate bias against minorities.

From the BLM website:

https://blacklivesmatter.com/what-we-believe/

We acknowledge, respect, and celebrate differences and commonalities.

We work vigorously for freedom and justice for Black people and, by extension, all people.

I hope what I said in no way comes across as inflamatory. That's the last thing I want. I'm more worried about Fulham next weekend. MOT.

[WhiteRose]

I think some people feel abit threatened by it, as if black people are trying to marginalise other races where in reality they are only highlighting their own plight. No one is suggesting other races lives dont matter.

I agree with black lives matters core message of racial equality and justice for all. I am not down with defunding the police or the removal of capitalism. nor do i agree with positive discrimination as this still isnt equality. what does seem a little counterproductive is the seeming unwillingness from BLM or anyone else to accept that black on black murder is exceptionally high when compared to white on black for example - is it not time for some introspective analysis of this? or dont black lives matter when they kill each other? I know im on a tightrope here so i'll leave it at that.

Football needs to keep the message there but the shirts and kneeling i think need to stop now before it starts to become a token gesture and irksome

[YorkshireSquare]

Football needs to keep the message there but the shirts and kneeling i think need to stop now before it starts to become a token gesture and irksome

I see this as an issue with the big corporations changing their logos to rainbows every year for pride. Feels like a token gesture, just doing it because everyone else is. Means nothing if you don't back it up. Likewise with this, at the first game, as a spontaneous gesture the kneeling was powerful. If teams just do it at the start of a game now, a week on, it just feels like going through the motions.

[John in Louisiana]

Its obviously a protest again Black lives matter, but it stinks a bit of double standards.

We've had had BLM rammed down our throats for the past 4 weeks yet someone cannot say white lives matter?

I don't really get why one is acceptable but the other isn't

Really?

We don't say "white lives matter" because it's already obvious to everyone that they do, at least to the police, the school systems, and other people in positions of power.

We do say "black lives matter" because black people have been treated as though their lives don't matter since time immemorial, especially here in the USA.

When we say "black lives matter" we are not saying other lives don't. We're saying it because there is a very large portion of our population that seems to believe they don't. Those statues to Confederate soldiers - erected forty and fifty years after the end of the Civil War - didn't get there by accident. In America, a black man inspecting a BB gun in a WalMart store is shot and killed by police while a white mass murderer like Dylann Roof - who killed nine black church-goers - is apprehended alive and fed a meal from the local Burger King.

We don't say "white lives matter" for the same reason we don't say "breathing matters." Everyone knows that. We do say "black lives matter" because here in America, when a black man says "I can't breathe," it doesn't matter*.

* Google Eric Garner, who was choked to death by NYC police for the crime of selling loose cigarettes. The officer who killed him has never spent a day in jail.

[Clacton White]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/53145201

I don't wish to be controversial as this is a sensitive subject

I have good friends whose skin colour are not white however,

Surely all lives matter don't they ?

I'd agree that all lives matter , no matter who . You can't value one person more important than another IMO . Mind you , Boris has other idea's I think ...... lives matter but money matters more .
Touchy subject really as you say , you can say something perfectly innocuous to yourself but others take it the wrong way and sometimes you think just step back and don't get involved in this . I thought as lot of this type of thing had become more irrelevant these days but must admit where I live there doesn't seem to be much of a problem , but probably due to just that , where I live , its a bit in the sticks and away from inner city problems ........... mind you I hear Suffolk is fast approaching the seventeenth century now ...... and they now have " the wheel" as well as "fire " .

[Mick Jones shoulder]

Don't think you'll find any discrimination in the British education system. Plenty of ethnic minority children seem to do well, providing they put in the time, see what I said put the time in.
That goes for white kids too. Shame our education system has been dumbed down in recent times following the us path in certain respects. Problems for me started when it was easier for mothers of any colour to be wedded to the state rather than partners in the Blair era. I did see some stats somewhere saying up until the 80's75% of black kids in the US had a father living at home now flipped to 25%, says it all really no roll models. Same happened here for all colours. Racism isn't acceptable on any level but don't blame the system if you can't be arsed to try at school.
Take this as you please.

[John in Louisiana]

Racism isn't acceptable on any level but don't blame the system if you can't be arsed to try at school.
Take this as you please.

Easy to say when you have a decent school in your neighborhood.

Don't know how it works in the UK, but in the US, schools are paid for through property taxes and the wealthy (mostly white) have created school districts that exclude poor (mostly black) neighborhoods. As a result, the wealthy districts have excellent, well-funded schools, while poor districts suffer with things like large class sizes (35 or more), outdated text books, little or no extra-curricular activities, and decaying physical plants.

Also, in the US, a black college graduate, on average, makes less than a white high school dropout.

Again, I can't speak to the situation in the UK, but here in the US the effects of institutionalized racism are pernicious and real. They are proof that black lives simply don't matter in the way that white ones do. It's been that way for 400 years on this continent and it needs to stop.

[Mick Jones shoulder]

Your a lecturer?
My brother teaches biology in Louisiana and has taught for 40 plus years in the US in upstate New York, phily, Georgia and thinks its gone to pot basically. Kids just being taught facts to pass exams opposed to gaining actual knowledge. School kids here are 30 /30 plus in a class. And I reiterate if you want to succeed you can.

[Clacton White]

Easy to say when you have a decent school in your neighborhood.

Don't know how it works in the UK, but in the US, schools are paid for through property taxes and the wealthy (mostly white) have created school districts that exclude poor (mostly black) neighborhoods. As a result, the wealthy districts have excellent, well-funded schools, while poor districts suffer with things like large class sizes (35 or more), outdated text books, little or no extra-curricular activities, and decaying physical plants.

Also, in the US, a black college graduate, on average, makes less than a white high school dropout.

Again, I can't speak to the situation in the UK, but here in the US the effects of institutionalized racism are pernicious and real. They are proof that black lives simply don't matter in the way that white ones do. It's been that way for 400 years on this continent and it needs to stop.

Out of curiosity, what do American Indians make of all this , when they were there before both sides of the argument ? They do seem to be largely forgotten .

[Mick Jones shoulder]

Still stuck on reservations and largely forgotten about.

[Durly]

Regarding the, 'more black people are killed by other blacks than by whites' comments, is the implication here that black people, or black culture, are intrinsically more violent? Or that there is no institutional racism which leads black people to be disproportionately killed at the hands of white police?

Look at what you are saying here. The comment completely ignores all the economic and social factors which lead to high crime rates in impoverished ghettos, which are largely inhabited by black people because of the disadvantages they face. The implication that black people are more violent simply because they are black is a racist trope. The idea that anyone can make it if they try, in other words, black people are poor because they are lazy, is also untrue, and another racist trope.

Pretty much all this.

I'm just staggered that the idea and sentiment behind "BLM" has to keep being explained to people over and over and over again and that it is somehow seen by some white people as a kind of slight on them, meaning that their lives are somehow less important.

"White Lives Matter"........bloody hell......talk about completely missing the point (although I would venture to suggest that the people who commissioned that banner knew EXACTLY what they were doing).