What are you watching on TV? Page 1,496

Quote: Badge @ August 12 2011, 10:56 PM BST

He started backtracking a bit, but didn't really have a defence against the implication that David Lammy sounds white so he is a better person.

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I didn't take it that he meant that at all, though. He was being barracked by the other two who wanted to score anti racist brownie points and was cut short. What he meant was that it was a bogus language they had created, and some white people want to use it to be seen as cool or whatever.

He recited the text of the obviously well born white girl as an example. Lammy was used as the reverse example. The point Starkey was making, and I feel, a good one, was that this 'black culture' and particularly its language is a made up thing, it's not natural. If some black people from a black area, for example, Lammy, can very successfully avoid using it then so can others. He's basically worried that this artificial culture has been created and it is bringing a lot of white converts in, and it is a bad influence with its focus on gangs, guns and drugs.

Good on you for considering the alternate view, but it seems to me an all-out attack on people who aren't white, and white people who aren't posh. Communities grow and change, as does language. Of course all black people don't sound the same, because they're not the same, and of course people of different races will pick up langauge from each other and develop it together, because we're not different species. The implication being that if you don't speak like the white privately educated then you're not worth as much is bad enough, but to imply that you're influenced by another culture and therefore a criminal is appalling. If you go to school with a mixed cultural group then you'll pick up words and phrases and pronunciations, this hardly means you're 'trying to be black', as if such a simple category existed in real life. Idolisation of gangsta culture is probably damaging but a shared language and points of reference do not equate to the same lifestyle. Lots of people I know, including me on occasion, say vexed, which is often viewed as emulating 'street talk' but is an old English-French word. Language changes and is shared and that is how it should be.

Well Starkey has a snobbish side to him, for sure. But here he was attacking the badness in the street talk which has become so widely used in London. If there was good in it, or if it was connected to a culture that was beneficial, not mainly bad and criminal, then I'm sure he wouldn't have condemned it.

And of course I'm not saying that everyone who uses it is criminal. Plenty of of innocent everyday people use it now, but unfortunately will get labelled as potential badarses because it's very much become associated with gang violence, drugs and the rest of it. It's a problem which has to be looked at.

He didn't attack the older generation black British culture, just the new Americanised one, that's the point. It's not being racist, if it's anything, it's 'culturist'.

I'm not convinced that he knows the differences between language that has been inherited culturally and what he perceives as gangsta chat. There is no badness in street talk, just in the actions of people, and young people, black people, and those living in London who pick up phrases, are not mainly bad and criminal.
I'm glad that you're offering a range of reasons that need to be honestly looked at, but Starkey, in my opinion, is doing the opposite and further damaging people's perceptions of themselves and others in the process.

Quote: AJGO @ August 13 2011, 10:50 AM BST

I'm not convinced that he knows the differences between language that has been inherited culturally and what he perceives as gangsta chat.

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He think he probably does, he's very bright and well researched.

Quote: AJGO @ August 13 2011, 10:50 AM BST

There is no badness in street talk, just in the actions of people,

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I think there is badness when we hear that street talk in a violence galmourising rap song, as he mentioned. No good parent wants their kids to be listening to that and thinking it's cool.

Quote: AJGO @ August 13 2011, 10:50 AM BST

but Starkey, in my opinion, is doing the opposite and further damaging people's perceptions of themselves and others in the process.

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Starkey is provocative, he always has been, and pretty fearless. He deliberately challenges what he sees as follies or wrong and false and stuff. I remember him having abuse screamed at him when he was the only one who attacked the late Princess Di the day after her death. That's him!

I like your refusal to Americanise; 'badarses'
You're right, Starkey is a wind-up merchant and that's why he's hired to appear on debates

The point I think you are missing, Alfred, is that Starkey didn't say Lammy sounded like a respectable citizen. He said he sounded white. The pretty clear implication is that he considers white to be superior to black.

Then when he went off about rap it was like watching a Stewart Lee routine.

Quote: chipolata @ August 7 2011, 11:12 PM BST

How come? I remember reading the James M. Cain novel years ago and really liking it. Ditto for the film starring Joan Crawford. I'm looking forward to this adaptation.

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Because I just want to yell at Mildred. It's difficult to see the actions of a woman 'then' now maybe? I just want to be like SORT YOUR DAUGHTER OUT.

The Borgias. Great costumes and sets.

Ronnie Corbette's Comedy Britain...Ken Dodd is 83...wow, still at it with the tickling stick, good on him.

Rocky II. It's nearly finished.

He wins in that one, lost in the first one. Loser. He fights Thunderlips aka Hulk Hogan in the next one. Loser. Out of the sequels I enjoy 4(IV) the best. Ivan Drago is a proper 80s bad guy. Plus it has all the sexy montages.

I love all the Rocky films. Haven't seen V yet though. I love all the 80s Rocky films.

They are great movies. Unfortunately I couldn't really concentrate on Rocky 2 last night as that bloody Zooo woman was yawping my ear off about soft core porn music videos! I shall have to invest in the Rocky boxset.

I shall Rocky you in a minute.

The Victorians.

Interesting stuff

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amelia_Dyer