JackTheBlue wrote:
Everyone who isn't white is exempt from getting charged for racism. FACT.
I'm with MRAMB on this - your statement is way off the mark. For one, I would only need to find one example of a non-caucasian being charged for a race-related crime to disprove your 'FACT' (Abu Hamza).
That's the factual element of your statement disproved, as for the general sentiment: simple fact is that white people are in the majority in this country and significantly so. With such a majority, it would be difficult for any racist slur to carry any sort of threat, the main problem with racist remarks (in regards to leading to charges) is the threat that is implied in the remark - there was no real threat implied by Diouf calling the lad 'white boy' - it is undoubtedly a racist comment, but nothing is gonna come of it. The amount of people who laid into Diouf afterwards, I'd imagine a significant amount of them would have made comments such as 'he only got away with it because he was black' - this is as equally racist a comment, and saying 'well he was racist to that kid' isn't a legitimate excuse for coming out with such remarks. If Diouf was surrounded by a gang of fellow black players, and had the ball-boy pinned into a corner, then possibly there is reason for real charges - similarly if he goes to a street corner after training and preaches about militant style black power, again we could legitimately feel morally outraged (if that's your point of view). What Diouf did really shouldn't even figure on the police's radar, much like van Persie telling the City fans to f*ck off also shouldn't. If every offensive comment led to charges, then everyone would find themselves with a record. It's the offensive comments that carry some sort of threat that are the ones that should be dealt with more harshly, Diouf's comment carried no such threat.