Is Eric Clapton a racist?

xpost OK, well, I can't think of a better example without making a ridiculous leap, like, say you're Ziggy Marley's touring keyboard player and you spend the whole tour reading David Duke's book or something.

My only point is that it's totally possible to 'have black friends' and not necessarily do / say / believe things that are constantly advancing the causes of black people.

This is what happens whe you try to write serious, clear posts on ILM while listening to Half Japenmese really, really loud

u didnt tell us u were half japanese - this changes everything

Surely there's a difference between "to the right of Che Guevara" and "behind Enoch Powell"??

xposts

I'm not saying the guy shouldn't take some hits for these comments, but you guys are putting a little too much in when you take a musician's ideas as anything approaching cogent, reasoned thought on something as difficult as British immigration policy.

OTM

My only point is that it's totally possible to 'have black friends' and not necessarily do / say / believe things that are constantly advancing the causes of black people.

It's also possible to have black friends and say / do / believe things that actively impede the causes of black people. This doesn't make you a particularly good friend.

i hate ziggy marley's touring keyboardist, i don't care if that makes me racist

I'm not saying the guy shouldn't take some hits for these comments, but you guys are putting a little too much in when you take a musician's ideas as anything approaching cogent, reasoned thought on something as difficult as British immigration policy.

I don't think anybody's doing that, they're mostly saying "look, over the years Eric Clapton has repeatedly championed the views of a notoriously racist politician" and then drawing their own conclusions from that.

ziggy marleys half japanese touring keyboardist here w/a book recommendation 4 u

OK, I see your point there HI DERE. I guess the argument could be made that Clapton is kinda being two faced here.

I was merely defending the right of anyone who may live in a cushy gated community and / or has a voting record similar to Archie Bunker to claim they have black friends and not have it result in a liberal laugh riot, but I guess that's probably for another thread and another time

i just voted for africa on the toto song poll so i'm not a racist anymore

Today is the first day of the rest of your life, Matt. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. A chain is only as strong as it's weakest link. Oh wait...

just to be clear airports the liberal laugh riot comes from the obv fact that having black friends in no way precludes one from being a racist and to display proof of black friends in defense against racism charges absurdly illustrates ones lack of understanding of racism altogether thereby fanning racism suspicions

my wife's family is friends with an australian family who are very nice and friendly folks but the dad is racist as fuck. he always talks about enoch powell. so i guess i would be suspicious of clapton on those grounds.

this guy is pretty hilarious looking

http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2007/11_01/powellL0411_468x825.jpghttp://www.martinfrost.ws/htmlfiles/enoch_powell.jpghttp://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/4/4c/Enoch_Powell.GIF

if trolls could fly ...

good job of hiding the strings holding up his smile

having black friends in no way precludes one from being a racist

I agree with this

to display proof of black friends in defense against racism charges absurdly illustrates ones lack of understanding of racism altogether thereby fanning racism suspicions

but not neccessarily with this. How does it 'absurdly illustate' anything if it's true? I mean, unless you're leading a double life, I don't think this is an altogether 'ridiculous' defense against racism, especially if the person accusing you of racism has never even met a non white person themselves. Kinda hard to be a seething, frothing racist loonie if your best buddies on your bowling team are all black, no?

Is that really what Enoch Powell looks like?

Not all racists are seething, frothing loonies, is the point being made here.

Powell was castigated as an extremist by senior figures in the Conservative Party. This is the same party that less than 5 years earlier had fought a by-election with the slogan "If You Want a Nigger for Your Neighbour, Vote Labour".

^shut the fuck up!! is that true? woah x 1000000

if having black friends in no way precludes one from being a racist then having black friends is a fallacious defense against racism charges

see

Smethwick By-Election, 1964

xp

1+1 may equal two, but whats wrong with saying it equals three?

rivers of blood http://youtube.com/watch?v=zMTndhA21O0

pretty interesting - never heard of this guy before

So, wait...

if having black friends in no way precludes one from being a racist then having black friends is a fallacious defense against racism charges

It seems to me that the reason the "But I have black friends!" defense works in some peoples' minds is that they can point and say "I hate those people, and they happen to be black. I don't hate them BECAUSE they're black, per Exhibit 1 - My Black Friends." This makes some sense to me.

Now, this is entirely different to me than a person who tries to defend themselves as not racist, despite undeniably racist behavior, by pointing to people who they regard as their friends who are black.

pretty interesting - never heard of this guy before

-- jhøshea, Thursday, 22 May 2008 22:31 (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

64% of British people don't believe that Powell, specifically the Rivers of Blood speech, was racist.

And also - what is black, anyway? Chuck D.? Morgan Freeman? Janet Jackson? Mahalia Jackson? Kofe Annan? Joe Morgan? Toni Morrison? Mariah Carey? Tyler Perry? Peter Tosh? Pele? Kimbo Slice?

what are you going on about

Victor Wooten? Paul Robeson?

I'm just being stupid. My bad.

And also - what is black, anyway? Chuck D.? Morgan Freeman? Janet Jackson? Mahalia Jackson? Kofe Annan? Joe Morgan? Toni Morrison? Mariah Carey? Tyler Perry? Peter Tosh? Pele? Kimbo Slice?

-- B.L.A.M., Thursday, 22 May 2008 22:42 (1 minute ago) Bookmark Link

Poll.

keep in mind, powell was a pre-eminent classical scholar, and wrote books about roman history and latin in his adult life.
therefore, he can't be racist or foolish.

ha many xposts

i know this so i point at q-tip and he says...

ha many xposts

ha many xposts must get dissed?

lol

Powell was a graduate of SOAS! That shit always surprises me.

you guys are all ingorant when god makes a cd than you would not even feel his gory

spark it up dom srsly

I am not the best speller sorry I am not like god shining on his licks

Powell was a graduate of SOAS! That shit always surprises me

Powell and a lot of his acolytes liked to pull that "racialist not racist" sleight-of-hand tho don't they.

what is black black baby dont hurt me

lol i srsly until just now thought racialist was a hilarious term invented by ali g

It's even more hilarious when people use it to defend themselves against accusations of being racist.

what is black, anyway?

Skipping 4 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

woah @ image of dan perry fucking eric clapton's eyes

-- J0rdan S., Thursday, May 22, 2008 3:26 PM (Thursday, May 22, 2008 3:26 PM) Bookmark Link

See, sometimes I don't want to "click here" to see the messages I'm missing.

what was your best clapton concert. dvd was mine!!!

As well as his education at Cambridge, Powell took a course in Urdu at the School of Oriental Studies, now the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, because he felt that his long-cherished ambition of becoming Viceroy of India would be unattainable without knowledge of an Indian language