"Choc Ice"

Racism connected with free speech is a subject I tend to stay away from on this blog, but the recent spat between a number of footballers on the issue of race and racism is a clear example of where we're going wrong in this country.

For the non football readers among my readers, English and Chelsea footballer John Terry was up in court recently for allegedly making the racist remark - f****** black, c***. It's with deep irony that the word which landed Terry before the courts was the one word I haven't removed - the word 'black'.

Nobody on the football field at the time heard the comment, even the player it was allegedly directed to. The trial only came about because of an off-duty copper who lip-read the comment on tv.

During the trial, at tax payers' expense, we subsequently had another English footballer; Rio Ferdinand - who understandably takes the issue of racism seriously - giving a running twitter account verdict of the 5 day trial, oblivious to the fact that Mr Terry is and was innocent and entitled to a fair trial.

When the verdict was returned, i.e. it couldn't be proved beyond reasonable doubt, Mr Ferdinand decided to endorse a racially-loaded term regarding the witness for the defence Mr Ashley Cole (who's black) 'choc ice. A term that is universally understood to mean 'black on the outside, white on the inside'. Unsurprisingly someone has complained:

A possible racist comment made against Chelsea footballer Ashley Cole is being investigated by Derbyshire Police.

A Twitter user, believed to be from Derbyshire, referred to Mr Cole as a "choc ice" on the social networking site over the weekend.

Manchester United's Rio Ferdinand then replied: "I hear you fella! Choc ice is classic hahahahahaha!!"

A Derbyshire Police spokeswoman said the force had received complaints "regarding alleged racist comments".

"These concerns will be fully investigated to establish whether any criminal offences have been committed," the spokeswoman added.

Obviously this brings up the legitimate criticism, or observation, of who draws the line with free speech and where to draw it. Once lines get drawn, anomalies appear left, right and centre. Be careful Mr Ferdinand for what you wish for - getting one of your own Twitter followers into trouble.

And it's precisely this culture that closes down debates such as immigration al la the excellent post from Witterings from Witney:

Challenges seem all the rage nowadays, what with Cameron receiving a hand delivered letter from the leader of a ‘political party’ (well, they consider themselves a political party hence my use of the term in inverted commas) challenging him to a debate on Britain’s relationship with ‘Europe’. Dan Hodges, Daily Telegraph, wishes to challenge anyone to a debate on the subject of immigration, but as one commentor – Davy – points out:

“You want a debate about immigration? Me too. Bring it on. Just as an observation, Dan, you’ve got the best part of sixty comments already and you haven’t engaged with any of them. If you say you want a debate, you’ve got one below. Step up, eh?”

And there we have another democratic failure when considering the state of our democracy. It is so easy for politicians to state that this country should remain in the EU as it is for ‘journalists’ to challenge anyone to a debate on immigration – and then to totally ignore the cries for a debate.

Mr Ferdinand defends himself by calling the usage of 'choc ice' a way of criticising someone of being fake - on those terms I would apply it to Dan Hodges - someone who pretends to want a debate on unlimited immigration but has absolutely no intention of following through with his 'wishes'...

Free Speech Goes AWOL

Old Holborn highlights a rather worrying development this afternoon regarding the on-going, and now getting very tedious, racism row between footballers' Luis Suarez and Patrice Evra:

Manchester United's game with Liverpool was preceded by the police confiscating several thousand copies of the Red Issue fanzine because of a spoof cut-out-and-keep poster showing a Ku Klux Klan hood on its back cover [seen above].

Leaving aside the fact that normal laws don't often apply to football fans, the Police's justification for such actions are deeply sinister indeed (my emphasis throughout):

The police's match commander, Ch Supt Mark Roberts, said:

"Officers are now seizing the fanzines and in consultation with the Crown Prosecution Service we will take appropriate action against anyone either found selling this particular fanzine or provocatively displaying the image in public.

Let's be clear that no complaints by the general public were received regarding this image, instead the Police have taken this action upon themselves:

"Officers have also been made aware of a T-shirt on sale outside the ground that is also deemed to be offensive. We are also seizing these items and anyone found wearing one will be required to remove it and hand it to police.

Deemed to be offensive by whom? Oh just the Police, so...

"At this stage we have arrested one man in relation to the T-shirts on suspicion of a racially aggravated public order offence and we will be continuing to work with the clubs to minimise the impact of the image, which we consider to be offensive.

"I have taken this cause of action as both items are potentially offensive and we cannot be in a situation where hundreds or thousands of people were displaying offensive images at a football match. The consequences of taking no action could have resulted in public order incidents inside or outside the ground."

To minimise the impact of the image? So a situation now arises where the Police can now confiscate arbitrarily, reading material because they deem it offensive even if no-one else did. And unbelievably and with deep irony the image confiscated is actually accusing Suarez, and by extension Liverpool, of racism - criticising and ridiculing his recent racist comments.

So, in a bizarre, ridiculous and very surreal twist, what is in effect anti racist material is impounded by the Police on the grounds of being potentially a racially aggravated public order offence.

One wonders what Ch Supt Mark Roberts would do if these chaps had been British.