Monitoring racism in Ireland

by Seán Ryan Thu Mar 30, 2006 01:05

Mr. Mullan.

I do not wish to be rude to you and I'm going to try to be as polite as I can.

Your piece irks me bigtime. As have the other advertisments you have written on behalf of the let's give the celebs another platform to promote themselves.

The statistics you mangle have no meaning whatsoever. This 73% you foist on us - does this show the popularity of the site in Dublin or does it show the prevelance of racism in Dublin over other counties? What bearing on actual incidents of racism does it have?

What is the ratio of people who report to this site as opposed to those who don't report period and those who don't report to this body. Is the figure that describes the number of non-reporters the same ammount as the figure that describes those who specifically choose not to report to this particular body? Or is your statistical 'evidence' totally without meaning?

Admittedly you call for more accurate records of racism to be taken. But then you go and undo all this again by suggesting that racial incidents number less than a hundred in a year no less and again you do it using very dodgy figures in a very dodgy way. I suppose you do admit that the figures are very iffy. What value has all this contributed to the subject of racism?

In what way has it, or will it tackle racism, or indeed show it the red card?

Let me enlighten you somewhat. Nearly every person of minority in this country, whether they be a minority by race, creed, or inVALIDity experiences racism on a daily basis. Your bunch of idiots are still looking for the evidence rather than acting on it.

Your bunch of celebs need to shut the fuck up and listen for a change.

I see you have brought up the celeb's second favourite topic again, second only to their self-love issues, you brought up money.

Again I ask you to get real. And again I ask you to publish a financial breakdown as to how much you collect and exactly as to how it is spent.

by Garrett Mullan - Show Racism the Red Card Thu Mar 30, 2006 02:22 info at theredcard dot ie

Dear Sean,

I am very glad that you are content to know everything worth knowing but Show Racism the Red Card is not accountable to you. Seen as you as our bank balance is somewhere between 1,000 and 2,000 euro perhaps. If you read the article on research, the point of it was to illustrate a complete lack of monitoring of racist incidences in this country. The are 80 recorded incidences in this country while in the UK there are 52,000. The point of my piece was to expose the discrepancy in that it is not my belief that the UK experiences 52,000 more incidences, rather they have the mechanisms for monitoring.

Regards,

Garrett

by Seán Ryan Thu Mar 30, 2006 06:50

Look Garrett, I'm not trying to pick a fight with you. I think you're a good writer and you're very articulate. I like the stuff you did and wrote about the G8 conferences. I'll not say I agree with your politics, but I don't see you as the 'anti-christ.' And in truth your politics hasn't influenced my enjoyment of reading what you've had to say.

I have no doubts that you understand capitalism and all its ills. And that subject is a lot more complex than my rant.

When you write something and link to some other written work asking me to buy a product or just donate money or whatever. You damn well are accountable to me. You presume to seek mine or another reader's attention and then reckon you are not accountable for what you promote or say?

You didn't take this attitude with bureaucrats involved with the G8, nor would you have accepted it either.

Again my point is that it is pretty obvious that Irish society is or has become very racist in its practices. Suggesting we monitor it, is an act in redundancy, in that we should be stopping it. Period. Arguments about discrepencies in monitoring figures from abroad should inform you that monitoring abroad has not influenced or reduced racism either. These figures, right or wrong are useless if the problem itself is not tackled.

My point is that monitoring is superfluos to fixing the problem once it has been identified, at least this is the case if the act of monitoring is not set up to measure the effect the 'give racism the red card' has on racism. The data you speak of does not reflect this approach. It has the same effect and message as allowing the oppressed to look out for themselves, with the monitors cheering on the sidelines (or indeed from the very pitch itself in this case).

Simply put this type of thing has been around forever and racism still exists. It doesn't work.

Our educational policies on it haven't worked. Yet this campaign is going down the same road anyway. This is one of the reasons a financial breakdown would have been helpful. I have no idea whether new eduactional research is being funded or not. I think it pretty safe to presume 'not' however. You don't strike me as being an intellectually lazy man. You can do much better than this.

by matt Sat Apr 01, 2006 02:21

The value in getting accurate reporting of racism is not just so those experiencing racism can look out for themselves...the value of it is that you have something accurate and verifiable that you can point to when people argue that racism is not much of a problem in ireland. It gives you a resource you can use to argue against those who say that the current government has taken big steps toward combatting racism and maybe make the issue more real to people so when they read reports of racism in the papers they will be able to see it (hopefully) not just as a one off incident but as part of a widespread problem.
And the point of using celebrities is not just so they can blow their own trumpets but also so that it becomes more mainstream to be anti racist(and using celebrities seems to be one of the few ways of doing that with a lot of people. If they don't see it in the tabloids then.........)
But by itself it will do no good. Promoting awareness of racism is not the same as fighting against it as an awful lot of racists know they are racist and it doesn't bother them and an awful lot of people speak and act in racist ways but don't see themselves as being racist Fighting racism means not just telling people that racism is a problem in ireland
but taking steps to defend those who experience it in their daily lives and these steps don't seem to be a part of the show the red card website's intentions....

by Garrett Mullan - Show Racism the Red Card Sun Apr 02, 2006 18:58

Matt,

I agree with everything you said in your comment except the last bit about fighting racism. A few weeks back there was racist chanting at the Linfield V Shelbourne game targetted to Joseph Ndo. The following week the players held up the Show Racism the Red Card cards letting the minority of open racists know their views. There was no racist chanting at this game. This is a concrete example of fighting racism on behalf of the campaign. If you are interested in getting involved you can write to me at info@theredcard.ie

I can understand why you made the statement in that you may view Show Racism the Red Card as an awareness raising vehicle or education project which it is but the campaign is more than that. Our activity compliments that of campaigns by other groups and parties.