Ode to whiteness

[One percent 24,485]

Another masterpiece from the guardian 

 https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/may/24/british-poetry-scene-fails-diversity-test

[Austin Allegro 6,299]

1 minute ago, One percent said:

Another masterpiece from the guardian 

 https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/may/24/british-poetry-scene-fails-diversity-test

Oh dear. How can western civilization cope? If only we had more poets of colour who could move us with such soaring artistic achievement as Benjamin Zephaniah, with his epic work 'Dis Poetry'. Stand aside Tennyson, Browning, Wordsworth: 

Dis poetry is like a riddim dat drops
De tongue fires a riddim dat shoots like shots
Dis poetry is designed fe rantin
Dance hall style, big mouth chanting,
Dis poetry nar put yu to sleep
Preaching follow me
Like yu is blind sheep,

Does he write for BBC Pidgin I wonder?

 

 

[dgul 6,159]

That's a flawed analysis.  

You have to assume that it takes a few years for a poet to become successful enough to be published.

So, you shouldn't look at today's non-white proportion, but the proportion of 20 years ago (say).

I'd bet that it would give a closer match published% : population%.

[same thing applies all the time, but they never mention it because when you do the analysis properly all the problems just fall away]

Edited May 24, 2018 by dgul

[Bkkandrew 3,628]

Jeez, what pap. Well, guess what? The Guardian fail the sanity test!

I am glad I decided today to go extra on trolling them on my Goading the Graun series. Didn't post it on my thread, but it was insane stuff about linking Brexit with provocative alcohol displays to Muslims and another about Trump getting his way over White Supremacism due to some sports results.

[Austin Allegro 6,299]

9 minutes ago, dgul said:

That's a flawed analysis.  

You have to assume that it takes a few years for a poet to become successful enough to be published.

So, you shouldn't look at today's non-white proportion, but the proportion of 20 years ago (say).

I'd bet that it would give a closer match published% : population%.

[same thing applies all the time, but they never mention it because when you do the analysis properly all the problems just fall away]

The Graun and most of the MSM wouldn't do that as they are in the business of creating artificial controversies and problems to generate content. 

These stories are all about denigrating western culture and trying to force change wherever they get a hint of what they think is 'exclusivity'.

They don't complain, for example, about the low numbers of white basketball players or rappers or pharmacists, just as they don't complain about the low numbers of male primary school teachers or nurses. 

If they ever propose any kind of 'solution' to the 'problem' it is invariably patronising because they are trying to fit people into a mould according to their ethnicity. It never occurs to them that perhaps most black people don't want to write poetry because they view it as a waste of time and they have more important things to be getting on with? Or, that 'poetry' doesn't necessarily mean submitting a poem to a magazine. I bet there are lots of black young people writing their 'dubs' or whatever they call them on social media etc without the slightest interest or inclination in sending them to the Oxford Review of Lesbian Verse or whatever toilet paper the Guardian is interested in. 

 

[Charles Carter 385]

18 minutes ago, Austin Allegro said:

Oh dear. How can western civilization cope? If only we had more poets of colour who could move us with such soaring artistic achievement as Benjamin Zephaniah, with his epic work 'Dis Poetry'. Stand aside Tennyson, Browning, Wordsworth: 

Dis poetry is like a riddim dat drops
De tongue fires a riddim dat shoots like shots
Dis poetry is designed fe rantin
Dance hall style, big mouth chanting,
Dis poetry nar put yu to sleep
Preaching follow me
Like yu is blind sheep,

Does he write for BBC Pidgin I wonder?

 

 

Give me Pam Ayres anyday over that overrated Zeph bloke. 

[Sgt Hartman 8,049]

There once was a rag called the Grun.

Fit only for wiping one's bum.

It's pages of shite.

About being white.

And lesbians that weigh half a ton.

 

[Wight Flight 11,873]

I would suggest that rap is the black equivalent of poetry.

No one is complaining that black rappers outnumber whites by 100:1.

Perhaps we should ensure, for the sake of equality, that poets and rappers earn the same?

[Austin Allegro 6,299]

3 minutes ago, Cunning Plan said:

I would suggest that rap is the black equivalent of poetry.

No one is complaining that black rappers outnumber whites by 100:1.

Perhaps we should ensure, for the sake of equality, that poets and rappers earn the same?

Exactly. The Guardian are actually being racist by trying to get people of colour to conform to the white man's idea of culture. It's no different to slavery!

Tell your average Guardianista that and watch his/her/xer head explode. 

[Wight Flight 11,873]

White poets write about anything and everything.

I have no evidence but I would assume that black poets will mainly write about black struggles. Which narrows their target readership somewhat.

[spunko 8,215]

Semi related but the Sun website is claiming they had more visitors than Mail Online last month (30M). The Guardian on the other hand are still begging for handouts on theirs.

[One percent 24,485]

2 minutes ago, spunko2010 said:

Semi related but the Sun website is claiming they had more visitors than Mail Online last month (30M). The Guardian on the other hand are still begging for handouts on theirs.

I love going to the guardian website, just to watch the car crash it has become. 

[One percent 24,485]

17 minutes ago, Cunning Plan said:

White poets write about anything and everything.

I have no evidence but I would assume that black poets will mainly write about black struggles. Which narrows their target readership somewhat.

One of my favourites. I could post all day, but I will stick up one or two. 

If you can keep your head when all about you   

    Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,   

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

    But make allowance for their doubting too;   

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

    Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

    And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

 

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;   

    If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;   

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

    And treat those two impostors just the same;   

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

    Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

    And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

 

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

    And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

    And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

    To serve your turn long after they are gone,   

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

    Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

 

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,   

    Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

    If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

    With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,   

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,   

    And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

Another. I’ll stop now

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.   

    They may not mean to, but they do.   

They fill you with the faults they had

    And add some extra, just for you.

 

But they were fucked up in their turn

    By fools in old-style hats and coats,   

Who half the time were soppy-stern

    And half at one another’s throats.

 

Man hands on misery to man.

    It deepens like a coastal shelf.

Get out as early as you can,

    And don’t have any kids yourself.

[One percent 24,485]

One more for luck

Sunset and evening star,

      And one clear call for me!

And may there be no moaning of the bar,

      When I put out to sea,

 

   But such a tide as moving seems asleep,

      Too full for sound and foam,

When that which drew from out the boundless deep

      Turns again home.

 

   Twilight and evening bell,

      And after that the dark!

And may there be no sadness of farewell,

      When I embark;

 

   For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place

      The flood may bear me far,

I hope to see my Pilot face to face

      When I have crost the bar.

 

[Wight Flight 11,873]

My kids had to memorize a poem in primary school.

The eldest did 'If'

The youngest did ' in the ning nang nong'

Will stand them in good stead in the years to come.

[Wight Flight 11,873]

Son has just informed me that rap is an acronym of rhythm and poetry.

Every day is a school day.

[twocents 5,776]

6 hours ago, Austin Allegro said:

Oh dear. How can western civilization cope? If only we had more poets of colour who could move us with such soaring artistic achievement as Benjamin Zephaniah, with his epic work 'Dis Poetry'. Stand aside Tennyson, Browning, Wordsworth: 

Dis poetry is like a riddim dat drops
De tongue fires a riddim dat shoots like shots
Dis poetry is designed fe rantin
Dance hall style, big mouth chanting,
Dis poetry nar put yu to sleep
Preaching follow me
Like yu is blind sheep,

Does he write for BBC Pidgin I wonder?

 

 

 

You hear that sort of stuff all the time on talksport and 5 Live Sport.

[Sucralose Ray Leonard 1,655]

33 minutes ago, twocents said:

 

You hear that sort of stuff all the time on talksport and 5 Live Sport.

Indeed. I find Darren Gough an embarrassment to YORKSHIRE too.

[SirGaz 282]

Apologies.

 

A newspaper called the guardian,

Gives all lefties a monstrous hardy on,

It champions shite, 

About not being white,

With perspective from an African historian.

[Strawberry 1,885]

14 hours ago, Austin Allegro said:

Oh dear. How can western civilization cope? If only we had more poets of colour who could move us with such soaring artistic achievement as Benjamin Zephaniah, with his epic work 'Dis Poetry'. Stand aside Tennyson, Browning, Wordsworth: 

Dis poetry is like a riddim dat drops
De tongue fires a riddim dat shoots like shots
Dis poetry is designed fe rantin
Dance hall style, big mouth chanting,
Dis poetry nar put yu to sleep
Preaching follow me
Like yu is blind sheep,

Does he write for BBC Pidgin I wonder?

 

 

He hit his girlfriend

Benjamin Zephaniah

He can fuck right off

 

[One percent 24,485]

3 minutes ago, Fossildog said:

He hit his girlfriend

Benjamin Zephaniah

He can fuck right off

 

You clearly don’t understand the thread

have you only just got out of bed? 

Your words of wisdom, they must rhyme

or did you just not have the time?

 

[Sgt Hartman 8,049]

46 minutes ago, Fossildog said:

He hit his girlfriend

Benjamin Zephaniah

He can fuck right off

 

Haiku?

[Strawberry 1,885]

46 minutes ago, One percent said:

You clearly don’t understand the thread

have you only just got out of bed? 

Your words of wisdom, they must rhyme

or did you just not have the time?

 

I have not just got out of bed, my Haiku has gone over your head 

Edited May 25, 2018 by Fossildog

[Austin Allegro 6,299]

18 hours ago, Cunning Plan said:

White poets write about anything and everything.

I have no evidence but I would assume that black poets will mainly write about black struggles. Which narrows their target readership somewhat.

If a black man has a British sounding name (eg, Trevor McDonald) and writes poetry about the universal human condition without reference to race (like most great poetry throughout the ages) would anyone even know or care that he was black? I suspect the Guardian is only interested in poets with foreign sounding names who write about racial 'isshoos' so that everyone can know how right on they are. 

[sleepwello'nights 3,665]

14 hours ago, Cunning Plan said:

Son has just informed me that rap is an acronym of rhythm and poetry.

Every day is a school day.

Well why don't they just say so. 

Mind you when my son started listening to it I thought an appropriate acronym was C RAP.