Hate crime extension

iviehoff
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Hate crime extension

Post by iviehoff »

Greater Manchester Police is apparently going to record as hate crime, various crimes against subcultures. The article mentions goths, punks, etc, as subcultures, but what about cyclists, aren't we a subculture too?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-la ... e-22018888
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Si
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Re: Hate crime extension

Post by Si »

There's a lot of people out there doing lots of work to make cycling be seen as a normal everyday thing than anyone can be involved in rather than a specialist activity for an elite subculture. They'd probably be pretty happy not to be included in such a list!
iviehoff
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Re: Hate crime extension

Post by iviehoff »

So I should have asked "don't we suffer hate crime too?"
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meic
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Re: Hate crime extension

Post by meic »

Si wrote:There's a lot of people out there doing lots of work to make cycling be seen as a normal everyday thing than anyone can be involved in rather than a specialist activity for an elite subculture. They'd probably be pretty happy not to be included in such a list!


Surely the same logic would apply for minority races, the disabled, and other existing victims of hate crime.
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Si
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Re: Hate crime extension

Post by Si »

iviehoff wrote:So I should have asked "don't we suffer hate crime too?"


Wrong question for me. I would have asked: how do we combat it? Do we claim to be a special sub-group (and thus infer that we want special attention), or do we try to convince those who might think that cyclists are just super-fit-lyrca-clad-blokes (or whatever the current stereo-type is) that cyclists are just normal people like them and so shouldn't be hated for being cyclists?
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Si
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Re: Hate crime extension

Post by Si »

meic wrote:
Si wrote:There's a lot of people out there doing lots of work to make cycling be seen as a normal everyday thing than anyone can be involved in rather than a specialist activity for an elite subculture. They'd probably be pretty happy not to be included in such a list!


Surely the same logic would apply for minority races, the disabled, and other existing victims of hate crime.


while I would agree that it is wrong to hate someone because of how they look/dress/etc, I wouldn't tend to class hatred on the grounds of disability/race/ethnicity/sex/gender on the same level as hatred due to gothiness (although, as said both are wrong). By equating ourselves with groups such as goths, we do run the risk of causing more adverse reaction than good.

At the end of the day, everyone can come up with a group that they belong to and that someone else hates...where should the line be drawn? Are we to campaign for legal action for those who make jokes about train spotters or brass rubbers?
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meic
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Re: Hate crime extension

Post by meic »

Making jokes isnt a crime.....yet.
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Mark1978
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Re: Hate crime extension

Post by Mark1978 »

iviehoff wrote:aren't we a subculture too?


Not really, any more than people driving cars are a subculture.
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Si
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Re: Hate crime extension

Post by Si »

meic wrote:Making jokes isnt a crime.....yet.


Depends who you make it about....if you started making racist jokes then even with the excuse "it was just a joke", I think that you might find yourself in a bit of trouble.
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meic
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Re: Hate crime extension

Post by meic »

Going back to my original comment, the point that I was making is that those groups will not be wanting to set themselves apart from society either.
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thirdcrank
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Re: Hate crime extension

Post by thirdcrank »

As I post from time to time, the Road Research Laboratory did some research on drivers' attitudes to cyclists and the preliminary finding - subject to the inevitable recommendation for more research - was IIRC, that drivers saw cyclists as an out group. The CTC mag published a piece from one of the report's authors (a CTC staffer at that time) along the lines that a lot of the problems were down to the imagination of grumpy old cyclists One phrase that particularly sticks in my mind was that there's no Mad Max out there.

IMO it's the classic power thing: people in a position of some strength bullying people in a weaker position. As I'vle also said before, the way the minority reacts can vary, depending on what identifies them as a minority. (Skin colour is harder to disguise than sexual orientation, for example.)

What seems obvious to me is that a lot of people avoid being members of this particular minority by not cycling.

Just to spell it out, I'll suggest there's some difference between cyclists suffering the results of poor driving and being the targets of this sort of bullying, but the latter is too often written off as the former.

Si wrote:There's a lot of people out there doing lots of work to make cycling be seen as a normal everyday thing than anyone can be involved in rather than a specialist activity for an elite subculture. They'd probably be pretty happy not to be included in such a list!


So what?
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Si
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Re: Hate crime extension

Post by Si »

thirdcrank wrote:
Si wrote:There's a lot of people out there doing lots of work to make cycling be seen as a normal everyday thing than anyone can be involved in rather than a specialist activity for an elite subculture. They'd probably be pretty happy not to be included in such a list!


So what?


Tsk, sorry I ventured an opinion y'lordship.
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Si
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Re: Hate crime extension

Post by Si »

meic wrote:Going back to my original comment, the point that I was making is that those groups will not be wanting to set themselves apart from society either.


No, but the OP was talking about comparing cyclists to goths, punks, etc - groups who do want to stand out as being different.
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Re: Hate crime extension

Post by thirdcrank »

Si wrote: ... Tsk, sorry I ventured an opinion y'lordship.


It's not your opinion I was querying, unless the people you are actually you. (The lordship comment seems entirely uncalled for.)
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Si
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Re: Hate crime extension

Post by Si »

thirdcrank wrote:
Si wrote: ... Tsk, sorry I ventured an opinion y'lordship.


It's not your opinion I was querying, unless the people you are actually you. (The lordship comment seems entirely uncalled for.)


Unfortunately, the unqualified response of "So what?", on an internet forum especially, can easily be read as an ill mannered put-down. And I can confirm that I am actually me but not all the people :wink:
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