Post by pchallinor on Dec 6, 2011 22:35:58 GMT
The Times have been running long reports and opinion pieces on exploitation of teenage girls by gangs of Asian men for the last couple of weeks. The bare facts are horrifying - men of all ages scheming and plotting together to entice and abuse wee girls with the most cynical and nasty of manipulations and inducements. To prison with the lot of them, say I, and don't spare the public disgrace or the Draconian sentences.
Another aspect of their coverage struck me as altogether weirder, though - an insistence on addressing the issue as specifically Asian/Muslim criminal behaviour. Well, it struck me as a bit odd. After all, sexual abuse and organised sexual abuse between co-conspirators is hardly restricted to Asian or Muslim men... But the figures do appear to back up the contention that this type of crime is committed by those overlapping ethnic/religious groups, disproportionately to their percentage of the populace.
Well, okay I figure. The same goes for forced marriages, and we're fine with discussing that in ethnoreligious terms, so let's give it a go.
And then I notice the single common factor to each piece (I'll paraphrase, since the Times is paywalled) in that almost every one - report, leader, opinion piece - starts with the premise that the topic is taboo; that discussing it in racial/religious terms opens the speaker up to malicious attacks from the Politically Correct mob; that, in short, the Times isn't allowed to discuss this stuff in these terms.
Wait a minute, I think.
Flying Rodent
Another aspect of their coverage struck me as altogether weirder, though - an insistence on addressing the issue as specifically Asian/Muslim criminal behaviour. Well, it struck me as a bit odd. After all, sexual abuse and organised sexual abuse between co-conspirators is hardly restricted to Asian or Muslim men... But the figures do appear to back up the contention that this type of crime is committed by those overlapping ethnic/religious groups, disproportionately to their percentage of the populace.
Well, okay I figure. The same goes for forced marriages, and we're fine with discussing that in ethnoreligious terms, so let's give it a go.
And then I notice the single common factor to each piece (I'll paraphrase, since the Times is paywalled) in that almost every one - report, leader, opinion piece - starts with the premise that the topic is taboo; that discussing it in racial/religious terms opens the speaker up to malicious attacks from the Politically Correct mob; that, in short, the Times isn't allowed to discuss this stuff in these terms.
Wait a minute, I think.
Flying Rodent