"ya'll white guys are not tough enough"

Coach Chuck Evans tells it how he sees it to his hapless Worcester Wolves basketball squad :

Former head coach Chuck Evans has admitted discussing race with the team and has since resigned, although he denies being racist.

It is the first time details of the alleged two-hour exchange, which led to the British Basketball League club having to postpone all their December games, have been made public.

According to notes taken by the players immediately following the post-match analysis session on Sunday, November 22, Evans, a black American, blamed the team’s recent poor form on there being too many white players.

He is quoted in the players’ notes as saying: “I think I have figured out the problem with our team... looking at the last two teams that we have lost to Newcastle and Chester, they were mainly black guys and I just think we have too many white guys on the team who are not tough enough and too soft.”

He is quoted as going on to say: “I should have recognised a long time ago that you white guys are not tough enough. I’m just calling it like I see it.”

The players notes are here. Six white and two black players threatened to strike after the coach's two hour presentation and were then sacked by the club's owners.

.."bitch ass pass...that's my white guys for ya"

..."you see, you see, look at the two guys involved in making that turnover, two white guys, I'm not crazy"

..."Look at James Hamilton (African-American (Black) player from Chester) he just pushed you (Wolves Caucasian (White) player) out of the way... and said uhh, take that ****... and ya'll think I'm crazy, told ya'll I wasn't lyin"

..."**** this is basketball, I know the business, **** it, I'm gonna get fired at some point, whether it's form here, or my next job, so if I am, at least I'm gonna say how I feel about this ****."

..."See those three black guys (referring to three black player from Chester Jets that made a defensive steal from three white players from the Worcester Wolves), they just are tougher... took the ball, said gimme that ****, don't worry I will find a solution for this"

..."Look at my black guys (black player from the Wolves) their fightin, fightin for everything"

..."Look at this ****, look, boom, black guy (Shawn Myers, Chester Jets) dunking on our ass"

..."I just say it like I see it, baby, I can say what the **** I want to say cause I am the Coach, so I say it like I see it, this is basketball"

Now for all I know he may be right. Perhaps white men can't jump. But if a white coach said similar things about black players it would be all over the BBC - which report the story like this - and Guardian. Yet this ain't. As ever, I can't imagine why.



UPDATE - the Wolves are sponsored by the University of Worcester (formerly Dines Green Working Men's Club) - an organ of the State which hosts their home games. And apparently their players have been coaching in the local schools - who, to be fair to them, seem horrified that nothing they're teaching the kids about racism seems to apply should the perp be black and victim white.

From the comments on the story (emboldening is mine):

BBaynes, Evesham says...

9.49 am Tue 15 Dec 09

I am the Head Teacher at one of the schools where the (sacked) Wolves Players coached as part of the team's community outreach programme. My pupils admired and respected Vid and his team-mates. To my children, the players symbolised all that is good about sports. We were horrified when we first learned of the sackings two weeks ago. How could I explain or even justify this action to my pupils? How could I explain that their heroes had lost their jobs for doing exactly that which we teach them to do - standing up to racist bullies? In primary schools today we take a very strong line against any sort of bullying, especially that which is motivated by racism, and all of us at school were deeply disturbed to find that Vid and his team-mates had been punished for standing up against racism. Since hearing about this, I have emailed and written letters to the manager of the team, the chair of the BBL and anyone else I could think of, hoping that reason and common sense would prevail and that these players would receive justice, rather than punishment. Hopefully this article will now begin to correct the dreadful injustice that has been done to them!
And finally, I, too, am American, like Mr Evans, and I am deeply saddened that his views might be taken to be representative of all my countrymen. Vid and his fellow team-mates WERE (and continue to be) excellent basketball players (just ask any of my pupils), regardless of the colour of their skin, or their nationality - what a pity Mr Evans was too short-sighted to realise this!

I am the Head Teacher at one of the schools where the (sacked) Wolves Players coached as part of the team's community outreach programme. My pupils admired and respected Vid and his team-mates. To my children, the players symbolised all that is good about sports. We were horrified when we first learned of the sackings two weeks ago. How could I explain or even justify this action to my pupils? How could I explain that their heroes had lost their jobs for doing exactly that which we teach them to do - standing up to racist bullies? In primary schools today we take a very strong line against any sort of bullying, especially that which is motivated by racism, and all of us at school were deeply disturbed to find that Vid and his team-mates had been punished for standing up against racism. Since hearing about this, I have emailed and written letters to the manager of the team, the chair of the BBL and anyone else I could think of, hoping that reason and common sense would prevail and that these players would receive justice, rather than punishment. Hopefully this article will now begin to correct the dreadful injustice that has been done to them!

And finally, I, too, am American, like Mr Evans, and I am deeply saddened that his views might be taken to be representative of all my countrymen. Vid and his fellow team-mates WERE (and continue to be) excellent basketball players (just ask any of my pupils), regardless of the colour of their skin, or their nationality - what a pity Mr Evans was too short-sighted to realise this!

revanscook, Ashton Under Hill says...

10.09 am Tue 15 Dec 09

As an educator, one of our most important skills to pass onto our pupils is to stand up to racism. Therefore it was to my utter astonishment that these six players were sacked for standing up to a racist bully. We need to counter racism in our modern world so that we can live in harmony, regardless of creed, colour or background.

I salute these guys for standing up to racism and it is just unfortunate that there employers and the BBL did not applaud them for doing this as well. In my eyes they are the heros in this dreadful situation and I suggest the Worcester Wolves and the BBL should re look at there disciplinary procedures and give these men the justification that they truly deserve.

As an educator, one of our most important skills to pass onto our pupils is to stand up to racism. Therefore it was to my utter astonishment that these six players were sacked for standing up to a racist bully. We need to counter racism in our modern world so that we can live in harmony, regardless of creed, colour or background.
I salute these guys for standing up to racism and it is just unfortunate that there employers and the BBL did not applaud them for doing this as well. In my eyes they are the heros in this dreadful situation and I suggest the Worcester Wolves and the BBL should re look at there disciplinary procedures and give these men the justification that they truly deserve.
Apparently some of the schools have written to chairman Roger Clarke to ask for the players' reinstatement. And I do hope these educators rank reading, writing and arithmetic higher than 'standing up to racism' - because a) that's the primary function of a school b) it's a lot easier to stand up to anything if you're not illiterate and innumerate. Sometimes I worry they forget that.

Smashing the Heads of Political Opponents

Sad news ?

or something we'd all like to do (and then watch the video afterwards) ?

Conservatives .... a liberal view

Mad ?

Or evil ?

The Breaking of the English Working Class

An experiment. Open this Mark Steyn piece on demography and Christian hoteliers (it turns out the Muslim lady who accused them was a (Christian apostate) convert).

Then put the cursor over the word 'immigrant' or 'immigration - you'll see it's double underlined.

Don't know about you, but where I am, up pops a picture of a middle-aged cleaning lady of indeterminate ethnicity, along with captions 'You have a Powerful Friend' and 'Want to know more about employee rights at work' ? Click the pic and you end up here - at the Directgov Pay and Rights Helpline.

"Not Getting The Minimum Wage of £5.60 an hour ?"

I can understand a desire among our rulers to recruit, say, dentists or real-time software engineers, although I would prefer to train up our own. But we have kept nearly a million on the dole through the 12 years of this government, while importing people to do the bottom-level jobs that pretty much any of us, no matter how uneducated, can do. Why ?

Jon Cruddas pointed out three years back that the govt "tacitly used immigration to help forge the preferred flexible North American labour market. Especially in London, legal and illegal immigration has been central in replenishing the stock of cheap labour across the public and private services, construction and civil engineering."

Immigrant labour "is the axis for the domestic agenda of the Government".

But it still seems crazy to me to leave people unemployed while importing others (thus raising demand for houses, services - not to mention the demographic challenge) to do the jobs the unemployed Brits should be doing. Why ?

The only answers I can think of are

a) the existence of an unemployed underclass keeps a lot of Guardianistas in employment who might otherwise have to get a proper job

b) it would also be a lot of hassle to get some of the Brit underclass back into work - easier to ignore them and get in compliant (for the moment - just like the Windrush generation and the early Muslim immigrants were) incomers.

c) to drive down wages. Without a couple of million low-wage incomers market forces might make a minimum wage unneccessary. As it is, Labour can say 'look what we've done for you'.

d) to split the working class - at which point racial and cultural divisions are actually quite useful. Low-wage workers are hard enough to organise as it is - even harder when they have nowt in common but their employer.


Any (printable) ideas ?

Monday Night Music - You Heard It Here First

I think Jack Hobbs (alas no relation to the great man) has potential, potuntial and possibly potoontial. And he lists Vaughan Williams as an influence. I'd ignore the bio, which sounds like something you'd read on the back of a 1965 debut EP - maybe that's the idea.

'4 minute turnaround' is the one to check out on the Facebook music player. Confident sound for a first year student. I like the Jeffersonian/Fairportian guitar, and the guy can sing.


UPDATE - just found this - slushy strings, Mr Acker Bilk on clarinet, and the voice, the voice. Hidden away on Youtube, not one of her best ever songs but still magnificent, only 79 views in two months - Sandy Denny singing Full Moon.

The Scots Are Bastards Too (it's not just the Welsh)

Oh, alright - it will actually take some time before the majority of Scots are born outside wedlock, just as it will for the Welsh. But their 2008 births have hit that magic 50% total.

The latest ONS Population Trends stats (pdf) are out. Links to the 'historic' data as far back as 1997 are here.

Headline figure is that :

There were 170,834 births in England and Wales in 2008 to mothers born outside the United Kingdom, accounting for 24 per cent of all live births in England and Wales. This is the highest proportion since the collection of the parents’ country of birth at birth registration was introduced in 1969. The proportion of births to foreign-born women has increased every year since 1990 when it was just under 12 per cent, with a marked rise over the last decade: the proportion of births to mothers born outside the United Kingdom was 14 per cent in 1998 (Figure 7).

The replacement of the English continues apace. Table 1, page 88. 25% of births in England, 10% in Wales, 13% in Scotland - higher than I'd have expected - and 12% in NI.

In 1981, the Census showed that just over six per cent of the UK population had been born abroad. By 2001, this had risen to over eight per cent, and in 2008 people born abroad represented about 11 per cent (6.7 million) of the total UK population (see Figure 3A).

Add the 25% of babies born in England to foreign-born mothers, consider that in 2008 23.3% of English primary schoolkids were 'ethnic minority' - these demographic changes represent transformation on a massive scale.

The bastardy and childlessness figures are interesting. An overwhelming majority of births to the under-24s are outside marriage (fig 5 p88), and while the number of babies born within marriage is increasing, the number outside is increasing faster (fig 4). The Scots have at last caught up with the Welsh, with 50% of births outside marriage, while Wales accelerates into the distance with 56%. England, at 45% is third while NI trails at 39%.

And in Fig 3 p86 you can see the doubling in the number of childless women since the 70s. Be interesting to compare that rising graph against the number of women going into higher education.

Trends in true birth order (see Background Note 3) show that childlessness among women aged 45 has almost doubled over the last two decades.

To see exactly who is having the babies, Pop Trends 137 (Autumn) is probably more useful, as it shows births and fertility by local authority area.

• The highest fertility level among the Government Office Regions of England in 2008, as represented by the TFR, was in the West Midlands where there was an average of 2.09 children per woman. The lowest was in the North East with 1.86. See Explanatory Note 8

• The highest level of fertility among the Government Office Regions of England in 2008, as represented by the GFR, was in London with 69.4 live births per 1,000 women aged 15–44, followed by the West Midlands (66.4). The lowest GFR was in the North East (58.7)

• The London borough of Newham recorded the highest GFR among local authorities in England with 96.5 live births per 1,000 women aged 15–44. The London borough of Barking and Dagenham and the unitary authority of Slough share the second highest GFR of 94.0. The lowest GFR was in Durham county district (39.4)

• Of the local authorities in England, Boston had the highest TFR of 2.81 children per woman, followed by Barking and Dagenham (2.80). The lowest TFR was in Westminster (1.21), followed by Camden (1.26)

I haven't got Excel out on these figures yet, but I'd imagine the scene looks very much as it did in 2006.

A quick Excel sort gives us the following top ten local authorities, ignoring Rutland, where a woman having quads seems to have distorted the figures.

Newham
Blackburn with Darwen
Bradford
Barking and Dagenham
Luton
Oldham
Peterborough
Pendle
Slough
Boston

Merry Christmas - and God bless us, every one.