Quote: Wellsy13 "No offense, but that's rubbish.
How can you be sure?
There are so many words, phrases, symbols, actions, etc that someone could deem offensive or racist that we don't know about based on culture, religion, geographical location, etc. It's impossible to know all of them, so very easy to accidentally offend someone. Someone who thinks they've offended no one is either ignorant or stupid. We've all offended someone at some point in ways we probably don't know because not everyone speaks up about it.
Context and intent are very important. The phrase "zero tolerance" is not always helpful because it makes things like this seem (for lack of a better term) "black or white". It's not. Not every comment about race is racist, and because some people cannot understand context and intent, the racist card or offence card gets thrown around too often. Everyone has the right to be offended, but not everyone that is offended is right.
The context of Argyle's comment was about race. That cannot be changed. The intent wasn't to offend. The fact it did and the fact that the context was racial means he was very ignorant and should certainly have apologised (I took it more as a slur on the people of Swinton being less progressive then as a slur on black people). Good on Kenga for bringing it up at the time. It's a shame wasn't sorted at the time. Maybe he'd had a few too many and couldn't comprehend how his joke was offensive? I don't believe for a second that Argyle is a racist person, just ignorant and certainly being unprofessional in his behaviour, and deserves the publicity it got.'"
Well that's some intellectual gymnastics; well played.
I'm sure that I have offended people at times - but I'm pretty sure I haven't offended them on the basis of a protected characteristic; which is not actually that difficult to do - if you don't have those thoughts, you don't say them out loud.
As an example - I work with people of many nationalities, including Europeans. I have had many conversations with them recently, about their experience of Brexit Britain - all without saying something as crass, offensive and racially charged as Mr Argyle is alleged to have done.
You're not wrong about context and nuance, but I fail to see how you can be so certain of Argyle's intent?