Ok. Little bit of background, for those that do not know of me or my life, I am Les, recently turned 64 & happily loved up & married to the lovely Carol after being widowed in 2001.
I also served in the Royal Navy 71-96.
I suffer with depression/lack of confidence/low self esteem, yet happy (ish) most of the time.
Now then, social media. I belong to several groups on Facebook most (But not all) are related to my service in the RN.
So far, so good.
I am in one very small group of former colleagues from 79-81 when we all served together on the same ship.
Thing is, the group conversations are predominantly racist jokes disguised as “banter”.
The politics is also 180 degrees opposite to mine. Don’t get me wrong, I have good friends who are leave voting hangings too good for the conservatives, but we have no problems rubbing along.
However, these 3 are wearing me out (an example – one of them commented on the person who reported Dominic Cummings had himself seemingly broken lockdown/ self isolation rules – when I said to my mate, does this diminish what Cummings did, he replied “who cares” which said to me that he was ok criticsizing someone, but not comfortable with my having a questioning view.
As I say, please don’t think that I am upset because they have different views from me, it’s all of the sub Bernard manning/Jim Davidson style jokes/ casual racism that I am struggling with.
I know the easy way out is to just walk away, but I am not sure if I am willing or able to do that.
Am I being unreasonable with myself here? Should I just chuckle along for the sake of old times?
What can a poor boy do?
Any/ all advice welcome.
I think we probably all find that we ‘outgrow’ friendships that are locked into a particular time and place – like school or college or a particular workplace. I was chatting to a relatively recently retired friend about this yesterday. He has found, to his surprise, that the people he sees most for catch-ups (pre-lockdown, of course) are former work colleagues, rather than school friends, hobby (music) related friends, etc., even those he wasn’t especially close to at the workplace. The bond to that shared environment/set of experiences is clearly strong.
I’ve never had that – having been self-employed from 1994-2001, and self-employed again since 2012. I think I only maintain contact (occasional cafe sessions) with one person from that 10 year interval working for an education board, though I’d stop and chat with some others if I bumped into them (which very rarely happens).
In your case, Jack The B, I imagine the shared workplace (on the ship) was a very intensive, all-encompassing situation, so it has clearly imprinted itself on you in a way that friends who didn’t share that experience could never grasp fully. So you’ll always have an indelible connection to people from that time. But it doesn’t mean you have to spend time with them – especially if their banter is causing you discomfort.
I’d suggest that you become a less involved member of the FB group – no big flounces, just contribute less/check it less. Remove yourself from the 70s racism. Fill the gap with something else – a different FB group on a hobby/interest, for instance. If your Navy pals care, they’ll come looking for you, and if an opportunity presents itself you can just say that you’ve grown uncomfortable with the nature of the banter, but that you don’t want to be prescriptive about the way others get on.
Wise words.
Wise words indeed.
This …
(far more articulate than my attempt below)
It’s not your problem if they don’t like your questioning of their views – if you’re part of a group, you have as much right to challenge the drivel they come out with as they have to say it in the first place. Great track that it is, I’ve never been a fan of the sentiments of the Special AKA song “Racist Friend” i.e. that the only option is to walk away and leave them to it.
If you’re comfortable speaking up when they come out with racist claptrap, you should do so – who knows, you might educate them. Similarly, if you don’t want to, there’s nothing wrong with taking the Dammers’ option.
I agree. However, compared to 1979 when Dammers wrote Racist Friend, we live in different times. There is a momentum against racism that wasn’t really there forty years ago in the way there is now.
I know people who talk like this. I gently point out that they are making assumptions that are racist and that their views are, to be generous, old-fashioned. These days especially, they need to think about what they say. Just look at the video clips. The brutality is totally horrendous. Their ‘banter’ is not funny. I haven’t been in a punch-up yet.
Still, you know your friends best, Jack. You know if they might be receptive to being called out.
Fuck ‘em.
You should feel free to question and debate and (I know you would) keep it civil. If they don’t, disengage on that particular point. If it gets too bad, walk away.
I was in a Whats App group recently which was supposed to be a light hearted pub to keep us sane through Covid, but rapidly turned into expletive ridden rants about the effing government, effing Domenic Cummings, effing idiots clapping the NHS, effing Major Effing Tom, stopping Remembrance Day etc etc and as a result of a relatively mild counterpoint from me a mate of 20 years is no longer speaking to me! Needless to say I left said group and they are presumably ranting still but I don’t have to see it popping up every day and I’m much happier for it.
Hi Les – You say ‘I know the easy way out is to just walk away, but I’m am not sure if I am willing or able to do that’
Can I ask why you say ‘ I am not sure if I am willing or able to do that’
The pluses I get from being in contact with people I was very close to 40 years Ago is the biggest thing.
However, I am almost at the point where I think I should walk.
Whenever someone posts I think to myself even before I look at it, that this is going to be something I am not going to be comfortable with.
More & more I think that just walking away would be for the best, yet just keeping my head down would be easier.
Colin H makes a sound suggestion that seems to strike a balance between confrontation [which, like most of us you don’t particularly want] and not simply flouncing. Take a step back and see how much you miss the group and who, if any, seek you out. He puts it better ^^ up there ^^
Good luck.
What about family? My father was one of 10 so I have many cousins. Am closest to one in his late 60s who I have always considered to be a great guy. On facebook he re-posts all sorts of right wing crap, started with Brexit, but other stuff has crept in. He has also messaged me with a few misogynist videos. At the moment I am just ignoring them.
I’m thinking you’re there to connect to your past and the support/camaraderie of then.
The truth is, that many years later you’ve all moved on, and not all thinking and acting the same way (Mr Siege-Mentality has long since departed)
Stay in the Group – if anyone new joins at least they can see you’re in there too – just don’t participate or visit much (if at all)
(Facebook is pretty good at not giving you feeds from Groups you no longer regularly view or write on)
If you find someone you want to continue to interact with, or someone finds you, Friend them outside the Group.
This might be stating the bleedin obvious), but if it helps you thought process any?
(if not, just ignore me – a lot of people do)
All comments/posts have been gratefully received, thank you all.
One of the strange things about all of this is that I feel perfectly at home here talking bollocks about music, films, books, TV & many other subjects yet my closest ex forces/ RN sites tend to end up with me feeling as if I don’t belong there anymore.
Coming here cheers me up, Facebook invariably doesn’t, so I think the answer is staring me in the face.
I think that not saying anything but letting the friendship/ contact die on the vine is the way for me to go.
Thanks everyone.
I understand the difficulty of your dilemma. These are people you spent a lot of time in close proximity with who would have put their lives on the line for you. Your civilian friends might share your political views but are unlikely to have that same discipline as your military friends. That is a strong bond to break. Is it bravado on their part or are their beliefs so out of step with society?
Military and police people tend to be to the right in their social and political views. I imagine those from pre- politically-correct days tend to have stuck with the non-pc views they had then, particularly when keeping the company of others who are that way inclined. The views get reinforced and anyone breaking ranks gets ganged up against.
You should keep your presence there, so that you know what’s going on with them, but reduce it to a more comfortable level and get more involved elsewhere, where you feel more comfortable.
Welcome back my friend to the show that never ends!
Do you even like prog?
The only wrong response is to do nothing
Just after I read this post I saw this Twee5 from David Baddiel, which seemed relevant.
Was trying to think what to say and then read Colins post and thought that I can’t improve on that. From what you say the fact that it’s making you feel uncomfortable before you even check the latest post probably tells you all you need to know. Good luck!
I had the same recent experience as Twang up there . My boss read on LinkedIn that a COVID Whats App chat group would be great, so he set it up – and told us to enrol and engage in banter on there.
After a week or so, the racist stuff started to come through. It wasn’t out and out seig heil but just really unpleasant. To give you an idea, one pic was a cartoon of an old lady completing a jigsaw – we see that the jigsaw is a very clear photograph of a naked black man with the missing pieces being his penis. The boss good-naturedly asked for the content to be mindful of different sensibilities – but this was catnip to the PC gone mad brigade.
“Just posting this joke – if it’s allowed!!! – ” (or, more likely, “aloud’ )
I got a new phone so I lost all my existing apps and haven’t bothered rejoining the group. It’s only about 4 loudmouth older guys with their injokes so I am quietly leaving it.
We do forget how good the Afterword is.
The past is another country. And it makes me a foreigner every time, praise be. Go where you feel you, Les, no longer do you have to be what is expected.
I have a rugby friend who served in the Australian Navy.
He has similar views to your friends, albeit through an American lens, that he freely expresses over the internet, although not in person. I’m never quite sure if he means is, is exaggerating, or just shit stirring.
I just told him point blank that I like his company, I don’t like his internet views and I don’t want to be associated with them and by staying friends I’m tacitly endorsing them. I then unfriended him on Facebook.
We’re still friends.
I started to switch off feeds from friends who endlessly seem to post all lives matter and news stories of riots. I tried to have some discussions but they seem to exist in a place where they don’t feel the need to justify or evidence what they say. I just can’t be bothered to put up with the nastiness and smugness. So I don’t.
Will be interesting after lock down. But these people don’t make these kind of remarks in actual life – only social media.
Les I’d suggest staying friends with your old shipmates who are important to you on an individual basis so you can keep in touch with them, and they can keep in touch with you – but maybe leave the group discussion as it sounds like that’s not helpful. I know exactly what yr talking about – but it’s possible to be friends with people who have views very different to yr own without being a part of a group of people they’re in and being part of the “bantz”
Excellent thread, Jack. You articulate your unease so well, that I am sure you will find your way forward.
This kind of problem in something that we all face in many different ways.
Mrs KFD grew up in the countryside on Öland which is where the odious Swedish Democrats have their support. Sometimes at family gatherings down there we hear opinions or” facts” that I can’t accept. I try to gently suggest that there might be another way of looking at things.
Sometimes you have the opportunity to gently change peoples views. My late Mother in Law grew up in the Hitler youth and had mild racist views as a remnant of that time. When my daughter came along she was the apple of her Nan’s eye. Nan used to child mind her at our house while my wife and I worked. In about the second year of school my daughter asked if her school friend could come round after school. Nan obviously said yes that would be fine. The friend in question was a Greek Cypriot and her skin was of a darker shade.
After she had left my daughter asked her Nan ‘what do you think of Elena?’.
Her Nan said she thought she was very nice but ‘what religion is she?’.
My daughter despite her young age said ‘she is the same religion as me but that is not important’. Her Nan reflected on this and if she continued to hold those views she kept them to herself.
I have a friend who I spent a lot of time with in the early 70s – we were as-close-as-this – reconnected on FB a few years ago and we are obviously politically opposite, but there was and still is a genuine bond between us so I choose to ignore the differences and connect the way we used to.
Old friendships are precious. I’m with Colin H above – back off and see how it goes
I recognise this one. My diverse social life inevitably means that somewhere along the line there are people I know well – like well, even – whose values I don’t share. I think we can accept not sharing values; it’s the way they are expressed that can stick in the craw, as it has with you, Jack. But some of those people, I respect for quite different reasons, for things I could never achieve. I think it’s good not to live in comfort zones and to know first hand why people differ from yourself. Apart from that, if I was to shed every contact who has made one too many dodgy posts or jokes, that would involve walking away from my local and my sport, not to mention bits of family; I would also have to be something of a recluse at work.
I think the essential thing is to be honest to yourself. Remaining silent in the presence of something objectionable is to permit it again in the future. I pick up in the OP that you suffer from low self-esteem, Jack. It’s quite likely that these people hold you in higher esteem than you realise – they have maintained that contact for 40 years for a reason, after all. They might not say it out loud, but if you called them out when their comments get too much, they might just think again, and think more of you and thank you for it.
Isn’t this really about the difference between online/social media chat and face-to-face get togethers? I have the same problem with some groups that I joined of old school friends from the UK (I’m now in Australia). On my last trip ‘home’ we caught up and they were the same old crowd, if a little older wiser and more cynical. But online some of the same people are forever circulating boring, bigoted and unfunny memes – stuff they would not say in the pub, or at least if they did it would be with a concession to those they now would not agree. When I have replied online with a respectfully different viewpoint or with an attempt at being light hearted, it never ends well, so I don’t bother anymore. I suppose my point is that people are not the same online – and I don’t like the online version of some of my friends. I still belong to the groups but don’t take an active part – a lurker if you like, for the occasional bit of personal news.