I'm baaaaaack!

OK, first of all, I want to apologise for my poor post count in the month of December. I had tons going on, more so than at any time in the rest of the year, it seems, and didn't have much time to post. Hopefully, January will be a return to a bit more regularity.

In the news today, a new report says that staff training at immigration detention centres must be improved, recording a catalogue of "racist" behaviour in the system.

I think it's clear that there is some legitimacy to this. But one only has to look at the examples of "racism" given to see that there is little concrete evidence of racism there. There are references there to the immigration officials treating their "detainees" like animals or generally being rude or disrespectful to them. But this does not necessarily mean racism. Most of the insults directed could have been directed at any group of people in the same circumstances. We know that prison officials taunt the inmates, and "Animals, lock-up time" is a phrase that has no doubt been used in prisons, too. There is too much haste among people to cry "Racism" whenever the victim is black or foreign, even if no mention of race is ever made by the perpetrator.

The only one in there that is of any concern is the claim that one of the officers at the centre said "black bastards" - and I do not even have full confidence that this allegation is even true. But even if it is, it brings up another point I have made here many times: that while calling someone a "black bastard" is inexcusable, it is no different to calling someone a "fat bastard" or a "ginger bastard" or a "bald bastard", or anything else. If we are going to so ardently investigate cases of one of these insults, let us investigate them all.