The UK, and London in particular has had a lot of knife-attacks this year, many against young people, many resulting in death. Because of this, a Facebook application that allows users to 'knife' eachother virtually has been pulled off the site.
"Anti-knife crime campaigners condemned the application, details of which emerged barely a week after the British Crime Survey found that more than 350 knife crime offences were being committed in the country every day. In London, 21 teenagers have been killed this year - the majority the victims of stabbings."
Yet the 'All men are bastards' knifeblock, a model of a man with knifes stuck through his body which is described as being funny, is still on sale at places like 'IWantOneOfThose.com'
Remember, if a similar item was made depicting any other group (i.e. the 'all women are bitches' knifeblock, or the 'all blacks are asking for it' knifeblock, it would be banned in no time at all.)
I decided to email one of the people working at the companies that sell this knifeblock:
To: naomi.brown@firebox.com
Hi
Saw your post on here: http://mik3sb7og.blogspot.com/2008/07/for-man-haters.html
Are you really comfortable promoting this product which treats knifing men as funny?
Even if you find it funny, you may find the tide of opinion turning against you as knife crime takes ever more young men's lives. e.g. see what happened here:
http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article4415816.ece
Best regards
Darren
1 comment:
You are right Darren; but you are also wasting your time. These people are impervious to criticism. Far too busy grabbing easy money from idiots to worry about the morality of how they are doing it.
There have been repeated campaigns to have this particular product withdrawn from the market, and all have failed. I was involved in one a couple of years back. I got as far as a complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority, who proved themselves to have all the spine of a jellyfish, finding a way to wriggle out of any obligation to take action. Believe it or not, they insisted the figure was "gender neutral" and therefore did not encourage the stabbing of men.
I was also one of several people who signed a petition to John Denham MP, at that time a government minister, to look at the product in the context of knife crime. We received the following reply:
"Mr Denham has indicated that he is appalled at this knife block and the way in which it is advertised. he would imagine that this must, at the very least be on the borderline of illegal behaviour. At the very least it should be investigated and Mr Denham is therefore passing the details of this website to the local police to seek their opinion."
- which I took as very promising. Some hope. That was in September 2007. Since then, total silence. And the knife block is still up for sale.
John Denham: absolutely bloody useless.
The police: absolutely bloody useless.
I have only one conclusion: that for all its bluster, this government and its politically correct, castrated police force have no real interest in stopping knife crime. At least, not while the great majority of victims are only men. They will make a big fuss, generate a lot of hot air, and rush around like headless chickens until the topic slides out of the headlines. Then all action will be quietly dropped.
Paul Parmenter
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