new thread
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1220857/Tube-worker-tells-elderly-passenger-sling-train.html
UK news
Posting tabloid copy of it, as it shows many people's responses. I feel disgusted by some of the comments on there, looking at his hair and saying basically 'all long hairs are like this'.
I bet if it was the other way round (the old guy yelling at the long hair), this would never have made the press.
The whole story isn't told also in either the tabloids, or even the BBC. I read the man who took this video blog - and it turns out the old guy had caught his door in a train earlier by not being safe. So while I do not agree with his behaviour in this particular manner - i can see why I got round up.
I just hate how people view you long haired guys as thugs - most the thugs I see are short haired/bald!
Peace
Aamie
Doesn't show the longhair in a bad light, rather the judging posters and that paper. They don't even know the full story what lead up to the argument, also the old man completely ignores the worker's orders and the way I see it the "senior" should of been pulled out of the train and taken to the police.
Quickly went over some comments, not all bad there are many standing up for the employee as well, but saw some things like "long haired commie" (ie. communist) and "ponytail screams attitude". Comming from them those are compliments as far as I'm concerned. The ones hating on the hair are in lack for better arguments and likely on the ultra conservative/nazi/stupid end and just laughable.
Fully agreed! In my experience it's not how most people feel about long haired guys though and the ones that do tend not to be worth worrying about. Also because those that judge long hair tend to judge a lot more then just long hair.. coloured people, other religions, lefties, omg. the chinese are comming, omg. the muslims are comming, what's that music, wrong brands of beer, smart women, wrong brands of soccerteams, other sports, intellectualism, everything outside town, especially the next town, unknown food, it's all the world's fault, omg. we're all gonna die! Oh yeah and THEN long hair on guy's.
So you see getting judged on long hair isn't so bad.
Aamie,
unfortunately we have to show people over and over that we are not mean, uneducated, drug addicts or criminals. (that's the stereotype reinforced by TV,print and movies) :(
Mike
The reason that TV and movies promote anti-long hair stereotypes is that long haired actors are seen as uncooperative, because they won't change their appearance for a role. This results in them being punished by only getting minor parts as 'bad guys'. I was going to say that this reinforces stereotypes, but I don't think that's true. Instead, I think it may actually be where stereotypes against us actually ORIGINATE!!!
For this reason, we should push for hair blind casting, in the same way that colour blind casting was forced on an unwilling industry in the past. Their argument is that suspension of disbelief outweighs civil rights, and justifies not casting the black/hispanic/long haired guy simply because the audience will not be able to imagine them in that role.
Well guess what? They have it backwards. If they cast the longhair as the white collar worker, they will actually improve employment opportunities for us in white collar jobs. The audience will believe and internalise what they are shown. Oscar Wilde summed up the principle I am talking about perfectly and famously when he said "Life imitates art", and he was right.
The only long haired office worker I can recall in any film was Tom Hanks in Joe and the Volcano. There are several problems even with that. The hair wasn't that long, the office job was a parody of a bad office job (for some reason he worked in a windowless basement with grey cinder block/breeze block walls), and after he quit the job he suddenly had short hair, which reiterates the tired symbolism of major haircuts being associated with ending a bad situation. In the rest of the movie (the interesting part) he had his usual short hair style, and of course it's most probable he wore a wig in the first part, as we never saw the haircut.
"Life imitates art" was proven with black people, IMHO. After colour blind casting was forced on the TV and movie industries, people had less trouble imagining a black person behind a desk in an office, because they had already seen it on TV/in the movies.
The only problem I see is that too few of us care enough to do anything about it.
The thing that really irks me about the article is that it specifically states not once, but twice that the worker "is ponytailed". If it was a woman, would they have said "a ponytailed worker?". If it was a guy with a shaved head, would they have mentioned that he was bald? Of course not.
The article is simply trying to use stereotypes to support its one-sided view, and the ignorant masses lap it all right up. Some people will believe everything they read; after all, logical thinking is overrated!
-Dan
That makes me want to puke too Dan If anyone is to meet me they would find that i am not a thud nor a bully.
Birdman
The problem is that the press is never really fair with people when is comes to undesirable people
although I beleave that man should be fired not because of his hair but what he said to the old men
Why does the press want to veiw longhaired men as thuds I don't know
That is truely sad
Birdman
Exactly. The Media has shown many many times that it is simply a tool for expressing the political views of the people running that particular part of the media.
Conservative media will always bash liberal attitudes and vice versa. And the Tabloids? well, it's all about the shock value for them at the core, they feed off of the gullible and naive, who will believe the cartloads of hogwash they shovel, even if it's obviously made up.
I agree 100%, Birdman.
Paul
One thing to bear in mind is the newspaper covering this - the Daily Mail; the most irritatingly right wing, smug, middle Englander paper in the country. Very snobbish and Thatcherite.
Does my dislike of this rag show?
I posted the daily mail view mainly because of the responses from the middle class. BBC and the broadsheets also published it. :)
Yes they described him as the ponytailed staff member, if he had had short hair they would have described him with short hair. By the way the man should be fired and has no buisness working in any metropolitan transit systems.
I disagree. They wouldn't have mentioned his hair at all if it was short. And, why should he be fired? You don't know the full story and nonboy does so who is anybody to judge?
If he is anything like the transit workers in New York, he is an overpaid union worker that is always demanding more money even though he gets paid higher than 75 percent of the blue collar population, he should recognize his good fortune and keep his mouth shut, cuz he has it better than a lot of people in his city.
Also last time I checked the rag that wrote the article is a tabloid, you can't really take anything a tabloid says as serious.
You still have to take into account whatever the other guy said, which the article doesn't. Until I hear what that guy had to say, I'm not gonna make an opinion of this article.
Like I have said, it's not just the tabloids it's been posted in. I purely posted the tabloid version of it because of the responses. The bbc gave the exact same story as here.
However, here is the blog of the guy that took the photo in the first place. I think it may be seen in a slightly different light. However, his outburst was a tad uncalled for:
http://www.jonathanmacdonald.com/?p=4024
Bull.
Paul
As far as I know underground/railway staff have the authority to prevent people boarding if they pose a threat, risk or fail to pay and as the guy was messing around with the doors earlier apparently he was right to try and stop him boarding the train. He was just slightly unprofessional about it and let his anger show by calling the guy names.
Most comments i've seen on the incident regarding his hair were due to the irony of him calling the older bloke a little girl when he himself has a pony tail. It doesn't try and paint long haired bloked in a bad light, but it does state that he had a pony tail and why not, it's a fact and it's not that common on blokes, if he was wearing a Fez i'm sure they'd have commented on that instead.
Being a bloke with long hair is not the norm, comments, stereotyping and piss taking should be water off a ducks back, if you don't want to stand out in any way then just look like the rest of the sheep.
I want to stand out, ok. But I sure as hell ain't gonna take any crap sitting down.
The article is wrong for pointing out his hair style. If you can't see whats wrong with that then you must be blind.
Paul
Who ever wrote the article has a big problem with longhair, let the editor know how this makes you feel.
editorial@dailymailonline.co.uk
Paul
This comment below is a sensible one.
"As a 74 year old I'm not a bit surprised at this young man's attitude. Manners, courtesy and respect, have been slowly disappearing from our society over perhaps the past 40/50 years. Clearly though, it appears that this young worker is unsuitable for this type of employment, where courtesy and patience are required.
Serving the Public can often be trying, all the more reason to have the demeanour to be capable of dealing with difficult circumstances."
- Paul Harrison, Pontypridd, 18/10/2009 14:08
Heck! I had many long haired friends in Britain in the 1970s and they were amongst the most decent people I knew.
However, times have changed after Margaret Thatcher came to power and Britain lost its industrial base and became a services-oriented society.
ok I have to say this .. no 1 - we dont really know what went on, we only see a bit of a frustrated transport guy shouting at the old man
frustrated transport guy has a hell of a job - have any of you been in the underground in London??? it's hell on earth, the people/commuters are horrible, its busy, noisy and yeah I said it - hell on earth
frustrated old man has a hell of a commute to get home - have any of you been in the underground in London??? it's hell on earth, the people/commuters are horrible, its busy, noisy and yeah I said it - hell on earth
yes I know I repeated myself but no-one in their right mind wants to be on that stinking/cattle grid platform at commuter time - and you notice no-one intervened, they just went for their train as normal..
How do you know that the person who recorded this missed what else actually happened... ?? what was the conversation between old guy & transport guy??
What strikes me is the so-called 'news' report which constantly refers to the 'pony-tailed' transport guy... they use that phrase repeatedly in a derogatory way .. it's typical newspaper bs imo - i mean the transport guy might be a total morone anyway but that comes in life.. there's a lot of them out there!!!
This behavior by transit officials is quite common in New York irregardless whether the employee has long hair, is black or white. All groups can be shown in a bad light, to use an English Example, the chavs in the UK who have short hair are shown to be violent and prone to stabbing people. I wouldn't worry about it, to me having my hair dirty shows a much worse stereotype than just being a jerk.