The Road to Internet Serfdom

A cautionary tale of good intentions going a little bit pear shaped. A number of Baggies fans commissioned the above banner (to be displayed at the Blues game) in response to the racist abuse meted out to the clubs new signing Peter Odenwinigie by a section of Lokomtiv Moscow's support. So far so good.

However one of the organisers of the made a throw away comment on a forum concerning the involvement of some of Birmingham's Black Community in gun crime (not without justification http://tinyurl.com/38lasae)  and an infamous night club in Birmingham (poor taste perhaps but racist not really). However this comment was forwarded to the powers that be at the Albion (one might question the motivation of the person who did this)  and now he has been barred from any semi offical involvement with the club 

This is a great pity because the guy is an activist (the sort of person the government's big society leans heavily on) and he must be asking the question "Why did I bother?"  For what it is worth having shared an Internet forum with him his posts are not inhibited by a great deal of political correctness, but there is no hint of racism.

This sad little tale does make me question whether it worth engaging in a dialogue online at all if every tweet, forum post or blog could at some stage be held against me, maybe a better approach is a discreet silence.

Then I thought sod it if the reader is going to be petty, small minded or easily offended there is nothing I can do about it and I will just have to suffer consequences of exercising freedom of speech.