They look the same according to Gavin Williamson

[SueEllen]

The politest thing I can say is he should have gone to specsavers....

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politi...arcus-24936859



Top Tory Gavin Williamson appears to have confused footballer Marcus Rashford with rugby player Maro Itoje during an interview.

The Education Secretary heaped praised on the campaigning footballer after Rashford called for an urgent review of free school meals in January.



Mr Williamson told the Evening Standard: "We met over Zoom and he seemed incredibly engaged, compassionate and charming but then he had to shoot off.

"I didn’t want to be the one that was holding him back from his training."

However, according to the newspaper Mr Williamson's team later clarified he had in fact met the rugby player Maro Itoje, not Rashford.

Marcus Rashford laughed it off reacting to the story with a crying laughing emoji on Twitter.

[SueEllen]

[SueEllen]

[northernladuk]

Absolute bollocks this is. He mixed two people up. IMO it's got absolutely sod all to do with race. He never said they look the same, which they don't anyway so how people can come to that conclusion is ridiculous. Bloke made a mistake and at worst he's an idiot. To bring race in to it just isn't needed IMO.

To get called a racist by mixing two people up because they are black is just going to far. Country is utterly ****ed.

[WTFH]

Absolute bollocks this is. He mixed two people up. IMO it's got absolutely sod all to do with race. He never said they look the same, which they don't anyway so how people can come to that conclusion is ridiculous. Bloke made a mistake and at worst he's an idiot. To bring race in to it just isn't needed IMO.

To get called a racist by mixing two people up because they are black is just going to far. Country is utterly ****ed.

The country lives on the output of "Reach Plc" - the Express & Mirror, and other trashy media from the Northcliffe family.

[Eirikur]

Absolute bollocks this is. He mixed two people up. IMO it's got absolutely sod all to do with race. He never said they look the same, which they don't anyway so how people can come to that conclusion is ridiculous. Bloke made a mistake and at worst he's an idiot. To bring race in to it just isn't needed IMO.

To get called a racist by mixing two people up because they are black is just going to far. Country is utterly ****ed.

Would he have mixed them up if one was white and one was black?

[Gibbon]

Would he have mixed them up if one was white and one was black?

I think you will find the correct comparison is would he have mixed them up if they were both white, blond haired, with blue eyes. And probably cos he's not into sports.

[vetran]

I think you will find the correct comparison is would he have mixed them up if they were both white, blond haired, with blue eyes. And probably cos he's not into sports.

No No No he must be a racist because they are black!!!

[_V_]

He did a whoopsie with this one.

[northernladuk]

Would he have mixed them up if one was white and one was black?

No, and nor would he if one person hide dyed blonde hair or some obvious trait. Now what is interesting in this case the two have very different hairstyles so don't even look the same which would indicate this is just a stupid gaffe. There is enough difference between aspects of their features to make race not a direct issue IMO. Bloke is an idiot, he's not a racist in the same way the twitter trolls and other vile people are.

A better example of two broadly similar people would be the gaffe in the Irish news where they mixed Stormzy and Lukaku up. Both looked very similar at the time. Is that racist? It's rude and embarrassing for sure but does it make anyone a racist?

It's a well documented thing called Own-Race Bias. The title tells you most of what you need to know about that but it proves it exists, across the world and across races. Obviously happens more in societies that aren't as multicultural but the following report uses Malaysia as a test subject due to it's diversity and opportunities to be spend time with many more people of a different race. Even there ORB existed. So if it's a fundamental failing of all humans regardless of the diversity around them then it can't be racist in the terms people are using here.

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles...020.00208/full

It's not an excuse I get that. Every time it happens it will always be an uproar for sure. Peoples feelings will be hurt and whoever made the mistake is gonna have to do some soul searching and improve but if it's a documented behaviour as the report suggests then we are never ever going to get away from it.

Maybe it's just me being touchy about the term racist. To me a racist is someone that posts vile tweets, has a very obvious bias and all that. People make mistakes based on race doesn't put them in the same camp as the former. Maybe it's just misunderstanding of the term that gets me hot under the collar.

EDIT : That said I could have this all wrong and he genuinely thinks they look the same in which case he's a disgrace for sure... but I'm just not seeing that in this situation.... yet.