London Cycling Campaign (LCC) says that following an investigation, it has concluded that a series of tweets sent by one of its employees two years ago – before he began working for the charity – “were indeed racist,” but has stopped short of sacking Simon Still, the member of staff concerned.
The tweets, now deleted, were originally posted by Still, LCC cycling infrastructure database project coordinator and co-coordinator of LCC local group Lambeth Cyclists, in February 2019.
Screenshots of them were shared on Twitter last week, and on Thursday they were highlighted by TalkRadio host Cristo Foufas – a vocal opponent of cycling infrastructure – on his late night chat show, with the story also picked up by The Telegraph at the weekend.
In a statement issued yesterday afternoon LCC confirmed that it had “recently received a number of complaints alleging racist tweets by a member of the LCC staff team, Mr Simon Still, posted prior to his employment with the charity. LCC takes such complaints extremely seriously and suspended Mr Still, prior to an urgent investigation.
“The investigation has been completed, and has concluded that the tweets were indeed racist. LCC believes there can be no excuse for such racist statements, condemns them and deeply regrets the offence that these tweets have caused.
“Mr Still did not contest that the tweets were racist. He has apologised unreservedly for the offence this has caused, especially to BAME people, and to the charity for breaching the charity’s values and policies in this way.
“The charity is satisfied that these tweets, which were posted as a short sequence, constitute an isolated occurrence, and has accepted Mr Still’s apology,” LCC added. “Mr Still has been removed from external facing duties for an indefinite period and will undergo racism awareness training as a condition of his continued employment.
In a statement, Still said: “I apologise wholeheartedly and unreservedly for the racist tweets that I made in 2019.
“I hope people will accept it when I say that I have never made such unacceptable statements before or since. I’m deeply sorry for, and ashamed of them.
“I recognise that I’ve got a long way to go, as do many of us on issues of race and other equalities issues.
“I undertake to increase my awareness of and sensitivity around these issues and to be actively anti-racist in all I do going forward,” he added.
In response to Still’s statement, LCC CEO Dr Ashok Sinha said: “This whole episode has reminded us that racism in our society runs deeper than we sometimes care to think.
“The board of trustees and I believe the best way forward is not to cast people aside but to own the problem, and take responsibility for working with those people to make amends and reduce future harm.
“This is a hard path, and we know not everyone will agree with us. But we believe it is the right path to take, and is the one we are taking with Mr Still.
“We will also now work harder to ensure all LCC staff and activists are better equipped to understand and prevent racism,” he added. “And we will redouble our efforts to make our charity as diverse as the city we love, working with BAME groups and others to help us achieve that goal.”
Most of the replies to a thread on Twitter in which LCC summarised the outcome of its investigation were highly critical of the organisation. One tweet from a member received a reply from another user of the social network, who said that racist views are not something that can simply be turned on or off, as the person expressing them pleases.
2. The staff member did not contest the findings of the hearing and apologises, without reservation, accepting that this behaviour was offensive and in violation of LCC’s equalities and inclusion policies.
— London Cycling Campaign (@London_Cycling) February 23, 2021
4. Moving forward, LCC is instituting a robust review process which will ensure we are actively anti-racist. We will publish details on how this will be done. Our full statement is available on our website: https://t.co/CxKuydCqJ9
— London Cycling Campaign (@London_Cycling) February 23, 2021
One does not pick and choose when one is racist. One holds racist views and it will affect their conduct and attitude. On occasion they will display overt behaviour and other times they will cause others to suspect it.
One does not simply switch off or pick when they ARE racist.
— Mohammad Rakib (@Mohammad12akib) February 24, 2021
Another Twitter user said, however, that since the tweets pre-dated Still’s employment by LCC, he should not be punished for them.
Ridiculous.
If they did something before employment they shouldn’t be penalised in employment— Rich Lloyd (@RichLloyd19) February 24, 2021
51 thoughts on “London Cycling Campaign condemns employee’s racist tweets – but stops short of sacking him”
Whilst it is up to the
Whilst it is up to the company to investigate and discipline as needed, i do think Rich Lloyd doesn’t understand the nature of consequences sometimes. Does he draw the line on all previous unknown items before employment or only on non-criminal offences (“yes, it turned out the person murdered someone two years ago but that was before he was employed here so shouldn’t be fired”).
If it is a spent conviction
If it is a spent conviction (eg for murder) then yes, done is done, unless it was required that it be declared up front. In this case, I think LCC have got it right. I don’t think it is right that a person should be unemployable due to having previously made racist comments on twitter, which they now recognise to be wrong and make apology for. Let the innocent cast the first stone.
Sriracha wrote:
Sometimes, reductio ad absurdum can help. However, a murder conviction invokes a mandatory life sentence and is never ‘spent’. Worth knowing – just in case anybody was planning anything.
I never mentioned convicted
I never mentioned convicted and spent though (although if he never declared them on his CV etc they could mean termination of employment as well). My comparison was Rich is stating that anything done before employment shouldn’t affect current employment, I’m just wondering aloud what his limits on the statement are or whether it is unlimited.
My assumption would be that
My assumption would be that they haven’t sacked him because he hasn’t been racist since they employed him. Or at least there is no evidence of it.
It’s possible that he’s no longer racist, people can change, so I can see why they wouldn’t sack him.
I doubt he isn’t racist now, but you can’t really sack someone for suspecting something.
He’s just saying what he see
He’s just saying what he see’s: a disproportionate amount of bad driving from a particular ethnic group. Applying the stereotype that the majority of young black men dable as criminals is where he’s shown bad judgement, especially in this day and age of ‘trial by social media’. To be honest, we don’t know if he’s wrong and we don’t know if he’s right; so how can we judge him fairly? I don’t think he’s racist, he’s just saying what he see’s and applying a stereotype – that’s not a crime. The bad driving is.
Don’t be nasty. We’re all brothers and sisters on this blue-ball, I love you all.
‘Applying a stereotype’ is
‘Applying a stereotype’ is surely by definition discriminatory (i.e. generalising from one, likely atypical, observation to all people of a certain class). If the stereotype concerns ‘race’ (whatever that is) then it would surely be a racist stereotype? Does he offer any robust evidence that black men driving Mercedes car are especially poor or incosiderate drivers? You are right though that it may well not be a crime.
alexuk wrote:
That sounds like a pretty good definition of racism to me. It’s not even just applying a negative sterotype to what he saw – he throws in a few other stereotypes, making sure to say they apply to “all”, despite not actually having any evidence.
Assuming the quoted tweets
Assuming the quoted tweets are the whole thing, he doesn’t actually apply anything to “all” anybody, except all the young black men driving silver Mercs like dickheads.
Duncann wrote:
Fuck evidence. Lack of evidence doesn’t mean something isn’t true or never happened. If I got knocked off my bike by a car which then drove off, I’d have just as much luck proving who the driver was as I would proving dolphins can feel pain. We sort of know they can but……..
Titanus wrote:
No, evidence is quite important, particularly if you wish to be taken seriously. You might “know” something, however, unless you can demonstrate it objectively it remains an opinion, and not “true”
What we “know” is as often informed by our biases as by actual fact. That’s why if you have an opinion it is particularly useful to be able to explain and demonstrate rationally. If you can’t, best keep it to yourself.
Are you from the Middle Ages?
Are you from the Middle Ages? You sound like a peasant from the Middle Ages.
I don’t think peasants in the
I don’t think peasants in the Middle Ages believed in dolphins…
Didn’t they just assume they
Didn’t they just assume they were mermaids?
I actually don’t care whether
I don’t care whether his viewpoint is correct.. I do care that he was bullied by his employer and made to aplogise for his free speech in order to try and keep his job.
Love a load of (presumably)
Love a load of (presumably) white folks discussing what is and isn’t racist…
I can kind of see where you
I can kind of see where you’re coming from but white people can also be subject to racist abuse. Just because it doesn’t happen when you’re around doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.
Ok, please explain further.
Ok, please explain further. Not trying to antagonise but I genuinely want to know when this has happened to you in this country?
I was mugged once (only time,
I was mugged once (only time, about twenty years ago).
Had my wallet taken (this is in the days before I ever used a mobile phone).
Late at night, walking home. Black man, younger than me, walks alongside and tells me to give him my wallet; I say “No” and keep walking.
He catches me up, tells me to give him my wallet, I say “No” and he says “I’ve got a knife”; I replied” No, you haven’t!” and kept walking.
He catches me up again, shoves me into a doorway and it turns out that he does indeed have a knife, reaches into my coat to get my wallet; I ask him not to and he says, “You’re f-ing middle class white – you can afford it!” (actually, no, I really couldn’t).
He was wearing very smart clothing (I’ve always thought it was French Connection), certainly more expensive than what I was wearing (typical office drone cheap suit and a coat from Oxfam).
Yet he’d described me as “white middle class” as if that justified his crime.
As you tell, its an incident that’s kind of seared in my memory.
That’s a rubbish thing to
That’s a rubbish thing to happen but it’s not an example of the systemic racism that exists in Britain.
I grew up in a northern town where me and my brother where the only 2 brown faces in a high school with 1200 kids. There were more incidents than I care to mention. I was born in this country but there hasn’t been a single job I’ve worked where my race hasn’t been mentioned. The ‘no, where are you really from?’ is a classic I’ve heard loads of times. I was once told in a university seminar that ‘if a dog is born in a stable that doesn’t make it a horse’ that was in the mid 2000’s so not that long ago.
I doubt your race has stopped you getting a job, had you searched everytime you to the US or stopped you getting housing like my folks back in the 70’s.
We might have laws to protect against discrimination now but I don’t think much has changed. I’m still astonished by some of the things I hear from time to time. Sad thing is I gave up trying to fight against it a long time ago.
I just ride my bike and try not to worry about it but as a minority within a minority it’s always something I’m a acutely aware of.
In fairness, Rapha Nadal said
In fairness, Rapha Nadal said that white people could be subject to racist abuse, not that white people were subject to systemic racism, so not quite apples to apples.
Doesn’t invalidate your point about wider issues, of course. Though I do find myself bridling at the ‘white people talking about racism’ comment – I’m no authority but presumably I can throw in my tuppen’orth without being told to get back in my – white, middle class – box?
Compact Corned Beef wrote:
Like modern debate about acting: transgender folks have to be played by transgender actors, Russell T Davies (for example) will only cast gay actors as gay characters (I don’t know whether he casts gay actors as straight characters?). Difficult. Pretty sure Leonard Nimoy had red blood in real life…
It must be difficult finding
It must be difficult finding daleks to play those parts.
On the one hand, it’s important that actors aren’t all white-washed and all the best jobs given to a chosen few, but on the other hand, acting is about portraying different characters, so I don’t see why there needs to be a strict matching of sexual identity to the characters portrayed. However, the film industry has a shocking history of using casting couches and blatant racism, so it’s probably about time that we had a wider selection of actors.
I think I should have stayed
I think I should have stayed in my box.
Everyone is entitled to
Everyone is entitled to expressing their opinion/point of view without fear of retribution.. people getting sacked or kicked off social media for their speech, regardless of whether it’s politically correct or not, is wrong. My government employer encourages employees to make comments supportive of minority interests, but makes it clear that any employee making comments anti minority interests, will be disciplined and likely sacked.
You’re wrong. People should
You’re wrong. People should not expect to be able to say any old crap without any consequences. Shouting ‘fire’ in a crowded cinema as a joke can lead to people getting injured as they rush to get out so why should the prankster not bear some responsibility?
I don’t understand why you think that an individual is allowed to spout offensive crap and yet their employer is not allowed to exercise their own right in deciding who to employ.
There is also the conundrum of tolerance in society – a society can not tolerate those (e.g. Nazis) who seek to deprive others of their innate rights.
Free speech =/= freedom from responsibility
hawkinspeter wrote:
This is true but I also think we need formal safeguards in place so that certain speech is fundamentally protected.
Political opinions should be expressed entirely freely for the vast majority of employees (political parties/organisations obviously excepted).
Likewise religious views should be protected as far as reasonably possible.
I’m quite worried about freedom of speech in the UK. It needs to be formally protected like in the US otherwise we risk seeing our current rights gradually removed.
Rich_cb wrote:
Free speech =/= freedom from responsibility
— Rich_cb This is true but I also think we need formal safeguards in place so that certain speech is fundamentally protected. Political opinions should be expressed entirely freely for the vast majority of employees (political parties/organisations obviously excepted). Likewise religious views should be protected as far as reasonably possible. I’m quite worried about freedom of speech in the UK. It needs to be formally protected like in the US otherwise we risk seeing our current rights gradually removed.— hawkinspeter
There are safeguards in place to protect people from wrongful dismissal, so what needs to be cleared up is the fuzzy ‘bringing the company into disrepute’ reason for dismissal. Unfortunately, that’s always going to be a subjective interpretation as society gradually changes whith respect to what is considered appropriate or not.
We need to walk a line between allowing free expression and enabling violence (e.g. Trump’s incitement to riot). Clearly a business should be allowed to get rid of a toxic employee that is associating the business with unpopular opinions, but it shouldn’t be able to abuse that to ensure that all employees have a particular political opinion unless that’s a key part of the business and the employee has a significant public prescence.
I think there should be a distinction between opinions that lead to violence and opinions that are merely unpopular (e.g. wing vs door mirrors) but it should also be recognised that private companies such as Twitter have no obligation to be impartial and can choose who to do business with.
However, we don’t have free speech in the U.K. so I think your boat has already sailed a while ago (e.g. ‘Spy Catcher’).
Didn’t say it was an example
Didn’t say it was an example of systemic racism and I’m fully aware that as a white man in Britain I do enjoy a lot of systemic benefits.
That said, I was providing an example where as a white man I was targeted because of my ‘race’ and/or appearance, which does rather look like discrimination at best or racism at worst on that particular occasion, don’t you think?
I think zeeridesbikes is
I think zeeridesbikes is seeking to suggest that the UK’s majority white population is not subject to institutionalised racism.
Sadly, prejudices of all kinds are endemic amongst homo sapiens. Often people (of all ethnic groups) are not even aware of the assumptions they make about others based on their ‘race’ – its called unconscious bias. As a result, it is very clearly the case that minority ethnic groups are systematically disadvantaged as a result of these (mostly unconscious) processes across every area of social life (e.g. health, housing, criminal justice, employment, income, etc.). There are exceptions to this pattern, but it is far from accidental.
If people cannot see that it is because they do not want to look…
Completely agree with this.
Completely agree with this.
Unconscious bias is not that
Unconscious bias is not that unconscious.. I have a bias about pitbull dogs being violent because they have a reputation for being violent.. not all pitbull dogs are violent, but I’m not taking a chance.
brooksby wrote:
Were you mugged brecause of being white? or was the comment at the end only related your being white?
I felt like I was targeted
I felt like I was targeted because I was white and was walking through an area of the city which is predominantly not-white.
brooksby wrote:
It’s perfectly possible. A very unpleasant experience.
Let’s be clear, as you say,
Let’s be clear, as you say, that in the UK if you’re white (and male) you are about as privileged as it gets – play your cards right and doors will open for you at every stage in your life. I guess this is why some drivers feel so affronted on, like, the one occasion things don’t entirely go their way – a cyclist holds their lane for all of 30s – Cyclingmikey somehow gets hold of their Twitter rant, re-tweets and we all join in the take-down.
The times you might be at a disadvantage because of who you are (I.e. UK white guy) are so vanishingly rare and immaterial, that they are comic, such as the Father Ted lingerie dept sequence, or the Not the Nine O’clock News Gramophone sketch, where Mel Smith is not so much out of place, as out of time.
Your example, horrible thing to happen, is out of the same drawer as the motorists who claim to worry about being hit by cyclists, or try to make out cycling as somehow itself posing a danger. The cave man part of our brain is hard wired to say “I was attacked by a tiger: avoid all tigers from now on” – fair enough in the circumstances – Grog’s example. But we have to do better.
Going back to the LCC now ex-employee, it looks to me like he’s dived/ been thrown under the bus not because the local race relations people called it, but because – irony – of the ravings of the anti-cycling brigade, who themselves will adopt any way-out tactic to be heard, and they don’t care who or what is harmed in the process.
A current tactic is to try to make LTNs some kind of class or race issue. Disadvantaged people live on main routes, don’t they and so on. There is a little bit where I have some agreement here, which is people who scrape a living with some wretched van driving job – but all of which would be a lot easier if other folk left the SUV behind.
Finally, the message people got from the old equalities legislation was crudely “don’t talk about differences and all will be well”. The newer approach is to highlight differences in experiences and act on them where the evidence supports this. Example: we know that in the hospital BAME colleagues are not taking up the COVID vaccine at the same rate as white – we record the ethnicity of our staff and we record the ethnicity of everyone having the vaccine. We then ask BAME colleagues to take part in communications to help address the issue.
zeeridesbikes wrote:
Your thoughts seem to be that the only kind of racism to exist is when white people are racist towards people who have a different skin colour but the issue of racism is wider than just that, no?
Whilst it may not be as systematic as the more “common” type of racism (sorry, not really sure how else to describe it!) you can’t deny that it does indeed happen.
Not denying it at all.
Not denying it at all. I’ve seen plenty of racism towards white people from my own family. Just wanted to gauge others experiences.
Rapha Nadal wrote:
There is also the fact that the effect on the victim differs with frequency of abuse, just like any bullying. If someone gives me racial abuse (in spite of my profile pic I’m completely white, although that might be due to age…), unpleasant, intimidating or traumatic as it may be, it happens so infrequently I can usually recover quite fast.
If the abuse is repeated and reinforced by chronic societal and institutional systemic abuse it is much harder to keep on top of it.
Although in principle you are correct that anyone can be victimised on account of any difference, the outcome in terms of harm to the individual, and for that matter wider society, is very much context-driven. As our wider context is that privilege and power dynamic is very much skewed in your favour, I believe that currently at least being a victim of racism is unlikely to be a serious issue if you are white (and male, and hetero, and affluent).
This is not to say that racism in any form is acceptable, or excusable. The above is a generalisation, I mean to say that it is broadly true. There will be situations where the inverse is the case where the power dynamic outlined above does not hold, and victims may not fit the usual stereotype. However, these are the exceptions rather than the rule.
My brother-in-law was stabbed
My brother-in-law was stabbed in the next six times by a (not white, though also not black) gang who explicitly called out his skin colour as the reason they were stabbing him.
zeeridesbikes wrote:
Careful now, you’re being racist.
The comments by the guy from
The comments by the guy from the LCC were the topic of much debate in my cycling club recently. One of our committee members flagged them up. All of us in the committee agreed they were racist and unacceptable. I did say to the person who flagged up the comments to complain directly to the LCC and this action was taken. I don’t know how many complaints the LCC received but one of them at least was from us.
Our club has about a 50:50 split of white and non-white members. Yes, I’m white but I’ve lived in an area with a large non-white population for several decades and I’m not totally naive.
Hey man that’s good to know.
Hey man that’s good to know. Where I live now it’s pretty mixed but the cycling clubs tend to be mostly white. That’s not what stops me from joining, I just prefer to cycle solo or with a few mates. Kids and work mean committing a time each week is tough.
Our club has a (distant)
Our club has a (distant) relationship with the LCC and the committee member who flagged up this guy’s comments was very concerned that some of our young riders would see what he’d written. Our club is very mixed and we like it that way as it reflects the mix of our area.
I got my kids interested in cycling and although my eldest isn’t a member any more and is away at uni, my youngest still is. I don’t know how old your kids are, but I’ve really enjoyed cycling with mine over the years. While my eldest isn’t in a club, he certainly makes good use of his bike!
Where are you guys based? I’m
Where are you guys based? I’m in south Manchester and I rarely see any non white folks on road bikes or in clubs. Thought it might be different in somewhere like London.
We’re in South London but
We’re in South London but ours is a BMX club. Lots of us ride on the road (good for training) and even more ride MTBs and the same is true of the other clubs. London’s BMX clubs are all pretty mixed as well.
Kye is a local lad and a bit of a hero to the younger riders around here:
BMX champion Kye Whyte has high medal hopes for the Olympics thanks to National Lottery funding » Northern Life (northernlifemagazine.co.uk)
zeeridesbikes wrote:
So … white people shouldn’t be discussing racism because we can’t possibly understand it, but unless we actively get involved in combatting it we are part of the problem?
Just want to be clear where we stand …
Jetmans Dad wrote:
As is quite clear from zeeridesbikes’ subsequent comments, s/he is very open to a discussion about racism. The point s/he was making is that what is or isn’t racist can’t simply be definined by white folks like you (I presume) and me, if we wish to eradicate racism the definition of what is racist has to be led by people from the section of society that suffers from the overwhelming majority of it, not the section that hands out the overwhelming majority of it. Which is fair enough, no?
Hi Rendel, I should probably
That’s pretty much is (and I’m a He).
Simon Still has resigned, it
Simon Still has resigned, it says on my Twitter,
My white guy perspective on the thread is that we need a clearer rule book of what constitutes different degrees of racism, so we we can respond appropriately – robust, compassionate, educative, etc. I don’t think Talk Radio hosts going into maximum overdrive about these tweets helps anyone, and saying “THIS is what the LCC stands for” etc.
Someone has trawled 2+ years of pro-cycling social media – that’s all they could come up with?
It’s been a weird few days in the London-centric Twitter bubble – if you believe the drivist bigots, cyclists are racists, cyclists are perverts and racist perverts (probably); using the old familiar “I had my wife and kids with me” line, AKA “I can behave / drive in an obnoxious way, but I’ll be hiding behind said kids/wife if challenged.” And naturally it’s black people, whom the what-aboutists care so very much about, who live on the main routes affected by the displaced traffic from LTNs. The fact that they’d sacrifice these people’s interests in a heartbeat if it meant another driving lane or junction upgrade doesn’t seem to enter into it.
Seems reasonable of him. It’s
Seems reasonable of him. It’s the behaviour, not skin colour, that matters, and by bringing it in he distracts from what LCC is *supposed* to be doing.
Still think Twitter is appalling.