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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   23784 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 8, 2026

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The term "fight", to my mind, implies that the two men were attacking each other. Likewise "fistfight" implies that both men were punching each other. I don't think "one man insults another man, to which the second man responds by physically assaulting the first man" can reasonably be characterised as a "fight". Despite Digwa's insistence that Nowak attacked him first and he was defending himself, he was unable to present any evidence that this was the case, and there were no cuts or bruises on his person at the time of his arrest.

So: I think the claim that "Nowak and Digwa got into a fistfight" is simply untrue. No one has presented any evidence that Nowak punched (or even tried to punch) Digwa. If you said "Nowak insulted Digwa, and Digwa responded by stabbing him", I'd have no objection.

I don't think "one man insults another man,

Even calling it an insult seems unreasonably charitable to Digwa's otherwise made-up and evil version of events.

I believe the videos recovered from Nowak's phone/Snapchat depict him calling Digwa a "bad man". I guess technically calling someone a "bad man" is an insult, although a laughably mild one. Even in the parallel woke universe in which calling a person of colour a "nigger" or a "Paki" constitutes such a grave insult to their character that they are entitled to murder you in retribution, "bad man" doesn't rise to that level of insult.

AIUI, "bad man" is Brit slang equivalent to "gangster". Asking someone "What are you, a gangster?" after an interaction has already begun is not a proper insult, especially when they say "Yes, I am".

Probably because the dude had a giant knife…

I think this is mostly slang among Brits of Caribbean extraction (see "London multicultural English").

It also implies some level of evenness and length. Digwa was armed with a massive knife; Nowak was unarmed, and Digwa killed him with a single lethal blow. Nothing about that says "fight" to me. That's just a straight up killing, bordering on execution of an unarmed man.

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