Last night I watched part of Question Time, there were the usual platitudes and outright bloody rubbish concerning the reaction of The Perpetually Outraged Community ( Race Division) to the use of the word Golliwog.
Liberty as usual sent along their cute little mascot, who doubles up as as spokesperson*, Shami Chakrabarti . I am concerned as to how committed she is to 'Liberty' as she seemed to be proposing that 'thought crime' should apply even to remarks made in private conversation.
A woman in the audience referred to herself as 'a person of colour'..... was there ever a more bloody stupid way of describing someone? This nonsense 'started in America' as part of the ongoing sanctification of people who are not 'white'. Years ago the word blackamoor was in use, then negro, then black, afro-american, african-american, afro-caribean ..... I can see no difference in English grammar between coloured person or person of colour, because there is none.
I note that in the legislation racism is not closely defined and it appears that a comment or action is racist if someone percieves it to be.
I should like to put on record that I shall take it as a racist comment should you inadvertently refer to me as 'white'; it can be seen that, using pure as the driven snow white as a standard 'white' it can be seen that I am beigey-pinkey-brownish. I would therefore prefer to be catalogued as 'person of colour (beigey-pinkey-brownish)'..... any other descriptor will send me into paroxysms of outrage and I shall be forced to apply for compensation. In time I hope to be more specific and be outraged if you refer to me as anything other than "a person of colour ( Pantone ref xxxx-yyyy ). The Pantone reference will, of course, vary as the season..... it is up to you to determine what may or may not be deemed to be offensive.
* on proof reading this I notice that I had her down as pokesperson.....
5 comments:
My wife is Chinese(she maintains scouse) and the children half....the descriptive yellow is used occasionaly...we seem to have survived without any trauma being inflicted...perehaps the thought police can convince me otherwise.
I was getting irritated that they seemed to miss the point on Question Time, especially Will Young who just meandered weakly like some child dreaming of an idealistic land of bubbles and clouds.
Surely she was just comparing a hairstyle with the nearest match she could think of. I can't think of any other way one would explain that style of hair without launching into a long-winded description.
For people of her (and my) age, the image of a golly's hair is iconic and simple to recall.
She may be racist, she may not be, but whether said privately or in public, there's no way that just making a comparison with a toy's hairstyle can possibly determine one way or another.
I believe the correct response to people who describe themselves as being "people of colour" is to respond that you are a "person of pallor".
We did an experiment in Kenya and found that most "white" people were the same colour as a plucked chicken ~ nice!
Are Mohammedans now determining our border policy by threat of violence?
http://kleinverzet.blogspot.com/2009/02/breaking-wilders-not-allowed-into-uk.html
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