[78-L] Racial Words.

[Spats]

Hi!

The right and wrong words to use keep changing.

When I was young, calling someone 'black' was regarded as an insult.
'Coloured' was the correct word to use.
Then it all got reversed about 30 years ago.
Nevertheless, my good friend, the great Jazz singer, Adelaide Hall, 
always said 'coloured'.

We in England always seem to use insults for other countries based on 
food, much of the time.
Thus the French were dubbed 'Frogs', because of their willingness to 
eat frog's legs, while Germans were often referred to as 'Krauts', 
referring to sauerkraut. I wonder how our Christian Zwarg would react 
to being called a 'Kraut'.

Currently on the UK comedy circuit, the people who seem to get 
'racialist' abuse are redheads. Goodness know why, but there it is. 
The are GINGER jokes by the score.

A heard a black British comedian recently saying on stage that, these 
days, it's rare to get 'nigger' jokes, whereas 'ginger' jokes are 
heard all the time. Then he said 'Of-course, it's just the same word 
with the letters rearranged'. ;-)

Excellent!

Earl.

PS I gather that all of this started with reference to your new president.
Frankly, I'm delighted that you elected someone with lots of 'grey' 
for a change.
I'm referring to the 'grey cells' making up his brain! ;-)

For some reason however, nobody, or practically nobody over there 
refers to the fact that he's also half white and was indeed brought 
up by the white side of his family.

Since we have almost 10% of babies in the UK being born mixed race 
these days, his election has made a huge impact on people like that 
who have been struggling to define their identity.


At 5:23 pm -0800 23/1/2009, 78-l-request at klickitat.78online.com wrote:
>
>We people living in Donald Rumsfeld's 'Old Europe' are willing to learn.
>You can't say 'Afro-American' anymore today? So,?'African-American' 
>is currently correct??
>?
>For how long? How long did such?epithets usually stay in use until 
>they were deemed?offensive?
>As far as I noticed from beyond the ocean, ALL these words were seen 
>as?derogative after
>a couple of decades.
>What's coming next as?THE politically correct wording?
>Any trends noticeable yet?
>You Americans, ask yourselves why the perception of these words 
>tends to always
>change after 30 or 40 years:?? because you have a problem in your society.
>?
>It's different in Europe.
>I have?an adopted black daughter (sic!) - that's what she calls herself.
>We never had a problem with this in our family, or with friends, 
>neighbors, whoever.
>What do you Americans want us to say???? African-French??? African-European?
>?
>No, we say 'noir' in French, just like the Germans say 'schwarz' - 
>withourt ever taking it?
>as derogatory. We don't even think that the Spanish word for this 
>color is offensive
>(the n-word). Nor the English 'black'.
>?
>Those here offended remind me of that Rohrschach joke that most 
>everybody knows:
>'But it's you, doctor, who shows me all those obscenities'.
>?
>Alex