[78-L] OT: Racialism.

[Spats]

Hi!

Of-course, the term 'African Americans' wouldn't work in the UK, 
because our black population are not American!

(That reminds me...How do Americans react to being called 'Yanks'?)

In any case, how cumbersome. That would make me a 
Polish-Russian-Jewish-Britisher!

No, In the UK, 'black' has become the default word and nobody notices its use.

'Asian' means anyone from the Indian sub-continent.

Then there are lots of 'mixed-race' people now...just like Pres. Obama.

Those are the three most commonly used terms over here.

However, when I was a teacher back in the 70s and had lots of 8 year 
old black kids in my class, I was delighted to discover that they 
hadn't come across much racialism in their lives and thus used 
straight descriptive words in their essays. Instead of 'black' and 
'white', many would describe people as 'brown' or 'pink'. I rather 
liked that! Much more accurate! ;-)

These days in the UK, we have black people with strong Glasgow 
accents, strong Cockney accents etc. In short, it's more important 
which football team you support than which colour you are.

That said, even I was taken aback when in the North of England 
recently, the taxi-driver, obviously a Bangla-Deshi by origin, 
addressed me in a full on 'Geordie' accent (the accent indigenous to 
Newcastle-On-Tyne)! Wonderful! ;-)

My friends and I had the whole racial thing licked when at grammar 
school in the 60s. Many in my class were Jewish, but we had one black 
West Indian who glorified in the name Martin Gladstone Straker Welds. 
Born and bred in London, he had no foreign accent. He would 
cheerfully be greeted every morning upon arrival by most of his 
fellow class members making a sign to suggest that he had big rubber 
lips (which he didn't, by the way), and he would respond with a sign 
that obviously suggested that all Jews had incredibly long noses.

These gestures were made with great affection and certainly nobody 
took offense. If only the rest of the world could behave like that 
(well, perhaps a little more maturely, perhaps... ;-) ), we'd have 
the whole racial thing dealt with!

Earl.

At 1:18 am -0800 24/1/2009, 78-l-request at klickitat.78online.com wrote:
>  > Listen to how role models within that community refer to 
>themselves -- people like President Obama and Oprah Winfrey, for 
>instance, refer to themselves as African American.