“You realise that’s racist mum”

vegansrock

It’s obvious that some people would sneer at the idea that there is such a thing as “ unconscious bias”, that anyone who is anti racist can be denigrated as “ woke” - shock horror.

As I said earlier, you need to remember the definition of racism. So much nonsense is peddled as being racist when it's just a reference to the colour black.

So many times I have heard white British people use words/phrases in conversation and not even give it a second thought.

A neighbour was talking to me and said she will not go out in the winter especially when it is "pitch black dark" sounded ever so slightly racist.
People talking about someone foreign and saying "Oh they have got a touch of the tar brush" Racist to say the least.
I used to go to quiz night it was held in a pub. The landlord had a middle aged man of colour working there to do the barrels collect empty glasses etc, The landlord called him
"Chalkie" some others did also. (very derogatory I thought)
In certain places in U.K . people still do not blink an eye at those Gollywog dolls and see nothing wrong with them.

tickingbird

Alegrias This is a very dispiriting thread. Thank God for the young

Away for lunch, it's more productive than trying to explain racism to the obdurate

Who needs the young when we have the ultra pc oldies on GN trying to stay down with the kids, competing to flash their woke credentials?

As for describing those with a different viewpoint as obdurate? More condescension from one who really doesn’t know better.

It’s worth noting that after that post you had the cheek to accuse someone of being patronising to you. Maybe a little more “do as you would be done by” eh?

Well said Ticking ??????Just what I was thinking too.

I would agree that "touch of the tarbrush" is insulting but a night being "pitch black dark" is factual and has nothing to do with any person of any colour. Night is dark - fact. Darkness is black - fact. If people were all the same neutral grey-beige that house agents would have us paint our homes,, night would still be dark and darkness would be black

In the armed forces, anyone tall is often called "tiny", and anyone short gets "lofty". There is no denigration involved in it, it is an old army joke - the opposite of their physical characteristic - and given in affection. If there was no affection, the nickname would be more on the lines of "buggerlugs" or "that bastard Sergeant" The beanpoles and short-arses didn't claim they had been insulted. Did Chalky object to being called that? For all you knew, he was aware of the affection and didn't think it an insult at all.

If its a very dark night I can't see anything wrong with calling it pitch black dark. Pitch is black.

As for calling a person of colour Chalkie - I'd have reported that landlord and got myself another job. Completely unacceptable. Somebody who thinks Jim Davidson is funny, clearly.

Black people have a sense of humour, years ago there was a popular black waiter in a pub we frequented. He went on holiday, when he came back, on being asked how the holiday was, he laughed and said, "It rained every day, I nearly got washed white!"

The earliest Britains were dark skinned and blue eyed www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/cheddar-man-mesolithic-britain-blue-eyed-boy.html

It is clear some people hear do not understand ordinary phrases. The term 'blue-eyed boy', is not a compliment it is a pejorative to describe someone who is teacher's pet (also a pejorative), or the employee who can do no wrong because their the managers favourite, this is a term the excluded use to sneer someone given unjustified preference.

I would always describe a dark night as pitch black, because Pitch is a black substance that is sticky when it is hot and very hard when it is dry. Pitch is used on the bottoms of boats and on the roofs of houses to prevent water getting in. www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/pitch

It is common usage and has no racial connotaions at all.

These arguments here trivialise racism, conscious or unconscious, institutionalised or uninstitionalised.

Growing up in the 50s there was certain vocabulary that changed in the 60s. I left the UK in the 70s. My problem is, my daughter calls me racist using these 70s words, I do try my best but my memory gets it round the wrong way.

I've just seen a programme about Phil Spector and apparently The Righteous Brothers were described as Blue Eyed Soul to indicate they were white because they sounded black.

Definitely a compliment to sound ‘black’ in the music world. Probably in the dance sphere as well. Fabulous musicians coming out of the southern states of the USA. I agree, the term blue eyed boy is actually quite unpleasant and a bit racist but against Europeans if anything.

Some seem to think that people object to anything that is a descriptive colour word - not so - if you describe an object as black/ white / blue / pink when it is that colour - fine, but if you use a phrase that is not a descriptive colour word - such as “you’ve got a black mark against you, or “play the white man”, then maybe think about the meaning behind it. Some on here can’t grasp the difference.

Words with racist origins

www.lifehacker.com.au/2020/03/these-words-and-phrases-have-racist-origins/

Interesting list vegansrock. I would challenge jip always being racist.
In Scotland it means pain, especially twinges of pain as in “my arthritic knee is giving me jip today”

Oh no Lemongrove tinkering with Shakespeare’s wonderful words, how sad.

I was once reprimanded at work for asking if someone wanted black or white coffee, instead of with or without milk. How ridiculous.

It is rumoured that the very PC Head of the National Trust maybe removed, so there is some light at the end of the tunnel.

If we are going to worry about the original meaning of words then the term 'gay' should not be used because it was once an innocent word meaning happy or jolly. It used to make me think of children dancing around a maypole or something like that. Now the word has been taken and used with a different meaning, so we can't use it in its original sense. Surely that therefore applies to other phrases, which have since been given a different meaning. We no longer use them in their original context, and we don't mean them in their original context.

How about "nice? It originally meant "very fussy about details and differences) That could be taken exception to, if people took "She is very nice", as meaning they are always nitpicking about something.

This site is American and refers to American English, not the English we speak here, so words like 'jip' over here have a different origin and different meaning and no connection with gypsies, even the spelling is different. I would have talked about having a jippy leg when I sprained my ankle badly. Other words on the list are clearly solely American and are not in general use in the UK.

As for Paddywagon, speaking as a member of the Irish diaspora, I have no problems with that at all. The Irish have, in the past, had a reputation for being riotous and heavy drinkers, so police wagons in the states probably were full of Irishmen on a Saturday night.

They were in London. My Irish grandmother and the parish priest in Bermondsey at the time, spent a lot of time at the local police station. negotiating the release of young Irish boys and men who had drink taken, as the phrase goes. This would have been between 1910-1930.

Stereotypes always have some basis on fact. We talk about giggling school girls. I have a 14 year old DGD, and that is the perfect description of her and her friends and most girls I have known at that age. It is the stage she is going through. school girls are not stereotyped as rugby playing, because very few do or have done in the past.

Stereotypes go out of date, and will only ever apply to a proportion of any group, but as far as I am concerned

Well yes there are strong links between stereotypes and lack of participation in sport for women.

vegansrock

Some seem to think that people object to anything that is a descriptive colour word - not so - if you describe an object as black/ white / blue / pink when it is that colour - fine, but if you use a phrase that is not a descriptive colour word - such as “you’ve got a black mark against you, or “play the white man”, then maybe think about the meaning behind it. Some on here can’t grasp the difference.

I'll agree "play the white man" is racist but you have clearly not grasped what "the black mark" signifies. It was just a physical mark, most likely a cross, in black ink to signify a censure of some description. It has absolutely no racial undertones at all. When we had the plague in the UK infected household's doors were marked with a black cross, a "black mark", nothing racist in it at all.

Does anyone ever say 'play the white man' these days? People keep dragging up phrases that I have only read in books published before WW2 and have certainly never heard used by anyone in my lifetime.

What about the nasty black (oil?) mark on my trousers after brushing my leg against the towball on the car when the cover was off?

I think a a lot of people need to do a bit more research into the origin of some of the phrases and vocabulary we use in the UK before they label it racist

The other thing to remember that the impetus to 'clean' up the language comes from the USA and many of their words and phrases may sound like ours but have a completely different origin. We are now having the same problem with American that we have with French, the same word, same spelling but entirely different meanings.

What is Black Friday?

But a “black mark against you “ does not mean you literally have a black ink mark on a piece of paper does it? It means you will be judged negatively for something , it may have originated from the plague but that’s not how it’s used- an example of how meanings and uses changes, no it doesn’t mean a racial slur but it is an example of the word black being used to describe something negative of which the English language has plenty. Some are unable to grasp this concept.

We have not yet considered a ‘red letter day’ meaning something pleasant or a red bill, or being in the red or the black meaning to be in debt or not.
The problem has mainly been avoided by re-designation of a group of population as ‘native’.

So how about "whitewash"? What about using the colour yellow to denote cowardice? Or red to denote rage? Green to denote naivety? Honestly there is enough "othering" without going looking for it. I don't associate negative meanings of colours as being indicative of any underlying bias against racial groups. You are so patronising and condescending you do your argument absolutely no favours.