to be unsurprised that Jeremy Clarkson used the N word?

[lessonsintightropes]

Abject apology here.

Surely the Beeb will have to sack him now?

Yes this thread is depressing. So many people seem to find casual racism acceptable :(

Wow!

I take from the the happy slapping I have received that I have entered a world of perfect people who have never actually investigated where their thoughts and prejudices come from and so are just not comfortable in discussing how / if they managed to overcome them.

I thought, incorrectly it seems, that it would be possible to discuss how it is possible for a person to have been brought up in a racist, homophobic, misogynistic environment and be able to grow up out of it. Maybe not Clarkson, as his telly persona is firmly rooted in sliding along the edges of 'naiceness' and giving it a smack every now and then.

But no, apparently, because my DH is honest enough to consider and discuss his journey from his family norms into more acceptable social ones he is a twat! Because I have been honest/interested enough to put it 'out there' and was interested in the whole topic, it has been insinuated that my life is what? Sad, lacking, downtrodden? That window into my life is obviously opaque.

Given the responses I can only assume I was at the back of the queue when the paragons of perfection were being handed out to the women with the biggest judgey knickers!

No, just like someone with a disability can be self-deprecating about themselves but it doesn't mean that those words can ever be acceptable when used off hand by someone who is not.

Yes I have disabled friends who use the word "cripple". It's a political and defiant use of the word to make a point, which they can do. It would NOT be OK for me to use it as I'm not disabled and so it would be a form of "othering".

I think the rhyme thing is a non story.

Clarkson, Hammond and the BBC being complicit in the 'slope' thing is different.

I had never heard slope was offensive prior to this, but the comment by Clarkson combined with the 'wordplay' explanation from the BBC surely proves that they knew exactly what they were about with that.

Nomama, some people disagreed with you, I wouldn't call that happy slapping!

You said He has never said the N word out loud but has blushed when realising that his momentary lapse brought him close.

I don't consider myself or my dh perfect, but I can honestly say, despite growing up in a pretty racist, right wing town in the 70s, that I have never found myself thinking 'nigger' or any other racist words, then having to check myself. Dh chatted about this this morning, and he said the same.

Any grown man who gets accidentally close to saying nigger has some problems.

You haven't read the snidey comments then, hazey, calling my DH a twat and judging me. I still don't believe that anyone growing up in a racist environment has never in their lives thought or spoken such words. It would have been impossible not to have, back then! Such language was absolutely everywhere, on the telly, newspapers, shops, pubs, schools, etc. Anyone who claims to be that age simply must have used have used such language.

I suspect, as ever, having strayed off the righteous path and admitted to a human foible, I shall remain daMNed!

I didn't know about the racist version of the rhyme until I was an adult. In Central Scotland in the 60s I learnt:
Eeny...
Sit the baby on the po.
When he's done
wipe his bum.
Eeny...

And OP, no, I'm not surprised either. Clarkson and his producers were clearly playing around with the suggestion of the n word because it was 'edgy' and 'taboo' in their puerile minds.

Nomama are you serious ? 'Anyone who claims to be that age simply must have used such language.'. Well, I'm 66. I've never used that word as a pejorative, nor have I ever thought it.
I taught and lived in some of the most deprived and ethnically mixed areas of Birmingham and London in the late 60s/early 70s, having been brought up in small Worcestershire village. I held and comforted 8/9 year old children from my classes,who were sobbing after being racially abused on the way to school, far to many times to ever to have considered it acceptable to refer to, or think of, another human in such vile terms.

I thought, incorrectly it seems, that it would be possible to discuss how it is possible for a person to have been brought up in a racist, homophobic, misogynistic environment and be able to grow up out of it

You'd hope so, wouldn't you? It's always seemed to me that moving away from this kind of hatefulness is where real progress lies, but sometimes it's hard to avoid feeling that a tiny minority actually have an investment in it continuing, if only to give them something to be professionally offended about

FWIW I think your husband sounds wonderful; I'm lucky enough to have black friends like that, most of whom obviously loathe real racism but are appalled by what they see as the word's constant misuse

I'll probably get pasted for saying so, though!!

Thanks, puzzled. It makes a difference that someone understands what I mean. My DHs friend and colleague is one of those black men who uses the N word quite liberally. Mainly as it visibly disconcerts the office staff! So DH is often in a place where it is used.

This is what led to his 'oops'. He was talking to work mates and started to use a phrase I think was mentioned earlier (working like a N) this man uses regularly and realised it wouldn't be acceptable from the mouth of a middle aged white man! But he had never actually considered the phrase before and, maybe like Clarkson and the nursery rhyme, the childhood familiarity almost over rode his common sense.

ohmymimi I don't believe that is possible that you have never used it. You say never as a perjorative, that's a nice little caveat and is the predicament I am referring to. Such language was utterly endemic when you were growing up. From Alf Garnett and The Play for Today, political speeches, daily language that your elders would have used and your childhood peer group would have heard and probably used. It would have been 'normal' then.

So to say you have never have said or thought as a pejorative it is disingenuous but does describe the problem my DH encountered.

Again, that he has discussed his feelings and embarrassment is, as far as I can see, a reassuring thing. He didn't hide it, convince himself he was right, bluster or pretend it didn't happen. He started a discussion about it. With me, with his work mates and with his friend. They all laughed and agreed that, sometimes, your childhood, reading Biggles, watching Alf Garnett, listening to Grand dad, can sometime strip you up. None of them thought his was racist or disgusting. They (a mixed race group of about 15 men in their 50s) had a long rainy day, stuck in a cabin on a work site in Wales, conversation about it.

I still don't see why that makes him, or any of them, a twat!

Of course I've never used it. Nor has my partner, who is two years younger than I am (he's 48).

I suspect his Bangladeshi father and my Indian mother would have given us hell if we had, in any case.

I suspect you are absolutely right, motherinferior.

I shall qualify myself, I can believe that any white, British person (maybe man in particular) of a certain age, has never used that particular word, ever in their lives.

Actually, you could lower the age for some people, Jim Davison, Roy 'Chubby' Brown fans maybe?

can't

Grrrr!

Well I am 44 and white and have never used it, and dh says he has never used it either.

I believe you believe that.

But I reserve the right to have a sneaking suspicion that you have done so, when much younger and have forgotten the moment, probably because, at the time it wasn't anything extraordinary!

And, have you never read Boy's Own type books, never seen the Dam Busters film, or read about Guy Gibson's dog? Enid Blyton, Agatha Christie?

Really?

Again, that he has discussed his feelings and embarrassment is, as far as I can see, a reassuring thing. He didn't hide it, convince himself he was right, bluster or pretend it didn't happen. He started a discussion about it. With me, with his work mates and with his friend

And that's exactly the sort of thing I said on a different thread about us all being able to learn from each other, if only everyone ranted less and listened more

Maybe I've been lucky, but I've always found that most folk don't actively seek out offence. They'll challenge real prejudice and quite right too, but they also understand that people sometimes make mistakes without intending any malice. For me, this is where a gentle word can be so much more effective than knee jerk name calling, which often just contributes to a vicious cicle of bad feeling

nomana

I have read some of those books still doesn't mean that I have said the word or used it in conversation

And although I agree with you that some people struggle to leave the mindset that they have been brought up in, your husband for one and that his efforts should be commended

I really disagree with your last post to hazeyjane. I am 44, I have never used or said that word, I tell PIL off if they use it and I would be fucking insulted if anyone suggested that it was so prevalent in my childhood that I must have used it and have chosen to forget it. No one in my family used it even back in the 70's and I would have lost the skin from my arse if I ever used any sort of racist word

There's one Agatha book that I think you have never read then, Rufus, until they PCd it you couldn't have read and said that

It was called 10 Little Nigger Boys, the murder used the rhyme to kill off lots of people. The word was used a lot in the book. And anyone reading it would have learned the rhyme, more likely known it.

Like many other uses of that word, it was well known, sung, said, read. I just find it very difficult to believe that anyone born in or before the 60s would never have said it out loud.

I know I did. The first time I saw a black person. I was 7. The adults with me agreed, he was, indeed a nigger. Just as the nice man in the fruit and veg shop was a Paki.

Shocking, I know. But common parlance then. I don't think it is a class thing, though we both were born into very working class families. I don't believe that has much bearing on the common parlance of the day.

I grew up. I no longer us such language, but I live with the fact that, as a kid I did!

I think it says more about you than anyone else that you actually don't believe any white men over a certain age (which age are you saying, anyway?) have never used the word.

Bizarre.

The fact remains that Clarkson didn't use the 'n' word on TV, or (as far as I can make out) off it. So the whole thing is just a storm in a teacup.

Good grief you've just reminded me, Nomama - i'm pretty sure I've got that book (with the original title) among my late mum's collection of Agatha Christies

So maybe I should find and burn it, or perhaps just regard it as an historical piece from a less enlightened time. Then again, perhaps it should be kept ... if all the other copies have been destroyed, it might be worth a fortune one day!!!!

Original, it does indeed say more about me. It says that I have not manufactured a massive disconnect between me now and the child I was and the milieu in which I grew up. I have recognised it and grown out of its norms, but I haven't denied it ever existed and that the nascent me was probably naively racist, homophobic etc.

I have stated the age a few times, again then: anyone born in or before the 60s.

I don't believe it because PCness had not been invented, there was nothing wrong with noticing /naming someone's race, post war women women were still stuffed back in the home (mainly), women were not yet fully enfranchised, the pill was only available for married women... and on and on. There would have been no barrier to using normal language.

Another example on into the 70s and the 80s and Paki shops were ubiquitous. No one else here ever hear/use that term? Did I make it up and was I really the only person on MN that ever used it? Really?

No, not possible. Most people use the terminology of their era. The normal day to day language of your social group is the language you use.