to be unsurprised that Jeremy Clarkson used the N word?

[lessonsintightropes]

Abject apology here.

Surely the Beeb will have to sack him now?

You can believe what you like, Nomama. Quoting the 'n' word when explaining one's shock at its use is not the same as bandying it around in casual conversation. Fairly easy concept to grasp, I would have thought.

The book was Ten Little N. Then Ten Little Indians. Then And Then There Were None.

Gilbert & Sullivan's The Mikado includes a song that has a verse that begins "There's the banjo serenader" which until the 1940s was "There's the n- serenader" because in the Victorian era groups of black performers went around singing and they were called the N Minstrels. There was no implied offence. They merely repeated the term that the minstrels referred to themselves as.

nomona

I've got the book (all of hers, love a bit of agatha me!!) with the original title

I don't actually say words out loud when I read, like most adults I read in my head. So I can absolutely stand by my original post and say I have never said it

I honestly don't care if you were brought up in a family that thought it was ok to use that word, I wasn't. And all power to you that you have grown up enough not to use it

I don't understand why you don't get, that not every white person over the age of 40 has said it.

It's an incredibly stupid generalisation, and you don't strike me as being stupid

Is reading a word now the same as using it?

I've read Romeo and Juliet but never used "but soft!" To mean "hold on a minute!"

My parents would have had fifty fits if I'd ever referred to a 'paki shop' in the 80s - they were born in the 50s.

There have always been racists and idiots, but you seem to have a lot invested in arguing that people born in or before the 60s all find it hard to remember that it's not ok and never was ok to say things like 'paki shops'. But it's just that there used to be more idiots who did that 30 years ago than there are now. They were still idiots.

I heard people at school talking about 'getting a chinky' and shit like that. That was because those people were racists. I thought so then, and I think so now.

I think, Rufus, I am reacting to the posts that call me and mine a 'twat' and are otherwise less than pleasant, very judgmental. I have killed no one and am being honest.

In my experience it is not a stupid generalisation, it is a reality. It wasn't just my family, it was an entire milieu. So, from my experience I can only assume that everyone else posting here is either very much younger or very much more well off / posh than I am/ever was.

I don't apologise for it, I just stand by it. It is my experience and I have no idea if the persona's posting here are being truthful or are just fudging their online being a little bit.

The 60s - 80s were what they were. Casually racist, misogynist, etc. It is inconceivable to believe that no one else here lived through the societal norms of that time. That particular word was used regularly on prime time telly... did no MNer ever hear it? Were you all watching something else, experiencing a Radio 4 life, all of the time

Am I really the odd one that slipped through an automatic MN filter?

Even if countless millions grew up hearing that word on TV, referring to the paki shop and wetting themselves at Jim Davison, it is now 2014. Clarkson is an educated man, but those without his advantages have also had lots and lots of time to get on board with the idea that it's not ok and not excusable.

Unless you're still accidentally finding yourself expecting Smash and Instant WHip for tea, and are flabberghasted every time you turn on the TV and there are more than three channels on it, it's about time you got over whatever seemed normative in your 'milieu' decades ago.

nomana-

I have never said it or heard it from friends and family

At no point has anyone here said that they have never heard of it

You keep insisting that everyone over 40 has personally used the word, said it out loud

Not all of us have!!!!!

That's all we are saying

My (would be 69 year old) mum was brought up in the slums of Liverpool, she heard it the same way she heard cunt and fuck..she never spoke those words

(I on the other hand say fuck all the time, and occasionally cunt)

I think n has been offensive for a long time. My working class parents would not have considered themselves racist, and would have never been abusive to a non white person, but I remember them using Paki and chinky. They would never have used the word n though.

And by the time I was mid teens and pulling them up for it, they wouldn't have used any other racist terms either. That would have been in the late 70's or so.

nomama your husband's black colleague sounds like a bit of a dick to be honest, "Working like a n***" indeed. What the hell is that all about? Is he getting some kind of kick about making everyone feel a bit uncomfortable?

Nomama, nobody is saying that they've never heard the words used, merely that they are no longer acceptable.

No you can't unlearn them, but you should be sentient enough not to say them out loud, or believe that you are not capable of not doing the things that were normal as a child - especially on camera when you are the country's highest paid broadcaster.

A little like smoking in pregnancy. Fine in the 70s, now we know better.

I have never used the word have always known it to be a horrible word and do not remember hearing it being used when younger

I heard the words darky or nignog which was considered more wrong out of the two but not by my family (not immediate have some racist twats in my family though)

Newpencil, that is the point of what I was originally saying before I got sidetracked in to a debate about whether or not I am a twat.

The conscious unlearning of an unwanted behaviour. But some here want to believe that I have 'confessed' to (or outed my DH for ) using such word now... in 2014.

And yes, Tinkly. Black colleague is a bit of a knob, and yes, he does like making safe little white office workers feel uncomfortable - he is an unreconstructed misogynist too - very Jamaican (when his mum lets him be). But he is also extremely intelligent, highly skilled engineer and pissed off with being treated like an idiot because he is black and works 'on the tools'.

Working/sweating/swearing like a nigger - all oft used when he is working hard and some supervisor type is stood watching, holding a clipboard, being careful not to help. It amuses him, endlessly.

But I am guessing that the fact that this man is a friend is also a 'window on my life'

not long ago i watched an old jasper carrot dvd in which he uses the word 'paki' the programme went out on ITV, and must have been seen by quite a large audience, ITV would hardly have broadcast it if they thought it was going to cause a lot of complaints. I suppose if it happened nowadays carrot would be taken out and shot.

Black colleague is a bit of a knob, and yes, he does like making safe little white office workers feel uncomfortable

Yep, I once worked with a lady like that; faced with a group of what she called "competitively liberal" colleagues she'd occasionally be more and more outrageous to see how long it took before anything was said. They didn't feel they could, you see, because she was black and that might have damaged their "right-on" credentials; instead, everyone looked uneasily at everyone else, waiting for them to speak first

Needless to say she despised them for it, and while I admit it's not really what I'd have done myself, it did have its amusing side sometimes

It wouldn't happen nowadays, Louise. That's kinda the point.

If it's conscious unlearning, NoMama, which I agree it is in many cases, people who're consciously not monitoring and changing the way they relate to racist language can't be excused, IMO.

And the colleagues you and Puzzled describe, tbh, just sound like dicks. People like that just need ignoring and freezing out. They just get pissed off when nobody rises to it.

safe little white office workers

is that your term or his?

His, boney. I am one of them

Im 51 years old and of the time spent in this country, mostly grew up in east London. The only white people who said the N word were racist idiots. Nomama you are making it sound as if all white people went around routinely using that word and it was ok. When you will know well that they didnt all routinely use it and nor did black people think it was ok either.

Reading further down I wasn't surprised to see you just had to drop in the example of the black colleague who made people feel uncomfortable, didn't you? (what does 'very Jamaican' mean..should he be 'not' himself? Is he too Jamaican for you, somehow?) The usual kind of 'they're just as bad' reverse crap, as if it makes it ok what Clarkson said. Oh wait...its all ok, isn't it?

As for 'safe little white office workers' - oh, really? Thats how you see it? Is it him, versus you all then?

White, working class, born in the '60s.

Nigger, paki and chinky were beyond rude. The words did not surface in my house. I have always regarded them as insults and more importantly, my parents, born in the '20s, thought it too.

Neither can I remember any of my neighbours in my all-white suburb using those words either.

I recall them surfacing in my mid-teens when the National Front were all the rage. I was more into Rock Against Racism, so we despised those contemporaries.

I do remember Alf Garnett using them - more usually coon - on Til Death Do Us Part. But I do also recall my dad saying that this was supposed to be a joke on bigots rather than a primer.

My parents grew up in the East End of London when Mosley was trying to ferment racial hatred against Jews in desperate times. They weren't fooled and neither were many other non-Jews who knew an opportunist user when they saw one. But many people were.

And there are people today who deludedly believe there was some golden age where these terms were not abusive. There was never such a time.

So believe it or not, not every white working class person has the same experience as you.

Unfortunately, my FIL still uses the N word without any thought of offending anyone. He will be retelling an old story and say "you remember that N I used to work, with? Good old boy blah blah blah" I could die, but he doesn't mean to offend, he is part of a generation who had that word in their everyday language. And, tbh, when I worked in London, black colleagues in my office, used to call each other N all day long. Is it only white people who are offended by it?

windchime how old is your FIL?

I don't believe there are offices in London where black people call each other 'N all day long'. No way. It doesn't matter whether only black or only white people are offended by it windchime. Its a derogatory term coined by racists, and you already know that.

This lady was referring to a book title, and still got sacked. news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/2193249.stm en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_Then_There_Were_None. I wonder what George Orwell would make of our world.

Really, parental? She just happened to be talking about that particular book and title at work? how so? A 'joke?' game? A good laugh? I mean I can't think why anybody would be at work talkng about a book with that title then again, I don't think the brain cells were engaged were they. Laughable really, how racists just love to say 'Im not racist, but' in so many different ways. I don't know whats worse, those who are blatantly racist or those who think they're hiding it