to be unsurprised that Jeremy Clarkson used the N word?

[lessonsintightropes]

Abject apology here.

Surely the Beeb will have to sack him now?

I would think, reading that link, that it was something like 'blimey, where's everyone gone, it's like the ten little n, isn't it?'. Not 'I have heard of a book and its title is 'ten little n'.'

She resigned, she wasn't sacked, I think?

It's equally laughable, MistressDeeCee, to make such statements just because people are discussing a word and its effects on different parts of society. You may well be disgusted, but that doesn't stop anyone from debating the topic. I wish the forum members would allow more discussions like this to happen without the finger pointing and name calling. I would have liked to properly discuss different experiences but, rather stupidly, got myself caught up in defending my viewpoint and being defensive.

You have called my veracity into question, I would say you accused me of pulling an ace out of my sleeve with having a black friend, but as ace is also a euphemism for nigger, maybe not. Has it not crossed your mind that we all know why he acts as he does, we have discussed it, we know how angry he is? How powerless he felt as a young man? We know that his behaviour is intended to belittle people, We know that he is not necessarily doing himself a good service - he knows all of that too!

You may choose to shout racist at me and others who are trying to discuss the word, the sensitivities, the different realities and experiences we have. But that doesn't make you right, or give you the moral high ground.

Try calming down the rhetoric and actually discussing the postings that annoy you.

Nomama
I had a friend very much like yours. In the end I ended the friendship as they couldn't stop annoying people that had a different skin colour. It also didn't help that she said some of the most racist things I ever heard about Asians.

I do believe that you are correct in that we should at least be able to discuss the word without cries of racist being thrown about.

Boney I have thought about unfriending him, but he is a valued friend and colleague of DH and that would make DH feel odd. I just see less of him these days. We did have a discussion about his behaviour, quite a few over the years. And he knows I think he should rise above and be just himself, not black himself. But he sees that as denying his racial identity, he wants to be accepted as a black man first and foremost.

I have deeply offended him in the past when trying to explain that the colour of his skin was immaterial to me. He took that to mean that being black was lesser than / unimportant and so should be ignored. I explained how being seen as a woman before being seen as a professional makes me feel, and that I have fought long and hard not to be genderised at work. We don't agree on that point at all, he suggested I wore high heels, deep cleavage, make up and looked extremely feminine whilst doing my job well, that is not going to happen, but his idea that I could be and should be provocatively feminine and strong and capable was interesting and made me understand his viewpoint more.

SIL had a partner who sounds more like your exfriend. She was very politicised and used her superior knowledge of race crimes and the colour of her skin like a battle axe. She was deeply unpleasant to people of all races / genders and would have belittled Mother Theresa without a second thought. We lost contact with SIL for about 10 years as we just could not put up with the constant accusations, slurs and sheer nastiness.

It says she used the phrase
It says (rather disingenuously as the book was renamed decades ago) that the phrase is the title of a book
Nowhere does it say she was referencing the book when "calling people back into a meeting."
It sounds like she was horrified at herself and resigned willingly. Sacked is something you have made up.

I've got the original book

I'm going to have to buy the new titled one aren't I

And destroy the old one

Bugger, I'm off to check amazon

Hold that thought

Just checked the price on amazon!!!!!!

Rufus, is the totally unacceptable version worth more than the Indian one and loads more than the new, totally PC version with its little soldiers?

I don't know? I just looked for Then there was none which is the title they finally came up with

I am curious so I will have a little look

Just looking briefly at amazon I would say not

Obviously the original title is only being sold second hand but the offers there range from £2 ish to £10ish

I found hardback for £99 and another for $134.... but paperbacks were chiply cheap - never mind.

No, no ... as I said before, mine will be worth a fortune if all the others get destroyed, and it's a hardback too

Carry on and get burning, everyone .... !!!!!

I am with just about everything nomama says. I was a child of the 60s, 70s and 80s.

I grew up hearing a lot of these terms being bandied around regularly (i.e. the n-word, and paki shops etc.). I also grew up in a family which would not have considered itself to be racist and they discouraged us from using such language. They knew we would come across such terms, and they made clear that we were never to be heard using them. I have never used them, but I used to hear them aplenty.

I do wonder whether some of my old books would be worth something now, as they are the unsanitised versions.

Of value to whom, precisely? I like old editions as much as the next person but I really don't think people are queuing up to purchase the millions of Christies with racist titles that must still be mouldering on shelves.

Errr, I think people are talking tongue in cheek.

i think first editions of Christies are valuable, like other first editions, if in good condition with dustwrappers. I don't suppose the name change would affect this particularly, since later editions would still be less valuable whether the name had been changed or not.

nomama I am a child of the early 60's and I know where you are coming from. I would never use the N word and always knew this was wrong, but living in a town with a high immigrant population, paki was common in the 60's and early 70's and "going down the chinky" meant "I'm going to get a chinese takeaway". It was only in the 80's that these words became really unacceptable.
When I was young, the normal way to refer to people with darker skins was "coloured" and "black" was offensive. Now I think it's the other way round.

Getting back to Clarkson. He delights in offending all and sundry - at least he's even handed in offending everybody! He can be a prat, but he did not say the N word and love him or loathe him, the world needs people like him to highlight the absurdities of life and prick a few sacred cows.

the world needs people like him to highlight the absurdities of life and prick a few sacred cows.

what sacred cows would that be?

The world needs people like Clarkson?! To challenge taboos and bring these issues to light?

No, the world needs people like Homi Bhabha who encourage us to discuss intelligently and openly why words used by miserable colonialist minded pricks have always been disgusting and remain so. People who devote their lives to untangling the ugliness of our shared past.

People like the footballer Lilian Thuram, who bravely educate themselves about the practice of keeping 'natives' in 'human zoos' and parading them round the wealthy West.

People like the filmmaker Steve McQueen who don't try to make narratives of slavery more palatable for the Western establishment.

The world needs people like that who know the debate is not over, there can never be sufficient restitution and there are NO EXCUSES. Not dolts like Clarkson.

Clarkson makes people laugh, and the world needs laughter. Life can't be all wearisome fretting over political correctness.

Another 40+ signing in to say it is UTTER BOLLOCKS that this was acceptable in the childhoods of over 40s. I can absolutely say that it was considered completely unacceptable in my home. And I'm very nearly 50.

As for Clarkson: well, I said it on another thread - I think it reveals something very disturbed in the man's make-up. I think a lot of what he has said in the past has come from a disturbed place, frankly, and the only mystery lies in why people have been so keen to overlook it.

(Another poster also noted this disturbing quality. I think she was spot on.)

And the apology ...

Clarkson makes people laugh, and the world needs laughter. Life can't be all wearisome fretting over political correctness

The world sure does need laughter, Louise, but there are plenty funny people out there who aren't bigoted old gits who represent a large part of what stinks about Britain.

Noticing and acting accordingly with the need, in 2014, not to let casual instances of racism slip through the net isn't fretting or being PC. It's doing what needs to be done so we go forward, not backward.

You know, in a world where 200 Nigerian schoolgirls can be kidnapped because they are female and being educated, I just find it totally weird that people laugh along with Clarkson's hilarious "non-pc-ness" (ie, his sexism, racism, and other picking on those who tend to get shafted in an unequal world). I find it utterly baffling. All of it. Not just this latest "Ooops, silly, lickle me, I've gone too far. Sowwy," idiocy.

He's the Bully's Lieutenant.

But I hate that he has basically managed to subsidise a naice lifestyle, lending fags to the Camerons at New Year parties, on the back of jokes at the expense of vulnerable groups. I'm one of those groups. The bastard fucking owes me a share of his house. He bought that on the back of mocking me and people like me.

Too fucking right, thecat.

you don't have to fret over political correctness, you just don't be an arsehole.