AIBU to think that ignorance isn't a good reason to be racist?

[alltoomuchrightnow]

Re the news , MP Anne Marie Morris' phrase of ' in a woodpile'
I'm not going to write it out, people can google if need be.
I know a woman in her seventies (before I am accused of being ageist, I'm not, it's relevant as she's using age to defend herself) who cannot understand all the fuss, she says it's a perfectly common phrase. She had no idea that is taboo word/phrase these days. Thinks it's most unfair the MP is in trouble over it as it's 'just a word' and nothing wrong with it, so she thought...
She said, how is her generation supposed to keep up when one minute words are fine and the next they are not? If changes are so quick, how can we keep up, was her exact point.
I'm in my 40s and disagree. I am a 70s/80s child which was definitely not a PC time but I had never ever heard of that phrase until now and had to google it. Also the particular word in question was not a word from my english childhood. This is of course only my own experience. As I said..it wasn't a PC time and all sorts of words and phrases were used in the playground. Much were said in 'innocence' as didn't know what they meant and were copied from others or even parents.
But not that particular word. I honestly don't remember anyone using it , it was definitely a taboo word but it just wasn't on the radar.
So I don't think this woman is right. My parents are her age and older and they are not the most PC people but they'd never use that word and I know would not be happy for others to use it. They'd find it massively offensive.
Do I point out to her that there was no sudden change? Perhaps I'm wrong and it was sadly more common when I was a child than I realise. but that was so long ago.. certainly not a sudden change as in 'this is a bad word now'! Surely it must be 50 + years since used regularly, and even so, that doesn't mean it was ok then!

My Grampy has been known to utter that exact phrase. He's 89, but honestly he isn't racist. My Mum married a 'foreigner' (my Dad) and he has no issue with the colour of anyone's skin. If I hear him say it I do always say 'Gramp, you can't say that anymore it's really offensive' - he normally huffs and says 'oh everything is offensive these days'. I'm a child of the 80s and it's always been a horrible word to me. I get really cross when I hear rappers saying it. My stepmum showed me her childhood copy of a book (I think it was Rupert the Bear) from the 50s/60s and it had that word in it. I was shocked! I was at primary school in the very early 90s and I was taught that it was polite to say 'coloured' not black, even as late as that! That was at a school that had just two Asian children and one mixed-race child in my whole year group. Certainly very different these days and thank goodness for that, I don't was DD growing up as sheltered as me, I'm so glad she'll be making friends with children from all backgrounds and races when she goes to school.

There is no excuse. It's not ignorance and it's not age. My parents are in their 70s and would not only never use that word now, but never used it when they were younger either. And I know for a fact that my late grandad, born in 1916, hated that word - he even refers to people using it as a racist term in his war diaries - and that was obviously in the 1940s. If you use racist words, you're doing it because you either want to express hatred/disdain or because you want to shock/be contrary. The latter is as obnoxious as the former.

It's inexcusable and disgusting. It worries me that it was a "slip of the tongue" as that probably means she uses it all of the time. You don't tend to blurt out things you never say.

There are many people who are not up to date on the politically correct new term for "black person" and indeed, I don't think that matters much as long as it is one of the words that used to be the politically correct ones.

The new words become incorrect so fast because racism still exists.

I hope we can keep "black" ... it is not like the offensive word meant anything else, originally. It just became a slur because of the many racists using it as one.

She's a racist end of

I'm just gobsmacked at the casual way she came out with it. If she can say that in public in a professional meeting, what on earth does she say in private?

During the election campaign this summer she tried to distance herself from comments her partner had made about immigrants, saying they weren't her views. We know the truth now, don't we? It's like a spectacular namechange fail on Mumsnet on a really sensitive subject