The latest daft initiative from an obscure pressure group reprimands anyone who uses phrases including the word black, because according to them this could be racist. We shouldn't say someone deserves a black mark, or we're feeling in a black mood, or we're in someone's black books, or we bought something on the black market. We should find alternative phrases that avoid the word black.
This seems to me absolutely dotty. If I say I'm in a black mood, how on earth is this linked to racism? Wouldn't people understand it to mean simply that I'm feeling rather grumpy and irritable, with no sense whatever of a racist overtone?
Surely the way to combat racism is not to make umpteen changes to our vocabulary but to treat black people like fellow human beings, with courtesy and respect and fairness. Obviously we avoid the offensive n-words that are clearly abusive, but terms like "black mood" are referring to something quite different.
Yesterday I met my first black bus driver (Yes, Belfast is still mostly white). I would think that treating him as just another bus driver rather than something unusual and surprising is probably more appreciated than no one mentioning their "black mood".
I hope nobody offers him a black coffee or some black grapes. You never know, he might be mortally offended.
It will be a black day for the language if such a queer and overly-broad prohibition ever finds a chink in our armor of common sense and gets adopted. We'd be gypping ourselves out of the use of a whopping number of innocent expressions. You are quite right to try to nip this despicable idea in the bud by taking the mickey out of it and calling a spade a spade. If anyone tries to leap-frog your objections and advocate for it in the comments, just tell them to sod off for the nonce.
ReplyDeleteInfidel: As you say, we would have to abandon a huge number of useful expressions, for no good reason. A semantic black-out, in fact.
DeleteIt’s truly hard to know what words to use. I’m uncertain if we are to use the word Black as a race or if African American is preferred. And what do other countries use?
ReplyDeleteI can’t imagine eliminating so many phrases from our language, but I suppose in time, they could be gone.
Bijoux: There seems to me to be a very clear difference between the word black used as a deliberate racist insult and the word black to denote some harmless everyday meaning.
DeleteThanks for making me smile, Nick. Not much to add to what you said.
ReplyDeleteI shall now go and dye my little black dress (which colour do you suggest - yellow? Then the Chinese will come after me. Or white - then I'll be accused of discriminating against black). And what of Amy Winehouse and her "Back to black"? And blackouts? Soon nights will be shone a light on. Shelves will be cleared of mascara. Not to mention black ink and cuttle fish. Mark my words, Nick, if this over the top pc crap goes on we'll soon live in a beige world. What joy!
Enough to give you the blues if it weren't so ludicrous,
U
Ursula: If political correctness just means treating people considerately, I've no problem with that. But this is political absurdity. As you say, what would happen to the Amy Winehouse album? And what about the Australian band, Black Rock Band?
DeleteWhen I was working, chaps of African origin were referred to as black men, in the same sense that Chinese were Chinese and Indians Indians. Can't remember any black colleagues being in the least bothered by it, let alone feeling that they were subject to discrimination.
ReplyDeleteI would like those who start these hares to turn their attention to real world problems - modern slavery for a start, corruption in the so called charitable NGOs, just to start the list.
Fly: Indeed, there are plenty of genuine causes that need support, rather than these balmy concocted ones.
DeleteYep, definitely silly to cancel the word black! I mean how would we then describe the hue that is black.
ReplyDeleteI have a headache thinking about all this word palaver and now I have to lay down in a darkened room, with blackout blinds.
Sx
Ms Scarlet: I hope you're not listening to the Back to Black album. Your name would be forever blackened, oops tarnished.
DeletePeople have lost their minds.
ReplyDeleteMary: If someone can't tell the difference between being in a black mood and insulting black people, that's a bit bizarre.
DeleteI struggle with the term Native American. Everyone born here is a native American.
ReplyDeleteLinda Sand
Linda: Interesting point. I wonder how else you could make the distinction?
DeleteWe got by fine for generations with "Indian", or "American Indian" when context was not sufficient to distinguish from people from India. It's still used in everyday speech, just not in written or official or politically-correct language. I absolutely refuse to use "Native American" to refer only to people of the originally-indigenous race, for the same reason as Linda cites -- with rare exceptions, any person born in a country should be considered a native of it.
DeleteDoes the UK have a common term to refer to people of English and Celtic indigenous descent, as opposed to descendants of more recent immigrants (from the Caribbean, Pakistan, Poland, etc)?
Infidel: There is the term Anglo-Celtic, which is never used in the UK but apparently is commonly used in other countries - like Australia, Canada, the US, New Zealand and South Africa. There are various ethnic options on official forms here, my own usually being "white British".
DeleteThe color black is merely a color. The objectors are asking too much to purge its use.
ReplyDeleteJoanne: The mind boggles at how many useful and quite innocent phrases would have to be avoided.
DeleteNick, in German we have about 320 synonyms for black relating to all situations and emotions. We are just too lazy to use all the possibilities a language offers us. Referring to Linda , Native Americans / First Nation persons lived in the country long before all the European migrants came to the United States, Down Under or all the Islands.
ReplyDeleteHannah
Hannah: First Nation Americans is accurate but a bit of a mouthful. How about Early Americans?
DeleteNick, I would say indigenous people. They did not consider themselves as Americans or am I wrong ? The problem with us white people is that we always feel superior and teach others our way of life. In my eyes a considerable problem.
DeleteHannah
Hannah: Except of course that "indigenous people" doesn't specify a country. But yes, white people persist in thinking their way of life is superior to everyone else's.
DeleteEarly Americans has a different meaning here. I like First Nations but have trouble using that to refer to an individual. My study says that each tribe simply referred to themselves as The People but that doesn't work either.
DeleteIf you want to see the wrongful sense of superiority of white people, watch the film Rabbit Proof Fence.
Linda
Linda: I saw Rabbit Proof Fence many years back. A superb film about the appalling aboriginal child removal policy in Australia that lasted for most of the 20th century.
DeleteA new thought: you have to order your coffee plain?
ReplyDeleteLinda
Linda: Probably. And black-eyed beans would become dark-eyed beans.
DeleteI can't handles these manipulations anymore. Don't get me started on The Wokes. I think the educationsl distortion in Florida schools in just a symptom of what is to come.
ReplyDeleteWe're like frogs in a pot of water on a stove. How much more can we take of EVERYTHING. Cosmic scream there.
XO
WWW
www: Indeed, how much more can we take of all this ideological nonsense? Common sense is being abandoned on all sides.
DeleteIt's only a word and not indicative of a race, so anyone saying otherwise has got way too much time on their hands, obviously. And what about those other words of "color" like red, yellow, brown, white? Does this mean that when I am mad, I'll have to see another color, as somehow purple doesn't quite work.
ReplyDeleteBeatrice: Indeed, they have way too much time on their hands....
Delete