Word association

I'm bemused by those fanatical campaigners who think that endless tinkering with the words and phrases we use somehow makes life better for all those groups of people who're discriminated against.

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.

Hair today, gone tomorrow

Going back to dress codes, I see that school pupils are still being told to change their "unacceptable" hairstyles, and can face expulsion if their refuse.

So I'm pleased that the equality body, the Equality and Human Rights Commission, has just advised schools not to penalise pupils with afros because that's a form of racism.

Unfortunately the guidance only applies to afros and not to other hairstyles. And it says nothing about workplaces, which might also be picky about hairstyles.

I've never understood why schools and workplaces are so censorious about someone's hairstyle, if in most cases their hairstyle makes no difference to anything. I accept that a hairstyle may be objected to if it's a safety hazard, like long hair if you're using dangerous machinery, but otherwise, why all the fuss?

A pupil's unusual hairstyle won't stop them learning, and an employee's odd hairstyle won't stop them doing their job.

Strangely enough, neither me nor any other boy at my two schools were ever ticked off for unacceptable hairstyles. That was partly because in those days most boys opted for an unadventurous "short back and sides". They didn't have long hair as that only became popular after I left school in 1965. And they didn't dye their hair as that was seen as effeminate. But even those boys with a slicked back Elvis hairstyle were never told off. Hair just wasn't controversial.

Of course beards are never in contention for schoolboys as you can only grow a beard from around the age of 18. But there are still workplaces that ban them as "unprofessional". As a bookseller, my hairstyle was never questioned. If I had had hair down to my ankles nobody would have objected, though they might have wondered how on earth I washed it.

Digging up the dirt

This new trend of digging up something a person said 20 or 30 years ago and using it to discredit them seems ridiculous to me. We all had different attitudes when we were younger, many of them deeply embarrassing by today's standards, and just about anyone could be discredited on that basis.

Tony Sewell, the new chair of the government's commission on race and ethnic disparities, has had to apologise for saying homosexuals were "the greatest queer bashers around, "tortured queens playing hide and seek" who "made their own sexuality look dirty".

Of course the comments are grotesque and offensive, but they aren't recent comments, they're ones he made in 1990. Why should they be dredged up 30 years later as if he must have the same opinions in 2020? And why should they be used to try and oust him from a job that has nothing to do with homosexuality?

He has said clearly that those remarks "do not reflect my views today nor indeed the views of modern society." Isn't that enough to draw a line under the subject?*

We all have skeletons in the closet when it comes to unsavoury opinions we held when we were younger, and less sensible and circumspect than we are now. I supported all sorts of odd causes I wouldn't support now. I criticised people for personal failings I would now have more sympathy for.

If anybody could lose their job because of some off-the-cuff insult from decades ago, there would be an awful lot of sackings, and an awful lot of job vacancies. Can any of us say we've never let slip an ill-considered remark?

Unfortunately in the age of the internet such mortifying remarks are preserved for posterity and aren't easily buried.

* More to the point, he has denied the existence of institutional racism, which surely disqualifies him from a job concerning racial inequality

Viral panic

It's horribly predictable that the coronavirus epidemic has led to an increase in hostile attitudes towards the British-Chinese. It doesn't take much for hidden prejudice to emerge when a suitable target appears. All these incidents have been reported in London:

• A man with a Chinese appearance at Gatwick, who hasn't been to China in two years, was told by a nearby couple "They should wear their masks"
• A woman was asked persistently if she had ever eaten bat soup
• A woman noticed other train passengers moving away from her
• Restaurants in Chinatown have seen a big decline in customers

The risk of catching the coronavirus is infinitesimal; only two people have definitely got it in the whole of the UK. There's a far bigger risk of dying from the flu. An average of 600 people a year in the UK die from flu complications, and in 2008-2009 there were over 13,000 flu deaths. But people are panicking and imagining that simply sitting next to a Chinese person puts them in mortal danger - even if they're British citizens and have never been to China.

There are around 10,000 British-Chinese in Northern Ireland, but oddly enough the local papers haven't asked them if the coronavirus has led to abusive encounters. Since Northern Ireland is over 90 per cent white, racist attitudes are not uncommon, and if London is anything to go by, it's highly likely they've increased in recent weeks.

We're friendly with a Northern Irish man and British-Chinese woman who live a few doors down, but I haven't yet had a chance to ask her if the coronavirus has caused any negative remarks. Hopefully not as this area is heavily middle-class and presumably more tolerant than elsewhere.

But irrational prejudice pops up in the most unlikely places.

Pic: An almost deserted Chinatown in London.

No longer welcome

I can't imagine what it's like to be nervous about walking down the street, or being at work, or riding a bus, for fear someone will aim some kind of racist abuse at you. But this is happening more and more since the referendum - in England at any rate.

People are being targeted simply because they look different, or are speaking another language, or have a foreign-sounding name, or wear foreign-looking clothing. Suddenly they face a tirade of insults and threats, and often the ultimatum that they should "go back home".

No matter that they might have lived in the UK for decades, might be British citizens, might pay hefty taxes, might never have claimed benefits, might never have been unemployed. No matter how much they resemble ordinary, humdrum Brits, they are treated like some sinister alien who "doesn't fit in", who "isn't one of us".

An increasing number of those targeted, or likely to be targeted, are saying they now feel so unwelcome and so uncomfortable they are thinking of moving to another European country, or indeed back to their home country.

They came here because they saw the UK as somewhere open-minded and tolerant where they would feel accepted and appreciated, but now everything seems to have changed and they feel like suspicious outsiders.

Says one anonymous Eastern European, too scared to give her name, living in Surrey, "I have been living here for almost ten years and must say I have never felt uncomfortable until now. I don't feel comfortable to speak my own language in the street, as I don't want to provoke anyone or even to be seen as just another immigrant."

What a shocking state of affairs. As I've said before, I'm not ashamed to be British because I don't identify with the mindless bigots persecuting "foreigners" in this way. But I'm certainly not proud to live in a so-called civilised country that's so saturated with xenophobia.

No platform

Continuing with the same theme, a National Union of Students officer has refused to share a platform with the well-known progressive campaigner Peter Tatchell, on the grounds that he's racist and transphobic. When he asked her for evidence, she refused to speak to him and wouldn't produce any.

Anyone who knows Peter knows very well he's never been remotely racist or transphobic. On the contrary, he's backed every anti-racist and pro-transgender campaign in his 49 years of human rights work. The accusations are totally absurd.

Yet the NUS officer, Fran Cowling, won't back down and the NUS leadership is supporting her rather than Peter. Peter sees this as another example of the growing censorship of free speech at universities and elsewhere.

He says: "This sorry, sad saga is symptomatic of the decline of free and open debate on some university campuses. There is a witch-hunting, accusatory atmosphere. Allegations are made without evidence to back them - or worse, they are made citing false, trumped-up evidence.

"The race to be more left-wing and politically correct than anyone else is resulting in an intimidating, excluding atmosphere on campuses. Universal human rights and enlightenment values....are often shamefully rubbished as the ideas of Western imperialist white privilege."

He points out that even if he did happen to be racist or transphobic, the best response isn't to shut the person out (what's called no-platforming) but to debate with them and expose their views for the nonsense they are. Open debate is surely what universities are all about.

But Fran Cowling and the NUS are happy to see Peter smeared as some kind of entrenched bigot, and then when he asks for evidence, they're too sneaky and cowardly even to respond. They're beneath contempt.

Pic: Peter Tatchell

Foreign hordes

 Once again Prime Minister David Cameron has been banging on about "mass immigration", "the large influx of people into Britain" and the strains and stresses this is causing to those already living here.

He happily repeats the enduring myth that the UK is being swamped by a vast tsunami of foreigners who're plundering the country and leaving the rest of us destitute and done-for.

It's no good telling him that actually the immigration rate is still a minute percentage of the population (around 200,000 a year out of a population of 62 million) and hardly amounts to an uncontrollable deluge.

It's no good pointing out that many of these immigrants are highly skilled and greatly benefit the economy, and that they often take on vital jobs that other people don't want to do.

And it's no good suggesting that anyway the problem is not numbers but organisation, that if public services were better managed and new arrivals got more help to integrate into British life, there would be a lot less of the current hysteria and panic on the subject.

If it's really a question of numbers, how come people aren't bothered by the 790,000 new children who pour into the country every year? They also need things like schools, healthcare and housing. They also need to learn the language and learn how to integrate into British life.

But we're willing enough to organise that. We don't see children as a huge burden and liability we can't cope with. We don't demand a crackdown on childbirth. We see children as a potential asset, not a looming disaster.

Politicians should stop fanning xenophobic anxieties to improve their election prospects and set a more responsible example.

And pigs might fly.

Unsung heroines (3)

When Salome Mbugua first arrived in southern Ireland in 1994 from Africa, she got a friendly welcome as black people were rare. But when she came back four years later people were more hostile.

There were a lot more immigrants and she was told "Go home, nigger." She met other black women who were meeting similar prejudice and having trouble finding suitable jobs.

With the support of Sisters of Mercy, a Catholic religious order, she set up AkiDwa, the African Women's Network, to provide support for black women and find out what their needs were.

Now the network, which expanded to help other women arriving from countries like Iraq, Afghanistan and Romania, has 2075 members and five permanent groups and is transforming the lives of previously marginalised newcomers.

They have had problems with racism, vandalism, domestic violence and even people saying they shouldn't have children. Around 60 per cent of them have had to take jobs that didn't match their skills. Overseas qualifications were often not recognised in the Republic.

AkiDwa advises them on how to improve their employment prospects and how to deal with discrimination, domestic violence and other problems that are holding them back.

Salome, a qualified social worker with a Master's degree from University College Dublin, originally wanted to work with the United Nations but now says she is too passionate about her work with AkiDwa to consider anything else. It has become her big mission and has been a much needed lifeline for thousands of vulnerable and victimised women.

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NB: I can't give a link to the recent Irish Times article as it's subscription-only. But here's another piece from the Irish Independent.

See also: Unsung heroines 1: Gareth Peirce

Unsung heroines 2: Camila Batmanghelidjh