disgusted (Tunbridge Wells)

Scottie Bowman (rbowman@indigo.ie)
Sat, 31 Jul 1999 12:21:12 +0100

    Colin obviously belongs to a much gentler strand of English
    society than the gin-drinking, sola-topi-wearing, wog-flogging
    crowd that I mix with.

    How on earth will we ever raise a laugh without a few
    stereotypes: the plank-thick Paddy, the moronic Pollack
    or (in my own case) the dirt mean Scot?

    I have the distinct impression that all this hypersensitivity
    about racism comes mainly from members of the oppressor
    tribes.  The 'victims' themselves seem a good deal more robust
    in their usage.  (As a small example, my homosexual patients
    seem very happy to exchange insults with me about them being
    'queer' & me being decrepit.  If I were to start referring to them
    with genteel correctness as 'gay' I should dismissed with all due
    campy speed.)

    In adhering to the party line - from nigger to negro to coloured
    to black to African to whatever - & in gingerly avoiding anything
    that could be mistaken for a racial cliché, the former masters
    seem to me to have replaced the shamboek with an even more
    humiliating condescension.

    Scottie B.