h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Yeah, and shut off that Ethnic-Minority Sabbath music!

B

I was taught "catch a tiger by its toe", although now that I think about it "tiger" does sound a bit like "n****r". Hmm...

Would you prefer to listen to some Caucasiansnake, B?

RF

Right now, I'd actually prefer some Native Indian Hot Chili Peppers.

B

Native American Hot Chili Peppers, surely?

I'm going to listen to some Far-East-Asian-Ethnic-Group.

RF

When I was a kid it was mostly 'catch a piggy' and only occasionally 'catch a n****r'. Mum preferred us to use 'catch a piggy' because even back then she taught us it wasn't nice to refer to people as 'n*****s'. And I went to school with a number of coloured childre, so we tended not to use 'n****r'. Aside from which, we had other rhymes for choosing who was 'it'. There was 'Dip, dip, dip, my little ship' and 'One potato, two potato'. There were probably others, but those are the ones that spring to mind.

As for banning 'Baa baa black sheep', I can't remember which council it was and I haven't read the article, but all that happened was that one council advised its teachers to be careful about using language that might cause offence to ethnic minorities. One teacher said something like, "Do they expect us to sing 'Baa baa green sheep?'" and this comment was blown up out of proportion.

I agree with whoever objected to calling blackboards 'chalkboards' and whiteboards 'penboards'. The name is descriptive of the colour, not some ethnic slur. When I was at school even the greenboards were referred to as 'blackboards'. It's a generic term, for crying out loud!

I agree completely. Using the names of colors to describe things doesn't indicate ethnic prejudice. I don't see how it could.

"I remember a newspaper article a few years ago when, after successfully changing 'blackboard' to 'chalkboard' (it's a board. It's black.), the PC crackpots were even going to campaign to have Blackpool renamed...."

I would be very surprise if there was any truth in any of this. A lot of these 'PC crackpot' stories have absolutely no foundation in fact outside of the fevered imaginations of the D**ly M**l and the S*n. See the link to the article I posted earlier about other fabricated 'stories'.

Those who wish to whip up the politics of race have a tendency to fabricate stories to do so. There is a BNP pamphlet going round my area ahead of the local elections which does this in the most appalling way, but we're not meant to discuss the election here, so I won't say any more.

There is always the Rhyme... "Ip Dip, Dog Sh*t, you are not 'It'" Repeated until only one reamins.

Is that not offensive to dogs?

B

Well even whiteboards are going now.It's due to the electronic age however.They new 'boards'are run from a laptop or PC.Quite fun but us supply teachers don't get to play.

As for the original rhyme,yes it figured the N word.Being as I was born in Nigeria and hated any form of racism I wouldn't use this ryhme.I used the one potato,two potato one instead.

Incog.

Its not really offensive to dogs, It's just slang used to fill in the rhyme.
We must have been really qutie bored as school kids.

Unfortunately the very extreme PC people who make a fuss over the simple use of the words black or white end up putting the whole PC movement into a situation of ridicule.

As I have said before, I am not a big PC fan. I don't believe that just changing the words ultimately changes attitudes, which is the thing we should all be concerned about.

I do recognise the sensitivity about using a children's rhyme in a national advert that is largely remembered as having the N-word in it.

But I think people who say it is somehow *wrong* to refer to people as white or black are going way off the deep end. My question to these people is - what is wrong with having differences? Physical, cultural or otherwise. It seems we are all supposed to see everyone as being *exactly the same* as we are, which frankly, just isn't true.

Where I come from, Canada, there is a very open-minded acceptance of all cultures, ethic differences, etc. So, while people there are all Canadian (whatever that means) they are also Chinese-Canadian, Ukranian-Canadian, Irish-Canadian and every mix you can imagine.

Yes, we all belong to the human race. There are actually no other 'races', just ethnic differences. But to me, having grown up in Canada, it was always very interesting to learn about other cultures and differences. And people are curious. They will say - what is your background? - if they meet someone who obviously looks Asian, African, Indian, whatever. Or even when meeting someone with shocking red hair they might ask - 'where do you come from?' - meaning where do your ancestors come from. Nothing negative is meant by this at all. It is simply curiosity and interest.

To say that you can't call a black sheep black is quite absurd.

To try and convince people that there are no differences between us is equally absurd. Because this implies that there is something wrong with being somehow different.

I wonder if extreme PC advocates aren't just as bad as racists.

az