number 6 wrote:
>>
But was it *really* "bigoted" though?
Or have we simply been brainwashed into knee-jerk responses like "so-and-so made a joke about skin colour, or what's now fashionably called 'racial stereotypes' - ergo, he's a racist".
And while I wouldn't disagree that there were / still are *genuine* racial bigots about, hasn't the pendulum now swung too far the other way and gone all a bit silly?
I mean: it's come to something hasn't it, when half the time it's not even 'ethnic minorities' making complaints about these things, rather it's white do-gooders and hand-wringers coming over all 'offended' on someone else's behalf!
Consequently, off-the-cuff comments or bad jokes that weren't even meant to cause offence now get blown up out of all proportion and great big politically correct mountains end up being made out of tiny little molehills.
When I was growing up in the '70s, there were a couple of black (sorry - "Afro-Caribbean") kids in my circle of friends. We white kids (sometimes, by no means always) used to good-naturedly call them things like "sambo" or "fuzzytop" - and they'd call us "snowdrop" or "honkey".
But (inconceivable as it may sound now) there was never any *malice* on either side. They were just mates. Their skin colour didn't really matter at all (nor ours to them). It was just good-natured mucking about and teasing.
I'm not saying it was good or bad, right or wrong - it was just the way things were before the thought & language police started to dictate to people what they could and couldn't say.
And those who claim that programmes like "Love Thy Neighbour" and "Till Death Us Do Part" are racist have, I think, completely missed the point. If anything, they were *anti*-racist, as they always portrayed the bigots as stupid, ignorant and blinkered, and the 'ethnic' characters as intelligent, cultured and sophisticated. They highlighted just how stupid racism is.
Just my take.
- Eric