Are we all becoming too ready to be offended?

[Workingman]

Wigan football club chairman Dave Whelan is under fire for these two things: "Chink" and "Jewish people chase money more than everybody else".

They area bit 'old-hat' and stupid, but do they make him a racist?

Jewish Leadership Council chief executive Simon Johnson thinks so:

"For somebody in a leadership position in football, like Dave Whelan, to make such comments that effectively re-ignite a very old, revolting racial stereotype is offensive not just to Jewish people but to anybody who wants to see racism kicked out of football completely,"

He obviously thinks so, and so does the FA. It issued the following statement:

"The FA is very concerned to read about the comments that have been attributed to Dave Whelan," it read.
"We take all forms of discrimination seriously. As with all such cases, this will be dealt with as a priority.
"The investigation is already under way and The FA's Governance Division have written to Mr Whelan. He has three working days to respond."

A priority? Three days to respond?

What are TPTB trying to do - sanitise all language? Words can be offensive depending upon context and the way they are delivered, but it is our actions which really define us as racists proper.

[cromwell]

YES!!!!

Honestly, we are becoming (or being encouraged to become) a nation of handbag and pearl necklace clutchers.

All of this "inappropriate" business is doing my head in. Around here thank God, Prissiness has not become the new national religion, but the media and politicians are terrible for it.

[Aggers]

I think that people who become offended at such innocent sayings want their heads examined.

[Kaz]

I'm offended you should even ask, Frank

[Diflower]

Ridiculous
And most Jews would agree

[Suff]

When my father in law was in hospital for his last stint before his cardiac condition finally killed him, he would talk about the two "chinkie" nurses on the ward. His son a radical labourite was horrified. "You can't say that, it's racist". To which my father in law said "what do you mean, they are chinkie, there's nothing racist about that".

The two nurses in question loved him to pieces and were always bright and happy around him. When he finally blew out an artery and bled out, they were devastated and in tears.

We need to get over ourselves about words. The whole "sticks and stones" was a bedrock reality of British society and all the better for it. It is actions and abuse of people, not words to describe people, which we have to guard against. The problem is that by banning words, we drive actions underground. We do not stop the true racists, all we do is victimise older people who grew up with a different vocabulary.

We're changing from a pink frilly skirt society to a very dark and dangerous society where small minorities can quite literally destroy peoples lives for doing no more than using a word which was quite appropriate as little as 20 years ago.

That is significantly more dangerous than using the N word. Perhaps people will wake up to that. Or perhaps not. I don't want to live in a UK controlled by people like this. If I can't change them I won't ever come back.

[Aggers]

Suff - Your last post sums it up absolutely perfectly.

Those are my views exactly - although I had come to the conclusion that I felt that way
because I was born in another world, and was too old-fashioned for the 21st century.

What a pity people like you are not running things now.

[Suff]

A good dissection of the whole "ready to be offended" is here.

[TheOstrich]

Must be about 5 or 6 years ago now, I was in a business meeting with one of our bigger clients - advertising agency, guy about 10-15 years younger than me. We were pouring over a spreadsheet of figures looking for a budgeting anomaly which we reckoned was in there somewhere. Alighting on it, I said relievedly "Ah - there's the n***** in the woodpile!". An expression of my generation, not his.

He laughed and gave me a wry look. I realised what I'd said and apologised awkwardly. He laughed again and said "Forget it". I got on a lot better with him after that ......

Mrs O said that if she'd done that while she was working for Birmingham City Council, she'd have been sent on a mandatory Racial Equality and Diversity retraining course.

[Suff]

Yep that's a phrase out of my past too.

#1 son is always being told by his station that he needs a Diversity course. The police are not allowed his sense of humour. I guess one day he will be in trouble but a 76% arrest to conviction rate, in a force which is failing rather badly, is a Politically Correct cushion of some note...