I think so. That always used to crack me up when I lived there. Can you imagine some brand of cheese called "Wog" in the UK? No, nor can I. Amazing!
This doesn't happen often, but I agree with Pete. We ought to be able to refer to obvious racial differences when it is relevant to do so without feeling squeamish. A black person is black and a white person is white. It isn't offensive to or derogatory merely to mention the fact. Walking on eggshells serves no purpose. I remember about 15 years ago listening to the local news on the TV. I was in the kitchen and I couldn't see the screen but I could hear what was said. Police were appealing for information about a missing child. Her name was given, her age, her height, how she wore her hair, what she was wearing at the time of her disappearance. She was 6 years old and had been missing several days. While this report was running I chanced to walk past the TV and there was a picture of the girl and she was black. Had I not seen this I would have assumed they were talking about a white girl, not because I'm racist but because the area where I lived was overwhelmingly white. You wouldn't see a black person from one year to the next. My mental image of people from that area was one of white people. Why would I assume a black person unless I was told? If ever there was a good reason to mention skin colour, this was it. If a missing child is black white green or blue for God's sake say so. Its not a hate crime its common sense.
I have been told that in Irish Gaelic the term used for black people equates to "blue people", because black has a nastier meaning. Anybody speak Gaelic who can confirm this?
Whilst i don't wish to offend anyone and have friends of various shades we don't use the 'N' word even the Spanish word for black. My best friend who is white, married a lady whose father was of African decent and mother of Anglo saxon, the lady is beautifully tanned. They had two boys, the first white and the second coloured, even more than his mother. The second son often refers to himself using words that white people cannot dare use whilst laughing like a drain. We recently bought some tiles and they were named Negro and there were many manufacturers who use that terminology. What I find difficult is keeping up with the accepted terminology or Noun.
Or a boxing match ,where the fighters wear similar shorts.They go all around the houses trying to describe one or other of the boxers. Why can they not just say-the black/white guy?It does my swede.
Just because of the negative connotation, it was used as a repressive word to distinguish between the races and to show that white people were in fact a superior race. That black people were nothing more than N. I am not comfortable using the phrase, yet I grew up with loads of black mates, would often use it when they were using it as it was used as a term of endearment bizarrely. My mates also used it to make white people uncomfortable whilst pissing themselves and to disempower the word. Outside of Hollywood is it still used to the same degree or with the same menace excepting the KKK/nazi right twats. Or is it now perceived as you are one bad mofo N? A term of status. Our cultural reference points have changed over the past 30 yes plus, whereas racism seems just as endemic in the US.
Already alluded to, 619 squadron. Al said it earlier. Guy martin out of respect has called his black lab nigel.
