I was going to go out for a walk after this – looks like it might need to be a swim now.
I was interested in the news that the head of the FA has resigned for using unacceptable language. I had been thinking a lot about the acceptability of language recently. WARNING – THIS POST WILL INCLUDE LANGUAGE SOME PEOPLE FIND OFFENSIVE IN ORDER TO DISCUSS THE TERMS AND ISSUES.
I always remember one of my colleagues who came from India saying he found it hilarious when people said they were “Going for an Indian”. He said it sounded like cannibalism. Truth is we are often lazy in our language.
I can remember back in my young days people would talk about going to the “Chinky” for their Chinese food. Chinky is a term that some people will find offensive, I was thinking – at the same time we would go to the Chippy for fish and chips. The term Chinky was applied to the restaurant, not to the people. Is it still offensive to use the term about a restaurant rather than a person?
The term that caused so much offence for the FA boss was “coloured”. Some people say this is offensive because everybody has a colour. But the term coloured has links to racist legislation in the USA and South Africa, so that might be more applicable as a reason why some people are offended by it. Strangely the term “Person of color” is less likely to cause offence in the USA than in the UK. How important is the perception of a person in deciding on the acceptability of language?
I decided to search for a guide on unacceptable language and I was please to find a UK police guide. I was quite surprised by some of it.
As an example, it says the term “non-white” should not be used, while the term “white” is acceptable. It is acceptable to talk about the cricket team “West Indies”, but unacceptable to describe somebody as “West Indian”. You should avoid using the term “OAP” and “kids/children”. The issue I take from this is that it is not a mathematical formula you use to determine offensiveness, otherwise both “white” and “non-white” would be equally wrong.
There were some that I found hard to accept – for example “ethnic” should not be used, but “mixed ethnic group” is acceptable.
I have diabetes – but it is apparently offensive to describe me as “a diabetic”. I thought hard about that one, then I went to search for the use of the term “diabetic”. What I found was something that disturbed me. I used three search engines – and all of them changed the search from “diabetic” to “diabetes”. Try it out. It is wrong to define somebody by an illness, so I am a “person with diabetes”. Sorry, I will not be using three words when I can use one – yes this is lazy talking but I am lazy.
God Squad motorcycle club will be interested to hear that the term “god squad” is considered offensive and should be avoided by police.
I find it hard to understand why the term “Arab” is considered unacceptable, so if anybody knows please explain it to me. I was disturbed to read that using the term “I-tie” for a person from Thailand was offensive (since the term actually refers to Italians).
I was also disappointed to hear that it is offensive to ask “Are you married?”
None of the terms listed were terms that were offensive about white people. Do they exist? Well yes, how about “Bacon Bits” or “Wigger”?
All of this is interesting to me – because I believe a clever racist can avoid using racially offensive terms. Racism is about what is inside a person and not necessarily what come out of their mouth.
Which brings us back to the head of the FA. When he used that unacceptable word he was talking about the horrific racial abuse some players have to face. Was his language a sign of inner racism, or was it just a guy that was not up on the acceptable word list who was trying to fight racists?