LL-L "Folklore" 2004.09.02 (10) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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From: Sandy Fleming <sandy at scotstext.org>
Subject: "Folklore" [E]

> From: john feather <johnfeather at sceptic1.freeserve.co.uk>
> Subject: Folklore
>
> Sandy wrote re "black":
>
> >It's confusing the analogy with physicality that leads to irrational
> nonsense such as the ...  choice of language in racist slander &c<
>
> Isn't it rather the reverse - that PC attitudes lead to an excessive
> sensitivity about the use of the word "black"?

Well, I completely agree, although I'd say it's a different thing.

As for anecdotes on the word "black"...

On Lowlands-L some years ago a contributor mentioned that the email filter
at his son's school in Scotland blocked emails containing the word "black".

About ten years ago someone told me that the city council in Manchester
(England) had a rule that black rubbish bags were _not_ to be referred to as
black.

Is it right or wrong to refer to a Black person as Black? If it's right,
then how can there be anything wrong with calling other things black? If
it's wrong, then how can you associate other black objects with the people?
Either way, the "not black bags/black filter" attitudes can't be justified.

As for Captain Black in "Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons" - let's face it,
a work of fiction does depend on cultural references for all sorts of things
and if you're going to colour-code characters then black will suggest the
villain, blue will suggest loyalty and suchlike. I think if there are no
direct references to race then there can't be anything wrong with it (other
than the crass directness of the cultural symbolism, of course!).

It's a bit like the way mothers all over the UK refer to their children as
"black" when they mean they badly need a wash. They don't mean to imply
anything about race, so that's that.

Sandy
http://scotstext.org/

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