Tuesday 5th December

What exactly is the right thing?  In these difficult times knowing just what the right thing to do or say is complicated.   We have moved from a time when Offence was when the Offender meant to offend, now it is when the recipient (or sometimes the over-hearer) takes Offence when maybe none was intended.  I have been accused of misogyny  when making a joke about women, but have never been accused of any bias against men when the joke is on them.  As a child I would overhear my parents speak about ‘coloured people’, which was itself a euphemism.  Now that term is considered offensive by some who prefer to be called black.  Although even this is uncertain – and ‘people of colour’ may be coming back into usage.  And really I am sure there is no offence meant, but it is often taken.  John Terry famously accused an opponent of being a ‘black c..t’.  What surprised me was that it was only the (possibly descriptive) use of the word black that was deemed to be offensive, not (for me) the far more offensive ‘c’ word.  Strange times indeed.

I was actually brought up with the mantra “Sticks and Stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” – in other words, let nasty playground abuse go, it didn’t really matter and couldn’t possibly hurt me.  But I do understand that a lifetime of abuse can be like water dripping on a stone, wearing away at one’s self-confidence and self-respect.  Talking of respect, what exactly is that?  Many gang members talk of ‘Respect’, but I think this is shorthand for subservience.

And language doesn’t stand still.  Reading Victorian, and even much Twentieth Century literature and one realizes just how certain opinions and words were acceptable in times gone by but which now would be seen as highly offensive.  And though we try not to give offence it is almost inevitable that in these thin-skinned times someone will be offended by our (to us) innocent language.

And what do we do about History.  Slavery was one of the worst episodes in the history of the White Man, though maybe the mass extermination of many indigenous peoples in America and Australia and new Zealand was worse.  So what can we do now but say we are sorry?  Even the descendants of those who benefited from the Slave Trade and are maybe still benefiting from inherited wealth may be truly sorry that their ancestors behaved in the way they did, but how do we ever right that wrong.  Some students in Liverpool are demanding that a student halls of residence be renamed from ‘Gladstone’, because the Liberal PM, in order to facilitate the speedier end to Slavery gave compensation to slave owners.  How far back into History do we have to go?  And what good does it do?  Are black students really offended by the name ‘Gladstone’?  Doing the right thing has never been so complicated.