Simple Question: Is anyone else fed up with having to be PC ?

[Tangled Metal]

So basically defining race by skin colour alone is wrong. Which could theoretically make a Scotsman abusing an Englishman for being not one of his lot a racist incident?

BTW prejudice is in all the isms. It's a catchall phrase. It's use doesn't downgrade the problem. Calling prejudice between people with the same skin colour racism or just prejudice it's still the same thing going on.

Personally i feel society sees racism in terms prejudice between people with different skin colour only and also sees that as being worse than prejudice between say Welsh, Scots and English (I am referring to white members of them that is). I do not. That is why I prefer to call prejudice between our nations racism. It puts that on the same level as a person with one skin colour abusing a person with another skin colour.

[merseymouth]

Hi all, as folk have brought the world of fiction into the thread, now morphed to "Racism", can I put the works of three writers into the mix? Frank Richards (also Freda Richards in his PC female persona). When writing about the Owl Of the Remove, Billy Bunter, he mentions the black fella Harry Ram Jam Singh, who is a far nicer chap that the lying Bunter!
Capt. W. E. Johns, very Imperialistic with the Biggles plots, "Filthy Hun"! Lots more in various travels.
Then the writer who has certainly been pillaried for Non PC Racism, Herge, real name George Remet, lambasted for "Tintin in the Congo", given further bashing for "Tintin in the Americas", even got slated for "Tintin in the land of the Soviets", all listed as "Non PC"!
I would say the the vast majority of folk who slag off all of those writers have never read them, and even if they have the put very PC specs on to read them.
Plenty of those works in my library, so I'll be lucky if I don't get a brick through my window!
Are we to obliterate all writing from a non PC era??? TTFN MM

[Vorpal]

BTW prejudice is in all the isms. It's a catchall phrase. It's use doesn't downgrade the problem. Calling prejudice between people with the same skin colour racism or just prejudice it's still the same thing going on.

Not necessarily. I think it's a bit different to be subjected to it as the member of an oppressed group, than as a member of a privileged one.

All forms are bad, but some are worse than others.

[Vorpal]

Plenty of those works in my library, so I'll be lucky if I don't get a brick through my window!
Are we to obliterate all writing from a non PC era??? TTFN MM

Of course not. Some of them have value as a window into the culture that they came from. Some have value as stories, despite inherent racism, imperialism, etc. Some have value because of it (e.g. Mark Twain, as discussed above)

But there are also things where racism is an integral part of the telling, but not of the story, stories that are better without racism, and stories that are little more than racism. These should be either edited, annotated, and/or consigned to a history lesson.

[Oldjohnw]

One of my favourite writers is John Buchan, Lord Tweedsmuir.

Loads of quite frankly racism there, not because of what he actually calls someone but how it appears he views Africans and Jews. He sees them as quite inferior to the British. Of course, he held senior roles in an Imperialist Government. As a youngster reading these in the 1960s I missed the racism. After several re-reads over the years I could see it quite clearly.

I still read his books and enjoy the ripping yarns, whilst seeing critically the quite unpleasant superior British he portrays and the inferior others.

[al_yrpal]

Great article lauding Richmal Crompton and Just William in The Times today. Tales from a bygone era.. But of course the Grauniard didnt agree.... https://www.theguardian.com/uk/1999/may/04/rorycarroll

Al

[reohn2]

Scientifically, it's now understood that there is more genetic diversity within Africa than between non-African humans.

the deepest splits in the human family aren’t between what are usually thought of as different races—whites, say, or blacks or Asians or Native Americans. They’re between African populations

So what we think of as "race" has little or no basis in genetics.

Good article here:

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/maga ... ce-africa/

Most non-Africans moved out of Africa, then moved back, then out again, then they did the hokey cokey before going left and right.

What's becoming apparent is the movement of peoples, their interbreeding, the number of human species etc is all a lot more complex than the simplistic human species tree's you see dotted about.

Folk moved out of Africa not that long ago, in comparison species of humans lived in Africa for millions of years.
The relatively small numbers that moved out came from a subset of those that lived in Africa so it's not surprising there's less diversity.
Although we did manage to shag a few Neanderthal's so if you're white chances are you've got Neanderthal DNA whereas Africans don't.
If you're Asian you've probably got Denisovan DNA.
And there's another as yet unknown species buried in our DNA too.

Genuinely interested,where's your sources,can you point me to a good read on it all?

[kwackers]

Genuinely interested,where's your sources,can you point me to a good read on it all?

Not easily.
It's a fast moving topic with lots of research being published all the time so most of what I know comes from New Scientist articles - there's pretty much an article on it every other month.

If you have access to NS I can dig out and point you to a couple of articles - there was a good one in December (or late Nov) last year.

The main things I take from the articles is that the simplistic idea that we simply moved out of Africa and populated the globe is a vast oversimplification.
Evidence both fossil and genetic suggests there were multiple waves of peoples leaving Africa, some simply died out, some moved back and they interbred with each other a lot.
That combined with evidence of a number of as yet undiscovered "human" species makes for a vastly more interesting scenario.

Fascinating stuff though.
I'm sure there are some good books out there - but as I said, it's a fast moving subject so any hard copies would need to be pretty up to date.

[661-Pete]

Great article lauding Richmal Crompton and Just William in The Times today. Tales from a bygone era.. But of course the Grauniard didnt agree.... https://www.theguardian.com/uk/1999/may/04/rorycarroll

Did you really think that that article suggests that the Grauniad "didn't agree" in some manner? If so, "didn't agree" with what?

[landsurfer]

Great article lauding Richmal Crompton and Just William in The Times today. Tales from a bygone era.. But of course the Grauniard didnt agree.... https://www.theguardian.com/uk/1999/may/04/rorycarroll

Did you really think that that article suggests that the Grauniad "didn't agree" in some manner? If so, "didn't agree" with what?

Having just read it i would say that the Grauniad does not agree with the "Lauding" of just William and they seem to have just trotted out the usual professional victims and their organisations for comments ....

[PH]

they seem to have just trotted out the usual professional victims and their organisations for comments ....

It’s hard to compare with an article I haven’t seen, but the Guardian haven’t just done anything, the link is two decades old...

[kwackers]

It’s hard to compare with an article I haven’t seen, but the Guardian haven’t just done anything, the link is two decades old...

Good old internet, where information comes to stagnate.

I'm waiting for Tony Heart to die again. He dies at least once every couple of years.

[landsurfer]

they seem to have just trotted out the usual professional victims and their organisations for comments ....

It’s hard to compare with an article I haven’t seen, but the Guardian haven’t just done anything, the link is two decades old...

WOW ! The professional victims and their organisations have been around longer than i thought ...

[reohn2]

Genuinely interested,where's your sources,can you point me to a good read on it all?

Not easily.
It's a fast moving topic with lots of research being published all the time so most of what I know comes from New Scientist articles - there's pretty much an article on it every other month.

If you have access to NS I can dig out and point you to a couple of articles - there was a good one in December (or late Nov) last year.

The main things I take from the articles is that the simplistic idea that we simply moved out of Africa and populated the globe is a vast oversimplification.
Evidence both fossil and genetic suggests there were multiple waves of peoples leaving Africa, some simply died out, some moved back and they interbred with each other a lot.
That combined with evidence of a number of as yet undiscovered "human" species makes for a vastly more interesting scenario.

Fascinating stuff though.
I'm sure there are some good books out there - but as I said, it's a fast moving subject so any hard copies would need to be pretty up to date.

Thanks for that,I'll check it out.

[pete75]

Great article lauding Richmal Crompton and Just William in The Times today. Tales from a bygone era.. But of course the Grauniard didnt agree.... https://www.theguardian.com/uk/1999/may/04/rorycarroll

Did you really think that that article suggests that the Grauniad "didn't agree" in some manner? If so, "didn't agree" with what?

Having just read it i would say that the Grauniad does not agree with the "Lauding" of just William and they seem to have just trotted out the usual professional victims and their organisations for comments ....

They neither agree nor disagree , they're just reporting that some people are complaining about it.
BTW what is a professional victim? Is it a member of the professions a Doctor say who is a victim of something or is it someone paid to be a victim or what? Please explain.