In the land of my fathers

 

Subject:In the land of their fathers. 

If we continue to be exposed and called out in class and made to explain the language we use in public, why is my discomfort at swearing or the continual display of sexual coupling in films on television not taken into consideration as well, or is it only the bodies who opinionate on racial matters who carry weight these days.

The Chairman of the Football League was kicked out of his job yesterday, within an hour of him appearing in front of a parliamentary committee and having used, in his testimony the word "coloured" to describe black players. The term, used in America "a person of colour" has also now been deemed inappropriate and it appears that the only term which can be used is "black" to describe a whole swathe of people, some of who are very black whilst others are relatively fair skinned. In South Africa there is a section of people who call themselves 'Cape Coloured' and who's history has seen their segmentation/separation from both the black and white communities in the country and who would resist being called anything other than Coloured, they see it as their identity and are proud of their heritage.
In this 'them and us' contest a white person who resembles a piece of chalk, or one who has a sallow pigmentation has to be careful about what they say when defining the skin colour of everyone else. The argument is that in defining people by skin colour we add a sort of derogatory epithet to that person, even if it's not our intention and the decision to take umbrage lays wholly with the black person. People who are not black, tread on eggshells and its this bias, another blatant agenda for raising black consciousness  which troubles me.
Of course we are not actually talking of colour we are talking of prejudice which we all have and the historical context in which nations are categorised.  Colour was used to describe a nation state where there was little mixing, except at the periphery. Colour only became an issue when white people colonised other nations composed of people of a different skin colour.  Interestingly the reverse happened when mass immigration, (contrived through economic consideration) brought significant numbers of nonwhite people into an area where few nonwhite people existed.
In this uncertain world of racial and cultural mixing, white  people, who were largely found in the colder Northern geographical climes, where skin colour was the most recognisable and visible aspect, (other than clothing), from people who had immigrated into the region, over the last 60 years and were becoming a growing feature of the society.  
 To define them, as is sometimes needed, terms such as coloured were used. Coloured was a catch all definition which encompassed people who were not white but which now for political reasons a definition black is now decreed, even though it itself does not describe and is not accepted by the largest non white cohort. 
There are a whole range of nations who would not agree to describing themselves black but their views as not sort by that vociferous section of people who have taken on the mantle of activist/spokesperson, and who regularly appear on our television screens. People who are only a generation away from belonging elsewhere and are now the loudest to condemn and find fault, they are like cuckoo's who throws out the hosts egg. 
Today people with a white skin are accused of a whole range of offences. Colonial exploitation, there questioning of cultural practices which are considered abhorrent, religious practice which openly describe people as being inferior and would like to add to their own concept of what society should look adding their own legal format to that belief. For all these complaints and calls for reparation we are asked to turn the other cheek and accept it as the march of history and a sign of progress. 
The rap artists and black activists, who are scathing in their language, when describing white people are allowed in the context of a country willing to recognise free speech until that is someone like Greg Clark uses the word colour.  What makes me really queasy is the sight of white people self flagellating for past ills in an effort to be seen as fair. After centuries of exploring, colonising, modernising and educating, -  white people are seen as wrong in trying. Perhaps we should have left well alone and not developed those markets. Maybe like the Chinese, we should have exercised our financial power and imported the skills to do the work whilst remaining in our own isolated compound so as not to not contaminate the indigenous society.
The banditry, melted out to Greg Clark for using a term which was appropriate 30 years ago and was the lingua franca  of people like Greg Clark and used across the world. A world which including those undemocratic nations in the Middle and Far East, often viewed as totalitarian regimes who use a similar type of censorship, meted out to Clark to keep their own people in line. 
We still have a way to go but I see the seeds of a different type of autocracy, one built on 'displaced communities', each keen to have its say in a way they were never able to in 'the land of their fathers'  and each mightily disgruntled by the completion for what's left of the cake after years of mismanagement.