Live and let live

Subject: Live and let live.

Our obsession with the past and it's different values to those present today has spawned a host of critics each failing to acknowledge that cultures change with the passage of time and holding the current crop of people responsible or even in some cases indictable is plain silly. Books abound detailing the inferior position black people in this country held 60 years ago and its argued still hold even in today's society. But It fails to confront the plight of "the other" a black person, a foreigner or more prosaically, the under nourished, poorly educated white person living in towns where they have always been exploited and today, even worse,  ignored as the need for them to labour in the fields or factory  has passed.

This bias in the media regarding the views of people wishing to grind the grist of racial profiling to the detriment of white people and is so counter productive if the complainers wished to gain the ear of the majority white folk. No one likes to be cast in a mould, not the black person nor the white person since stereotypes are nearly always harmful. There are of course truths within the stereotype but the essence of the individual is missed when indulging in preordained prejudice.

Currently there is a serious spat going on with the Yorkshire Cricketing Board accused of institutional racism. Racism and banter are close bedfellows in that things are said in a jokey way without any malice intended. The comedians of the 50s reflected a view  held in parts of our cities regarding the changing face of those inner cities as people arrived invited by government without any provision for them to be accommodated let alone assimilated in the existing environment. One way to let off steam about this influx of what was seen as cheap labour with alien customs, is to make the situation comedic, laughter after all is a great healer so long as the butt of the joke is not hated. It was a time when opinions were very divided as to the size and extent of the immigration and its repercussions on the way of life of the people who had just emerged from the depredations of a world war and all the pain it had brought the towns now inundated with what were then foreign people.

The phrases used to describe the in coming people were out of context derisory but often when used as a form of banter between friends not so. This was especially true when people drawn together in a team use nicknames to illustrate their friendship. The red head, the overweight, a large nose or balding head all draw  banteresque comments from mates in the dressing room. The Pakistan batsman Azeem Rafiq has accused Gary Balance, the Zimbabwe born player, both playing for Yorkshire of using racial slurs against him. Balance says that it was all banter and that Rafiq had responded with his own name calling. What a sad place we are in when teammates can't joust with each other for fear of litigation and surely if Rafiq had been peeved about it he could have spoken up at the time. As we walk on eggshells, ever fearful of being called racist, ever mindful that whilst  the terms used towards Balance and his Zimbabwe heritage were not classed as racist,  those towards a Pakistani player were. Words are thrown about in the heat of the moment but there was no heat, only banter and along with the robust sledging commonly used by the Aussies one has to ask why this is raised now and not then or is there an active force afoot determined to trawl through comments made years ago in a context very different. Is the white person being made to  squirm for his heritage and history if so perhaps we should take a closer look at  for-instance blasphemy laws which to most white people living in the UK, horrific. Do we call out the Muslim for claiming the visual representation of the Prophet Mohamed is indictable with a death sentence or that women are stoned to death for being unfaithful. Do we follow this injured party in his renouncement of us and retaliate or do we say, let's live and let live if this complex multicultural society like ours is to function.