Tuesday 3 July 2007

The 'n' word

I turned on the TV earlier this evening and a prog called "Lenny's Britain" was on. This is a series where Lenny Henry travels around the British Isles checking out our sense of humour, what makes people laugh in different places and in various jobs and circumstances. He was on a ferry to Ireland and then travelled to Belfast. So, I took an interest.

In Belfast he met with some Northern Irish comedians who were talking about the rise of racism that was accompanying the influx of immigrants over the last few years now the locals weren't fighting each other so much. One told a story about the apparently innocent use of the word 'nigger' by older people who had never so much as met a black person. Lenny Henry's reaction, spoken in the commentary was as follows: "I'm not so much shocked by the use of the 'n' word, more saddened. There's always a skip in my heartbeat whenever I hear it. And no matter how well-meaning the people are saying it, no matter how fitting the context, the word for me is still taboo."

As it happens this describes quite well my reaction when a few minutes earlier in a clip from his stand-up routine Lenny had used 'Jesus Christ!' as a comic swear word. I'm sure he meant no offence (it was but one of what my friend Geoff Mann called "a million casual blasphemies" in a song we used to do) and I won't be burning an effigy of him. But it reminded me again of our culture's current measures of political correctness and what will or will not be tolerated, and the marginalisation of Christians. Without in any way taking away from the genuineness of the emotion, or the history behind it, is Lenny's sadness at the mention of the 'n' word more valued than mine at the casual exclamation of the 'j' word?


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