"YOU GAY NIGGER"

In reference to the comment left on the post it note. It's all about context. When Crass referred to us all being "niggers to the rulers of this land" and The Mob had a song called White Niggers, and because Johnny Thunders was white and didn't want to be treated like a nigger, they were all referring to the oppression of blacks and using it to relate to their own oppression and continuing with the theme of white alienation that Norman Mailer started with his essay 'The Last White Negro' Crass gigs may have been quite violent and intimidating but I don't remember Penny Rimbaud, Steve Ignorant or Mark Mob getting lynched from a tree in the Bayou, and Dial House was no slave plantation. So I don't think there's much of a comparison. White people have a choice about their oppression, it's not based on colour of skin, and like The Clash said "Black man gotta lotta problems, but he don't mind throwing a brick. White people go to school where they teach you how to be thick." (not that Crass, The Mob or Thunders were thick, but that blond from Big Brother is a different case.) Another oppressed group in society who have no control over their oppression is the 'gay community', who have tried to reclaim the word gay and use it as a positive, as Tom Robinson said, "Sing if you're glad to be gay" the normalisation of such terms can have a negative effect were now in the English language the word gay has become a derogatory term among young people for something that isn't very good, so my eleven year old daughter told me when she kept referring to things being gay. Language is a funny old thing. Just as we look back at the 70's and see the attitude towards blacks and gays in TV sitcoms of the time, what attitudes will future generations be looking back on during the 00's. Times change and ignorance can be overcome by education and political struggle. What becomes acceptable is a reflection of society at the time. What sort of society will we have become if the word nigger is allowed to be come common place in the English language just like gay has for people to drop into conversation. It could be argued that the normalisation of such offensive terms takes power away from right wing extremists, but I'm not so sure. Like I said at the beginning its all about the context. This article has been written from a white perspective, so I'm gonna end it from a different perspective, I was recently speaking to a couple of people from the Indian community. One had worked along side someone who was "Proud to be a Paki" and they kept referring to themselves in that context all the time, the person I was speaking to told me they felt this was not right and found it offensive. Words are a powerfull weapon and there's enough weaponary being discharged across the world at the moment without adding to it.