On Monday the Adjudication Panel for England gave its judgement in the case of Mayor Ken Livingstone of London. It was alleged that the Mayor got into an argument with a black local government officer and her brother, in the course of which he said "shut up you fucking bunch of niggers". He denied using the "n" word, but the Panel did not accept his version of the incident and found that he had brought his office into disrepute. Accordingly he was disqualified from office for 18 months.
Of course I've made all this up. Well, no, actually I haven't. I've just changed one detail. This was the case of Councillor Miles of Wellingborough District Council. Ken got one month's suspension for comparing a Jewish journalist with a concentration camp guard.
Can we now expect to see Ken standing up for Councillor Miles' democratic right to call people niggers? And just what is it that makes Councillor Miles' outburst eighteen times more offensive than Ken's?
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3 comments:
Did you hear about the Mayor of Blankville who was fed up of an Muslim reporter doorstepping him?
He told the reporter that she was like a US guard at Abu Ghraib who said she was "only obeying orders".
Or the black reporter who was told that he was like a slave trader.
You are comparing a genetic race with the choice to believe in a idealogy.
Reading the Torah, not working on a Saturday - those are concious decisions. Being black - that's not.
This is why the n-word is offensive and why Ken's comments are nothing to worry about.
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