Our Point of View

A Point About Prejudice

Readers who have reached this point in this issue of EVENTS without hurling it away in disgust or anger will notice a certain “Old Empire” theme about much of this edition: as often as possible, I’ve gone out of my way to make sure bumbling Brits and their kind have found their foibles at the point in the print on these pages.

It’s not that I really dislike citizens of those big rocky bastions that keep the North Sea at bay, or that I’ve ever had anything less than a pleasant, civil discourse with their denizens. Even as their Ryder Cup squad delivered a good, old-fashioned case of whoopass on the Yanks in Ireland last week, they did so with graciousness and charm.

There are at least two reasons I poke away at those predictably good-natured folks from England and those enchanting craggy isles:

• First is because I can - the Brits, Scots, Welsh and all those Celtic, and even most Euro types have a good sense of humor about them. They know how to take a joke. The same can be said for many Aussies, Canadians and even some Americans of that lineage.
• But second, and for my purposes more important, I can do so without crossing the bounds of political correctness. If one were to revisit those episodes and change the name or circumstances (like I sometimes do), a bumbling dolt of that ilk could end up hip-deep in accusations of insensitivity, or worse yet, plastered with a pronouncement of prejudice.

Case in point: one could color the protagonists with a different racial or ethnic brush, and those insults, both real and imagined, would assume proportions well beyond the boundaries of rational discourse as the story morphs into something indelicate that should have taken out with the trash.

Pre-judging someone for their heritage or race can be rooted in all sorts of reasons, and I certainly don’t intend to recount the ways; but one of those reasons is rooted in habits that have been honed over the centuries, characteristics so ingrained that they now represent the very fiber of the wood.

I find it amusing that many take such horrified offense at the Anglo-Saxon use of the N word while finding it perfectly acceptable from Namibian lips (I can only say this in full political correctness because when I visited Africa a few years ago, I was befriended by a fine Namibian fellow who abused the N word regularly and with great enthusiasm.) The same would be said if someone rattled off a Semintic pronouncement, and apoplectic apologists would stumble over each other trying to make amends for an epithet never hurled; and for heaven’s sakes, let’s not even venture south of the border, where Gringos couldn’t possibly have a clue.

Thank heavens for those hardy Brits, who manage to maintain a stiff upper lip through the procellus seas of our politically correct times!