"wow, she's pretty for a black girl"

[mockney piers]

Mind you Mr Humphries entered the nation's hearts only 5 years after Homosexuality was decriminalised in England, and 8 years before the same thing happened north of the border.

Never underestimate the power of doublethink.

[Ant]

I sometimes get the feeling the that more flamboyant a gay man is, the more he's accepted and vice versa. (Talking mainly about people in the public eye here.) As if somehow they're OK if they become Comedy Queers. And if you think about it, for all Graham Norton's smut, his public persona is a curiously sexless one - he can make plenty of blowjob jokes as long as they're about other people doing it.

I don't know... am I imagining all this?

Also this may be something of a sideline when it comes to the homophobia/racism comparison. Can one be flamboyantly black?

[Jah Lush]

Of course. You ever seen Superfly or any of those blacksploitation movies from the 70s?

[mockney piers]

You may have a point there. The likes of John Humphries*, Larry Grayson et al are curiously sexless. If you flaunt genuine (rather than oops missus, look at mrs sloacombe's pussy) homosexuality like Oscar Wilde did, you serve 2 years hard labour!!

Of course having said all this, none of this should detract from Muffintop's experience.

And if you think Racism is less of a problem these days, you really should leave London a bit more, the ignorance variety is still pretty rife out in the territories.

*Edit - oops, John Inman & Mr Humphries' love child perhaps? We need to be told.

[James]

In response to Keef's point, I reckon Big Brother does a huge disservice to all minorities.

They always seem to choose a mouthy black woman with an attitude problem and a queeny, shallow bitchy gay man... talk about stereotypes.

Black men are fetishised in the media (they all become dangerous, potent gangster rappers), just as gay men are emasculated (granny doesn't like the thought of bumming).

I'm not sure which is worse...

But I suppose for me the big difference is that most reasonably sane people agree that all races should be treated equally, whereas a significant minority treat being gay as a twisted lifestyle choice - as if we're doing it on purpose, just to be different or something.

[Rico]

The problem with stereotypes is they are only 80% true - so the 20% often suffer.

The gay stereotype of camp (not probably 80% but significant) hurts those who aren't, but really the better attitude is 'so what?'.

Problem with this home truth of stereotypes is accepting a lot of people do live up to them. Difficult for people of colour when they must battle against the majority who live up to the stereotypes. Chavs are an interesting lot - not really a 'trait by birth' but lifestyle choices. So a different camp altogether.

As for being gay and black, now that's a double whammy. The black community, which has suffered great abuse, is actually far less tolerant. Proving those who are kicked don't fight back - they kick someone else.

[Tony.London Suburbs]

"Ignorance" is NOT "Bliss" in this case.A backhanded compliment if ever I heard one Muffintop!

The sad thing is that I have met many fellow White Guys who do not realise their patronising and ignorant manner when they,also,make a similar statement.

Mind you it does work the other way too! If you peruse the primary British Black Forum there is NO WAY any of the contributors will praise the looks of a YT! No chance whatsoever! I have never seen a comment praising White "Beauty" in 4/5 years of observation!

[ontheedge]

Tony London Suburbs you are really beginning to worry me having read your posts on a few threads. Ther reality is the majority of us on this forum have chosen to live in the area and could move to the suburbs if we so chose to, and adopted an idealic view of a Britain that does not exist and Never has. Why would a White fellow as you call yourself feel a need to trawl through a Black website to search as to whether black males have praised the attributes of white females.

Repeat you are worrying me, as to what you're agenda is and where you're affiliations are I don't know.

Why can't everyone accept everyone for the person they are.

[VeryBerryCherry]

muffintop Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Any suggestions anyone?

>

> By the way I am mixed race, but invariably get

> classed as black, I don't have a problem with it,

> but I am half white too and people rarely

> acknowledge that fact.

__________________________________________________________

Hi Muffintop,

This is one of my favourite quotes by a comedienne, Sarah Silverman, and it sums up for me the baffling and bizarre attitudes that people have towards race.

I am such a pessimist... I dated a guy who was half-black, but he totally dumped me because I'm such a loser. Wow! I just heard myself say that- I AM a pessimist... He's actually half-white.

Sarah Silverman

I too am mixed-race and the whiole "black" label, I have to say drives me a little nutty. Exactly like you say, no one seems to want to acknowledge that I come from different heritages. I understand that it's difficult for people to know what is the 'correct' thing to say... But then, just ask. I would rather people ask me what my heritage is, than make arbitrary and usually incorrect judgements. Btw, for anyone who cares, my mother is 1/2 mixed South African and 1/2 Mauritian, and my father is English... (confused or what? :-S)

[VeryBerryCherry]

Wow!

i wish I had read the whole thread before I bounced in with my relaxed hair and inane banter!

[mockney piers]

Nothing wrong with inane banter VBC.

I rather like the term we use in Spain 'Mulato/a' which means of mixed heritage. It's not judgemental, and the female even has connotations of exotic beauty to it.

I guess the closest English equivalent is mongrel, which has both positive and negative associations. If we accept that pedigrees are handsome and shiny but stupid, and mongrels may be a bit mangy but are sharp, clever and healthy, then I'm happy with that (coming from a hispano-anglo-hibernian-teutonic background).

[Moos]

Mockers, the Spanish term was widely used in America in the slave trade (although spelt differently), so may not translate well to modern-day people of mixed race here.

Almost all 'English' people are mongrels - I certainly am - if they poke around in their history. I'm quite a bit English, quite a bit Scottish, a small bit Welsh and a smaller bit French. And the English bit of me.. well, God knows what Celtic/Danish/Norman combo that might be!

VBC - back atcha with some truly inane chatter, and thank God for some relaxed attitudes...

[david_carnell]

Hurrah for the mongrel British!

Never have an island race populated through millenia of invasions, rape and pillage been so proud of their pure-bred heritage.

Uncannily Moos, you appear to have almost the same ancestral make-up as me. Do you think we could be related through Orgrid the Great (circa 750ad)?

[mockney piers]

Ah, that's be Mullato with an extra T. those nasty Americans are wont to corrupt words aren't they.

In Spain it's a pre slavery, in fact pre America (well, our discovery thereof) word. Though it originally had to do with breeding donkeys.

[Moos]

According to Richard Dawkins (River Out of Eden), most British people only have to go back a century or two to find out they're related. So probably not as far back as Orgrid the Great, although he did marry my great-great-great-greatgreat-great-great-grate-cheesegrater-firegrate-ungrateful-unintegrated-grandmother McMoos The Presumptuous, who invented the propelling pencil and died shortly afterwards of unlikeliness.

Disclaimer: I am in no way related to david_carnell. Views expressed by Moos may not be those of david_carnell. Prices on the Moosdex may fall as well as rise.

[Peckhamgatecrasher]

Tentatively putting my confused head above the parapet here.

About 15 years' ago I got into pretty hot water when I suggested to a mixed-race colleague that she was completely denying her white, middle-class heritage. She insisted that she was black and had even traced her father's ancestors to his Masai tribe, had changed her name to an African one, that I knew nothing and was racist. She was backed up by our all black colleagues and I felt pretty stupid in the face of such militant propaganda.

Since then, I have assiduously called all mixed-race people black, taught my daughter that this is the correct term, etc, etc.

So what's the correct form now in light of the above posts?

[Moos]

Quite so, Mockers, quite so. Although I have been interested to discover (as I learn more of the German language) how many of what we think of as American idioms of English seem in fact to have derived from German instead. For example, saying 'vest' for 'waistcoat'.

[ChavWivaLawDegree]

I don't know what the correct term is, but I know that being the white mother of mixed race kids, that I get totally pissed off if my kids are called black, because that then means I, the person who carried them for 9 months, gave birth to them and nurtured them, do not exist. I don't care if that's incorrect, because I am not allowing anyone to push me out of the picture.

[KoolBananas]

Well put Chav :) (tu)

[Rico]

Interesting question. What does that make Barack Obama? America's first mixed race Presidential nominee?

Seriously. Interesting. And it makes becoming 'colourless' far more easier, as well as the right thing to do.

[bignumber5]

Almost all 'English' people are mongrels - I certainly am

Back when we were into it with some BNP supporters on a previous thread, the subject of "indigenous" was raised by a very dull individual, namely me. To recap, it's the people who were resident in a nation prior to the last invasion. So unless anyone can trace their roots back and confirm that their ancestors were here before the French invasion of the late 11th century, lets at least agree that none of us are too likely to be indigenous.

[mockney piers]

The Normans brought over about 20,000 people into a population of 2 million, so it's unlikely they had much of an impact genetically. Indeed latest research indicates that the same is true of the Saxon 'invasions' post Roman Britain. The genetic map of the UK is surprisingly homogeneous.

That's not to say there aren't lots of smatterings of other stuff.

Non invasion immigration has been more or less constant since, well since the end of the ice age. Scandinavians, Teutonic types, Jews, Dutch, French, Italians, Poles, Irish and many more have blended into the makeup of these lands, not to mention how many of our sailors, soldiers, merchants and emigres have returned (sometimes after generations) with new exotic bloodlines added to the mix.

Our own dear Huguenot can trace himself back to their arrival 500 odd years ago, indeed they're responsible for building much of what is now S. Camberwell. God knows what I am, I can trace my family back to Samuel Pepys best mate, but that hardly makes me a pure blooded Englishman.

Talk of "indigenous" is inevitably heavily loaded with political meaning, rather than having any basis in reality whatsoever.

[Huguenot]

Although I've never had anyone flip me the bird and call me a 'fugging weaver...' let alone complimented me on my silky skills :(

[Keef]

But you are very pretty, for a French bloke!

[????]

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