The most racist remark made during this CBB series has been Jermaine Jackson referring to Jade and Jackiey Goody as ''white trash'. Is Jermaine going to be condemned and made to apologise for that when he exits the House? Can you imagine the furore had they called Jermaine 'black trash'? It hardly bears thinking about?
craigep- you obviously have major concerns about the racist issues thrown up by Big Brother, judging from the number of postings you currently have on Answerbank.
FYI, the term "White Trash" is a generic term used in the States similar to what Brits mean by the word"Chav". While I agree the term is distasteful, I don't think it is as major an issue as you are trying to stir up here. As far as Jade's comments are concerned, while I don't agree with them , I think they were more motivated by a lack of intelligence/knowledge/understanding on her part. She was attacking Shilpa for her differences, the most obvious one being her culture and race.
Ignorant people usually take the easy option of attacking what they don't understand.
No its not ok. It's no more acceptable to mock a white person for their accent, sexual preference, lifestyle, religion or anything else for that matter as it is to mock someone for their race.
The point I was trying to make, in reply to craigep's post was that the term "White Trash" is a commonly used term in the States to describe a certain class/lifestyle of person. "Trailer Trash" has a similar sentiment behind it. It's more to do with lifestyle than race, hence the reason I feel that it is wrong to try to blow Jermaine's comments up to be something that I don't think they are.
jade, jacky, jo, jack and danielle all used their comments to be cruel and spitelful and said them aloud in front of everyone with the full intention of being rude.
jermaine whispered in private his feelings and actually said that in america that is how jacky would be viewed.
he didn't storm into the room ranting and raving and calling them names.
it may not have been a nice thing to say, but his intention was not to be cruel and spiteful, theirs was.
black people can also be white trash, because as has been mentioned above, it has other meanings
anotheoldgit, you're talking about "overt" racism.
Equally as damaging and, possibly, more dangerous, is the daily, life-long, casual racism that people have to deal with. That must surely eat away at you. Even just the little comments, no matter how much "they weren't meant in that way" must grate. It's not really that surprising that some people become, maybe, a tad oversensitive.
If a black person called me white trash i would definately have a problem with it. Black people call theirself ***** sometimes but when a white person does it it's racist so i don't think black people should get away with calling white people white trash just because white people say it. White trash is a stupid phrase and i hope the english don't start using it as frequent as the americans do. I am not a racist at all btw.
& to kojo ....so if jade whispered to daniel that jermain would be known to some english people as a *****, would that be ok then too? I doubt that you would think it's ok then because that is how offended i was when i heard him calling her white trash.
Racism stinks to high heaven - but so does oversensitivtiy to a good old ribbing. What about baldy, four eyes, fatty, skinnymalink and so on? Where I come from, some insult was and is the norm for affectionate conversation. My Irish wifew calls everybody "Eeejit" but is in no way racist or denigrating.
joko, the way you referred to justasking in your last post says everything about you and why your opinions in this argument alone should not be taken seriously
Joko - you say Jermaine was only talking about how Jackiey etc would be "regarded" as in the USA. So by that rationale, if Danielle hadn't said that Shilpa should "go home" but instead "some people in Britain would regard Shilpa as someone who should go home" that would be acceptable?
Make no mistake, Shilpa suffered nasty bullying on BB. It was no worse than what Susie suffered on BB last Summer but bullying is bullying. Nasty, demoralising, cruel.
But Jermaine not only uttered the racist "white trash" label, he also reacted in a shocked way when Shilpa asked if his wife was black.
"Of course she is." he answered.
Of course????
i called justasking that because they pathetically chose to get my name wrong, so i got theirs wrong.
reading it again, perhaps is was a genuine typo but last night i took it as an attempt to be rude to me.
don't get me wrong, i agree that jermaine should not have said that and i am not defending him. I agree that jermaine very probably has black/white issues and has a slight problem with white people.
my point is he didn't use it as a way to abuse the other housemates - the other 5 people involved did exactly that in a very cruel and nasty way.
it is not illegal to have 'them and us' feelings regarding other races - there is nothing anyone can do about that - but doing something about it, acting on it, singling someone out and bullying them about it - in front of a nation - is quite another.
By the way, jade has admitted in a paper today that they were all guitly of racism and bullying.