"New title" idea for minorities (I'm not making this up)

[Taxloss]

I don't know whether to laugh or cry. :eyes:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4130594.stm

Ethnic minority groups could be given new descriptions in an effort to strengthen their identity in the UK.

The government is looking at whether communities would welcome having US-style hyphenated terms such as Asian-British or Indian-British.

...

Sir Iqbal Sacranie, general secretary of the Muslim Council of Britain, said efforts to use similar forms of identity in the past have failed.

"What of the second generations? Why should they be defined as other than British?" he told the Times.



This is lunacy. You can imagine the scene in BNP cells up and down the country:

"So this p*ki, right ..."

"Nah, mate, we shouldn't say that any more. S'Asian-British, innit."

"Oh, right. I feel suddenly filled with a new sense of respect for my fellow citizens."

[Briar]

1. "Rebranding"

is I think the most alarming word.

Just when did the public relations gurus take over our consciousness? When they renamed Windscale? When Thatcher claimed that it was the presentation of her policies which was at fault, not the policies themselves? (Bliar's refrain too.) It certainly has got wildly out of hand now.

[non sociopath skin]

2. So hot on the heels of the "rebranding" of The War on Terror TM as

... the "Struggle against Violent Extremism," we have Indians and Pakistanis rebranded as British Asians.

Perhaps, in the spirit of the rebranding of those dark skinned folk whom the Shining City on a Hill kicked the shit out of in order to achieve Lebensraum as "Native Americans" we Celts could be rebranded as "Native Britons".

Now that WOULD cause the Neo-Nazis and Baggy Trousered Misanthropists a headache or two.

As Auntie Bella used to say, they must think we're as stupid as they look ....

The Skin

[muriel_volestrangler]

3. Only if you slap some woad on, skin

:yoiks: :think: :crazy: :wtf: :hangover: :boring: :wow: :scared: :woohoo: :spray:

Actually, I suspect 'Native Britons' is a phrase that comes all too easily to the lips of the BNP already - it does appear, uncapitalised, in their 2005 manifesto.

I think the latest DNA research shows that there isn't a neat dividing line between Celts and Anglo-Saxons at Offa's Dyke, the Antonine Wall or anywhere else - it's a gradient, with quite a lot of pre-Roman Briton ancestry in areas you might think were purely Anglo-Saxon or Norse.

Getting back to the rebranding exercise, it sounds a complete waste of time. It's the contexts that words are used in that matter more than the precise words.

[LeftishBrit]

4. I agree, it's context rather than exact word!

As shown by the fact that some time ago a racist wrote graffiti on a wall: "Ethnics Out!"

That's the whole problem with this government - everything is a product to be branded and re-branded. It occurs to me that if they ever took over the American evangelical style of mixing faith with politics, they would describe themselves as 'spiritually re-branded' instead of 'born again"!

[lockdown]

7. "Ethnics Out!"

Perhaps it was a really pissed off interior designer? :crazy:

[Briar]

5. I vaguely remember a history programme

remarking that something like 40 or more per cent of our DNA originated in the Middle East. Round about Baghdad, as a matter of fact...

[fedsron2us]

10. Yes I saw the same program

It appears that Europeans share a disproportionately large amount of DNA with the Marsh Arabs who dwell in the land between the Tigris and the Euphrates. This make the horrors we have inflicted on the people of Iraq even more ironic and sad.

[lockdown]

6. They do my head in

We are led by intellectual midgets whose rightful place would be working on Rice Krispies ad campaigns. Stupid irrelevant unhelpful tinkering and misdirection at a time when serious assessments and questions are cried out for. Not surprised to see Hazel Blears' name in there, ugh.

I don't need to imagine BNP cells sadly, I can imagine similar scenes in pubs up and down the country. Probably it's only real impact would be ammo for the "polite bigot" anti-PC ranters.

[Mr Creosote]

8. I don't like this idea of rebranding a lot

but how about rebraining? Starting with Hazel Blears, or "stupid stupid stupid British" as my PR guru tells me she should be called.

[fedsron2us]

9. I am afraid that this sort of idea is taken all too seriously

by a government that is enslaved to every latest fad from the world of PR and management consultancy. In fact all these hyphenated names be they South Asian-British, Indian-British, Afro Carribean-British or plain Native British are just a sign of the implicit system of cultural apartheid that has developed in this country. It suggests that certain groups of citizens are not fully British and that therefore they should be treated differently from the rest of society. Sadly, this situation has been encouraged by some well intentioned but misguided individuals on the left as well as fascists on the right. Unfortunately, the rickety edifice that has been used to disguise these prejudices is now coming apart at the seams. This country desperately needs to revaluate what it means to be a citizen in the same way that the French were forced to do in 1789. Lets pray that the process does not have to be as equally bloody.