Imaginary Racism

An American tourist has complained about liquorice pellets called 'nigroids' being sold by a pharmacy in St. George's.

The store manager confirmed that despite selling the throat sweets for years, this is the first complaint she has received. The Consumer Affairs department verified that no complaints have ever been raised with them and even the Black Alliance barely raised an eyebrow.

I wouldn't be surprised to discover the busybody who complained was white. Perhaps someone should tell her that niger is the Latin word for black and point out all the inoffensive words in the dictionary derived from it, such as nigrescent, nigritude and nigrosine.

There's enough racism in the world already without finding slurs where none exist.

Comments

[Sunil on 14.12.03 at 09:01]

Blimey, you really like dictionaries in Bermuda, don't you?

May I suggest that the reason these word have not yet been singled out for criticism by the remnants of the identity politics brigade is that no-one has ever used them before, at any time, ever.

Expect the flood of complaints to start on this site, soon.