If you've been listening to the news this weekend you'll know that there's been a right royal stink-up about Prince Harry's use of a certain ethnicity label. No stranger to controversy - Harry was in trouble a few years ago for dressing as a Nazi at a fancy dress party - the prince has once again demonstrated a degree of linguistic sensitivity at which even his grandfather Prince 'Foot Firmly in Mouth' Phillip would probably wince. In three-year-old video footage that has been leaked to the press, Harry can be heard referring to one of his fellow army cadets as a 'p*ki', and is also cuaght on camera using the racist term 'raghead'.In Prince Harry's defense a spokesperson said:
'Prince Harry fully understands how offensive this term can be, and is extremely
sorry for any offence his words might cause. However, on this occasion three
years ago, Prince Harry used the term without any malice and as a nickname
about a highly popular member of his platoon. There is no question that
Prince Harry was in any way seeking to insult his friend.'
On the other hand, Khalid Mahmood, MP for Perry Barr in Birmingham, points out that 'this might have been said in a light-hearted manner but ultimately it's offensive to a lot of people'.
You can read the full story here and here, and if you want to have a look at some older articles on the use of this and other racist terms, then take a look at this, this and this. There's also another interesting article here about the use of racist language in the army.
It's a debate we've had many times in class: can racist language ever be acceptable if used as a term of solidarity? Let us know what you think.
2 comments:
Racism will always be present in the armed forces as it is in the very nature of the military for it be racist.
When one looks at the history of militarism its pretty clear why. The British Empire was 'conquered' by the armed forces on racist grounds, that the 'barbaric' people of other countries needed good old British 'civilisation'.
The same reasoning works today. Harry's using the of term'raghad' shows that this is very much the case. Interestingly it has not been felt neccesary that an apology be made for the Prince's using of this term, but instead that its use should be clarified, stating "Prince Harry used the term 'raghead' to mean Taleban or Iraqi insurgent." It is important for soldiers to use such deragetory terms so that they don't have to face the reality that they're taking the life of a fellow human, recent research has shown that an 'average' member of the Taliban insurgency just wants their country to be free of foreign invaders, are in their young twenties and have no desire for the Taliban to rule the country.
I think that terms of abuse would not need to be used as a solidarity term if the abuse did not exist. For example, I used to joke with someone else who had arthritis about us being cripples. I think it was about beating other people to it, so if they did said it then it wouldn't be such a problem. Since doing representation last year I've stopped using the term, unless it slips out, as I just think that if I don't want others to use it then I shouldn't myself.
I don't think that these terms should be used by anyone anymore. It seems that every few weeks ther is a new crisis of a white person saying something that they are not allowed to say, in the unspoken rules about who can say what. Its seens like the words such as the n-word or p-word create resentment on both sides- the person penalised for saying it is angry if they did not mean it in a racist way (as Harry said he did)and the people who it refers to feel anger over the racism that still seems to be ingrained in society. Used in a racist way, the terms are obviously out-dated, unacceptable and terribly offensive. Their use as solidarity terms may be effective at creating unity amongst a social group that has racism levelled at it but it helps to draw out lines that separate people on the grounds of enthnicity. It seems their use results in further social divisions as there is always a sense of confusion about who can say a word, which results in people being offended and the divisions between different social groups are only deepened. So if we stopped using these words altogether, perhaps we might see a change and a bit of unity? And less of these stupid newspaper stories that are all the same- prince harry, jade goody etc etc, because I am so sick of them!
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