Side effect of banning of poker(is obviously FTR turning on each other)

[Duffryn]

dozer, king of analogies.

Yes he is King of analogies. Everybody knows there are social norms and that whacking it in a park is highly offensive to some people, as is using the words: Wog, Gook, Paki or Nigger. If you use those words, then I will think you are a racist, just as I would think you were a pervert if you whipped it out in the park. It does not matter whether your best friend is a disabled black lesbian or you think everyone is equal. If you want to use words that are seen as racist, or defend others right to use them, you are a racist.

If a black person uses the word nigger, then we know that it is not being used as a racist term of abuse. We don't know that if a white person uses it. That is the difference. The anti PC brigade endlessly bleats about freedom and hypocrisy. I have never heard anyone defend the right of someone to shout: "The Virgin Mary is a cunt" in a Christian Church. Why? The Virgin Mary has been dead 2000 years. She's not going to care. It's just words. Or they don't point out the hypocrisy of TV Execs who swear like troopers but prevent swearing on Children's programmes. Fred Flintstone can't say: "Yabba dabba fucking dooooo", but his animator can. How hypocritical!

When it is not clear that a word is racist, then it’s simply a question of good manners. I don't see what's wrong with referring to people from Asia as Asians or indeed to referring to a Chinese takeaway meal as a Chinky, but if someone says they are offended by it, then you just apologise and don't use that word in front of people who don't like it.

What is socially acceptable is always changing, but it's not a problem if you treat other people respectfully and as you would want to be treated. Seventy years ago, the censor wanted to cut the word "damn" from Gone with the Wind, but there was no problem in referring to black people as "inferiors" or "darkies". No longer worrying about words like damn, but being concerned about words like Paki shows to me that we are headed in the right direction.