In future, Judges are going to have to be less judgmental:
Judges have been issued with guidelines to encourage political correctness in court. Advice sent to all judges and magistrates in England and Wales, tackles misleading social stereotypes that have led to a high-profile judicial gaffes.
Note of explanation: ‘gaffe’ is a term applied to instances of public figures accidentally letting the truth slip out.
Judges are told the term “coloured” should never be used, to avoid using the description “oriental” and to take care that “British” is not used as shorthand for white, English or Christian. They are also given a definition of asylum-seeker, and are reminded that women “remain disadvantaged” in society. “The disadvantages women can suffer range from inadequate recognition of their contribution to the home or society to an underestimation of the problems women face as a result of gender bias,” the guidance says.
Somebody should really slap a Preservation Order on these ‘guidelines’. They have a unique, period 1970’s charm all of their own.
The term “asylum-seeker” is associated with people without a genuine claim to be refugees, and is almost pejorative, the advice said.
Hilarious! We used to use the word ‘immigrants’ until the PC brigade got it banned for being offensive. ‘Asylum-seeker’ was the neutral replacement term. This country is institutionally anti-euphamist.
And judges are advised not to overlook the use of gender-based, racist or “homophobic” stereotyping as an “evidential short cut”. They are also warned against using words that imply an “evaluation” of the sexes, however subtle: for instance, “man and wife”, “girl” (unless speaking of a child) and “businessmen”.
The judiciary is to undergo regular training sessions.
Where they will learn that they are bourgeois counter-revolutionaries and lackeys of the capitalist running dogs.
Here is a list of ‘verboten’ terms:
Coloured: An offensive term that should never be used
Oriental: The term should be avoided because it is imprecise and may be considered racist or offensive
British: Care should be taken to use the term “British” in an inclusive sense, to include all citizens. Exclusionary use of the term as a synonym for white, English, or Christian is unacceptable
Postman: Use postal worker instead
Right on! It is about time that anti-postworkerism was confronted and smashed.
Are you married?: Intrusive and irrelevant
Yes, especially in divorce proceedings.
Mentally handicap: Judges should use instead “learning disabilities” and “people with disabilities”.
Feel free to chip in with further useful suggestions.
Anybody who is before the court because they have done something bad should have the shit scared out of them. Any other type of language is irrelevant.
For once, I believe we colonials have reached a point more advanced than you Brits: We have now come full circle. After rejecting the term ‘colored person’ many years ago, and successively adopting and rejecting many others – black, African-American etc.- the approved term is now “person of color”.
This reminds me of a rack of old neckties in the back of my closet. If I wait long enough, they will be fashionable again.
Wait a minute! Nah, this looks like the set of instructions for judges in the United States!
Oh, it’s in Britain, you say – be careful please, not nipping this kind of PC behavior in the bud shall encourage the leftists perpetrating it to begin thinking that you might actually not make sense at all, and should be re-educated… or at least resign. How do I know it? Simple, through observation: no one took them seriously over here in the US when they started it, and now look at them: this kind of nonsense now passes for “thought.” The most dangerous aspect when reaching that point, though, is that those promoting this doublespeak want you to give up your position entirely while they compromise nothing of theirs, thus bringing about a twisted world where reality can only be painted, not just photographed/described anymore.
Evil: philosophically differently abled.
so if “person of color ” is the accpetable term are the apporpirate words now
“seeker of asylum”
“man of the post”
“person of the orient”
“handicap of the mental”
and in place off “memeber of the judiciary”
“judicial member”?
And what exactly am I to do if a coloured British postman nicks my car?
Giles – V good!
BTW, the euphemism for mentally deficient is “differently abled”. Does anyone know what the loonies are able to do that the rest of us can’t? I’ve always wondered about that.
Maybe this shoud be filed under “How Very Odd”. But also there might be room for a “Sinister Rumblings” category. There’s nobody more careful than judges in the use of language. Nobody assumes that when a judge says “asylum-seeker” he or she means only someone who has sought asylum. The judiciary is the branch of the state least affected by officialese.
Should we see this–following on the wholesale transformation of technical court terms Woolf “reforms”, as part of a campaign to change the function of the law by imposing newspeak?
Maybe this shoud be filed under “How Very Odd”. But also there might be room for a “Sinister Rumblings” category. There’s nobody more careful than judges in the use of language. Nobody assumes that when a judge says “asylum-seeker” he or she means only someone who has sought asylum. The judiciary is the branch of the state least affected by officialese.
Should we see this–following on the wholesale transformation of technical court terms in the Woolf “reforms”–as part of a campaign to change the function of the law by imposing newspeak?
Oops. In addition to the double post there’s a horrid mis-type. It should read: “Nobody assumes that when a judge says “asylum-seeker” he or she means more than someone who has sought asylum.”
PJ addresses “bias-free writing” – a book devoted to hectoring writers to hose down any creative fire lurking in any rogue breasts – in The CEO of The Sofa.
Here are his first couple of sentences: “The pharisaical, malefic, and incognitant Guidelines for Bias-Free Writing is a product of the pointy-headed wowsers at the Association of American University Presses, who established a Task Force on Bias-Free Language filled with cranks, pokenoses, blowhards, four-flushers and pettifogs. This foolish and contemptible product of years wasted in mining the shafts of indignation has been published by the cow-besieged, basketball-sotted sleep-away camp for hick bourgeois offpring, Indiana University, under the aegis of its University press, a traditional dumping ground for academic deadwood so bereft of talent, intellegence and endeavor as to be useless even in the dull precincts of midwestern state college classrooms.”
I think we can take that as a negative.
Well most of these guidelines seem to be simply a matter of ensuring accuracy. British is not a synonym for white, English or Christian and it is as well that Judges be clear on this matter lest they create unnecessary confusion.
It is all very easy to get a few laughs out of political correctness gone mad but it is quite in order for people not to forget that it is a fact that women, black people and gay people have been and often still are subject to state and judicial persecution on these accounts.
Paul Coulam, I don’t come into the “black people or gay people category, so cannot speak for them. Conversely, I don’t know who appointed you a spokesperson for women.
“… and often still are subject to state and judicial persecution on these accounts.” Could you give us some examples of women today being subjected to state and judicial persecution for being women, please? It has been at least 20 years since I have heard of gender being used as a reason for persecution. Unless, of course, you are speaking not of the West, but many Muslim countries?
Paul
It is all very easy to get a few laughs out of political correctness gone mad…
Yes, that is why I do it but political correctness has not ‘gone mad’ at all. As a cultural project it is advancing very satisfactorily and in the prescribed manner.
…it is quite in order for people not to forget that it is a fact that women, black people and gay people have been and often still are subject to state and judicial persecution on these accounts.
Now if I was of a mind to embarrass you I would demand that you adduce some evidence to support this assertion (preferably with a reference to the transcript of an actual case). However, it is such lamentable twaddle that I am content to simply dismiss it out of hand.
David – A wiser head than mine. That’s what I should have done. And you are correct. Political correctness is advancing on schedule and now suffocates vast segments of the population.
Melanie Phillips’ article The coercive culture of human rights is a good read on this subject.
I still don’t understand how a witness would easily describe a limping, gay, black/chinese, postman/woman they saw stealing a car-radio.
Best solution to the limping, gay, black/chines postman/woman problem is to disable him/her/it/them still further with a piece of two by four across the head and then there would be no need to describe at all, merely point and say “Book ’em, Dano” or whatever English (oops, British … er … ) policemen/women/dogs do.
Here’s the awful dilemma these cultural pioneers face, however: to continue the project, they absolutely must identify and preserve racial (and gender, and sexual, and disability) information. A colorblind society wouldn’t do at all. If people just rise or fall on their own merits, how to impose quotas and dole out benefits and punishments? Or, to put it another way, who would pay reparations to whom?
This is becoming especially difficult as people interbreed in all sorts of confusing ways. What do you call someone of mixed ancestry? You pick the most sacred victim group in his genetic makeup and call him that.
Tiger Woods is a case in point. His father is black/native american/white, his mother is thai/chinese. He rejects being labeled black on the grounds that it is insufficiently descriptive (which earned him a scolding from no less than Colin Powell)…and, surely, irrelevant to the sport of golf. And yet, at least at first, journalists enthused more about his putative race than his game.
About five years ago the aldermen of Plymouth City council were going to ban all references to it’s blue collar staff as being “manual” workers. Because, of course, it’s sexist. The plan fell flat on it’s face after the population fell about in hysterics through knowing full well that the word “manual” comes from the latin for hand.
Paul d s – Please! Radio of car!
David,
My point about state persecution is mainly historical, that is why I said have been in the first instance. It is quite true that formal state persecution of women and black people has ended now but this is fairly recent and it is as well to remind judges to be fair and accurate in their dealings in court.
Gay people, of course, are still subject to a vast panoply of legal persecution and where some of the grosser persecutions have now ended this has only been in the very recent past. That the state has been historically oppressive of gays, women, blacks and various other groups is obvious to all.
These guidelines seem, for the most part, to be reasonable advice to judges to be fair and accurate in their dealings and to avoid language and behaviour which may unnecessarily cause offence where it is not due. Some of the bits about avoiding the word postman are rather silly but we all know that racist, sexist and homophobic prejudices still abound (as I recall a whole bunch of such people were recently excluded from commenting here) and it is perfectly reasonable to assume that judges are not above this and to issue them with guidence to avoid this in their professional lives.
There is much in political correctness that needs mocking and please do mock away David, I am only pointing out that not all advice to behave fairly and reasonably is bad or deserving of ridicule.
JohnJo and Paul, the obvious answer, which you really should have thought of, is that if any person of colour steals your car (or anything else) then you aren’t allowed to do anything about it, so the issue of describing the person, or making a complaint about the action, doesn’t arise.
From the department of PC:
I have a copy of Mark Twain’s Life on the Mississippi from which the word “nigger” has been purged and replaced by “darkey”.
Next thing: they will clean up the Bible.
Remains to be seen if old (unpurged) copies are exempt or have to be burned.
Paul,
I think you have fallen into the same ideological trap as Nulabour (albeit that you may offer up different solutions).
Judging the past through the lens of current ideas is, in my view, fatuous and merely self-serving. While it is unarguably the case that injustices did (and still do) occur, these fallibilities are not resolved or even addressed by terminological terror.
These concepts of ‘prejudice’ and ‘oppression’ are post -modern, post-1960’s constructs that had no place in anyone’s mind or lexicon much before the 1980’s so I fail to understand why this bout of national self-flagelation and guilt-grovelling is required in respect of previous eras when ideas, customs, norms and traditions were simply of a different order.
Even if this were not the case, these pious diktats have nothing whatsoever to do with respect for individual liberty and everything to do with establishing and maintaining a hegemonic discourse for ends that neither you nor I could possibly approve.
This idea that history must be expunged and replaced with a new order is everything the cultural project of the new left is based upon and what they want is not better than the past but several magnitudes worse.
Paul Coulam – “I am only pointing out that not all advice to behave fairly and reasonably is bad or deserving of ridicule.”
Actually, yes it is because no adult should be assuming, uninvited, the mantle of mentor over other free human beings. We should be free to be as offensive as we feel like – and accept the consequences for our behaviour – which will be that we have no friends and no one will do business with us.
The state of Britain is intentionally infantalising its citizenry and I find it chilling.
Verity, if the advice was to the population as a whole, i’d agree with you, but this is advice to judges, in their professional capacity.
Private employers often issue guidelines, sometimes much stricter than the above, about how their employees should behave/speak during working hours, and what they may discuss. Often these guidelines are intended to prevent the employee besmirching the reputation of the company by causing offense, whether intended or unintended. Why should judges in the employ of the state, have a right to be exempt from such conditions?
Pace Verity, judges definitely ought to be courteous, but what’s at issue here is not “be polite” but the enforcement of a fixed vocabulary. By tradition, when judges are rude, it is usually to counsel.
In Britain controlling people’s conversations at work is a very recent phenomenon and still largely confined to the big state and corporate bureaucracies. Before Tony it was generally thought the judiciary might be paid by the public purse, but were servants of the law, not the state.
Well, A_t – first, because judges aren’t involved in a commercial endeavour and are not in the business of pleasing customers.
Second, judges spend years qualifying as barristers and then practising as barristers before they ever become appointed judges. I simply do not think they need hectoring advice from some committee on how to conduct their courtrooms. If there are complaints about a judge, there are avenues to take through the legal establishment to get them addressed.
Here is another little gem from this fascist Little Red Book for Judges: “The updated handbook, published by the Judicial Studies Board, also has a section on religion which includes a pocket guide to the beliefs of the world’s religions.”
One question: Why?
Everyone is equal in the eyes of the law, no matter what their beliefs. In court it doesn’t matter if I believe Christ was the Messiah and you believe the Messiah is yet to come; or if I believe that god takes an interest in women’s accessories and wants them all to wear a headscarf, or that a witness believes that the Green and White Taras and female manifestations of Avolokiteshvara. All are equal in the court and the religion of the accused or the witnesses is irrelevant.
The judge bases his judgements on British law that has been passed into law by elected representatives to Parliament. That is his only remit.
Guy Herbert – Precisely, Guy! Also, corporations do try to ensure a level of courtesy on their employees who meet with customers, for obvious reasons, and I think that is fair enough because it is driven by commercial interests, not thought fascism.
And yes, judges are in the main extremely articulate people and choose words precisely, for effect. This makes for too much independence of expression, which is why, as you say, there are attemps to fix a prescribed vocabulary.
David,
I know that you are a paid up member of this Gramscian cultural marxist hegemony conspiracy idea that is quite popular, of which Sean Gabb is the chief exponent. As I have said on another thread, I think there is some truth in this but that the thesis is wildly overblown. Sure there are some sinister attempts to censor people’s free speech and to subtley try to undermine some social norms that the left dislikes. However not every request or guideline that asks that someone takes into account the perspective of other people or asks that people not be thoughtlessly offensive is part of some secret plot to force us all to have our children kidnapped and raised collectively by black, communist lesbians.
Historical persecution and oppression is a fact. It may well be the case that it has only recently been identified as such but these things are not post-modern fantasies, they were real and to some extent continue. The backlash against these real oppressions may itself give rise to new opressions in the excesses of political correctness but we must be discriminating in our analysis and condemnation. Terrible though the political left has been in many respects we should give credit where it is due and acknowledge that in many instances they have been in the vanguard of the fight for personal liberty.
Verity, Guy, neither commercial enterprises or the juduciary can afford to be seen as unresponsive or out of touch. At least a commercial enterprise being dismissed as rude only results in decreased profits, possibly bankruptcy, for one company. The judiciary being seen as out of touch could have far more serious social consequences. It is very important that most people in this country view judges as fair and impartial.
If all it takes to keep some people on board is a little PR exercise; ensuring judges don’t offend people unnecessarily (i have no problem with intentional offense; if someone’s done something evil, by all means confront them with it), I see no problem with that. I’d rather judges were politely advised as to what language is considered appropriate & what may cause offense than have segments of society view the law as not relevant to them due to stupid misunderstandings.
Verity,
The judge bases his judgements on British law that has been passed into law by elected representatives to Parliament. That is his only remit.
Nope.
1. Not everyone in parliament is elected and besides proper elections are a quite recent innovation even for the House of Commons.
2. British Law is more than just parliamentary statue law anyway.
3. If you like this idea then what is your complaint? These guidelines were issued by a committe authorised by this parliament that you seem to revere.
A_t – Who decides what language is “appropriate”? The judge sitting on the bench and hearing the case and knowing the circumstances is the best, uh, judge.
I do not want judges having a little thought monitor on their shoulder. I want their heads to be clear to try a case. Thought fascism has no place in the courtroom, and once you let it in, you may be dismayed by the momentum it achieves and the corrosive effect it has on justice.
Paul – Eeek! Yes, I realised the instant I’d hit the send button that British law is also a matter of precedents. You are correct, of course.
I hope you’re being ironic when you note that I “seem to revere” this parliament. No one has more contempt for Tony Blair and the incompetents and chancers in his cabinet and the legion of socialist MPs than I do. This current parliament of whores is odious in every single aspect.
Verity,
No one has more contempt for Tony Blair and the incompetents and chancers in his cabinet and the legion of socialist MPs than I do.
Yes, I had picked up on that.
Verity, no-one’s suggesting that judges should change the essence of what they actually *say* as far as I can tell (& if they were, you can be sure that the judiciary would be up in arms); just trying to make sure they’re not misunderstood, given contemporary standards of language.
Interpreting this as a judge-stifling directive is pretty paranoid, & i’m sure judges would be perfectly aware & capable of making quite a noise if they felt their opinions & thoughts were the target of these guidelines.
Andrew Duffin:
JohnJo and Paul, the obvious answer, which you really should have thought of, is that if any person of colour steals your car (or anything else) then you aren’t allowed to do anything about it, so the issue of describing the person, or making a complaint about the action, doesn’t arise.
It’s even worse for me. My car is, to put it delicately, black. Furthermore, I sometimes visit the Edinburgh suburb of Blackhall. So if a person of colour steals my car of colour in the Hall of colour, what exactly can I tell the police? I suppose that I could always have a chat with the local representative, Councillor Whyte, or should I say Councillor Melanin-deficient?
A_t: […] & what may cause offense than have segments of society view the law as not relevant to them due to stupid misunderstandings. That’s reasonable, though I rather doubt judges are as out of touch as all that.
If you really want to avoid stupid misunderstandings [e.g.), however, you are going to have to work hard to educate a public that has little interest in reading any etiquette guides about the purpose of trials and the law.
It would much more welcome to find the judges pushing plain english into the everday usage of legal language – but the addition of PC language is a further unnecessary codification. This helps no-one except those whose aim is wield power by confusing and alienating others through their use of language and emotion.
A_t – And what makes the writers of The Little Red Book so certain that they are more tuned in to standards of contemporary language than are the judges, who hear it in their courtrooms day in and day out?
No. It is an attempt to control the discussion and thought. The judge is being asked to regard women, blacks, gays as somehow needing special concessions in language and thought. In other words, infantalising us. Given the sharp, confident and nimble wits of many of my women and gay men friends, I don’t think we need their patronising assistance at appearing in court. We’ll manage.
Paul,
I did not want to drag the dreaded ‘G’ word into it and while I think that recognition of the kulturkampf is important, I do not obsess about it.
Also, I do not accept that this is all just a backlash against previous eras of “oppression”. The assault on language is merely one front in a broad attack on what the modern left sees the old bourgeois order with a view to upending it. Mostly that have succeeded. This may not necessarily be a bad thing were it not for the fact that the new order they want to replace it with is far worse.
As for this notion that this is all just polite guidance, well, bollocks actually, if you will excuse my Latvian. Members of the judiciary can be removed from their posts if they do not obey. That is not ‘guidance’ (as if this is merely the act of having a discrete word in their ears).
Nor is this to stop Judges being rude. If you have ever been in Court you will realise that they are steeped in formality and complusory courtesies. I have been in hundreds of Courtrooms and not once have I ever heard anyone being called ‘Sambo’.
Such ‘reminders’ that are being discussed here come at the issue from the wrong direction, selecting a few (of the many) persecuted subsections of society and grant them special recognition before the law instead of insisting that laws themselves be basic and rooted in preservation of life and property, and the behavior of the malefactor. That penetrates through any other consideration of race, sex, orientations etc etc etc. These considerations only matter in the case where the Court is a tool for progressivism.
The only thing that is set up by these guidelines is another layer in the judicial process (the Overseer of the judges) allowing an escape hatch for a convicted person, with certain attributes, to appeal based on those attributes (prima facie evidence of bias is assumed) instead of the facts of the case, a luxury not afforded to those without those attributes. If you are a white, healthy male and you are convicted you have no built-in recourse that the other, select subgroups, have. You stand and fall based on the facts only, which is the way it should be, for all.
Do they really want to upend the bourgeois order ? After all, the fine people who drop such bombshells do not exactly live in poverty and enjoy their fancy merlot and fresh sushi as much as the next City yuppie, never mind cool sunglasses that match the seat color of their convertible SAABs. Granted, most of my experience of these characters has to do with the Parisian leftists I went to school with – in a private school of course; no self-respecting “intellectual” would inflict public schooling on their own offspring – and they were more bourgeois, superficial and snobbish about everything than I have ever been – and hopefully ever will be – so I guess the plan is mostly to monopolize it for themselves. Making sure than only the proper people, as they see it, rise to their level. Because this meritocracy thing is just plain bad. You can end up with people who don’t think the right way making more money than you and living in a bigger house. God forbid they’re next door. How bloody awful.
After all, there was a vast privileged bourgeoisie of sorts in the Soviet Union. Except you were appointed to it.
And who decides what words are offensive (and when – since it changes every few)? Committees usually turn to “community leaders”, a term which can loosely be defined as unelected members of an identity group who elbow their way to the microphone to speak for the others.
The word “suburb” seems to suggest a “sub” standard, or one of lesser value than the “urban” areas. The word “courb” would rectify this injustice.
David,
Your use of the colloquial Latvian is, of course, excused. I am sure that you are right that there is a kulturekampf going on and that we should be suspicious about the motives and intentions of the people who come out with this kind of thing and I am sure you are right about judges not calling people ‘sambos’ in court.
That said, it is the case that people from ethnic minorities do in fact object to being referred to as ‘coloured’, many women I have met do find that being referred to as a ‘girl’ is belittling and, Verity’s aquaintances to the contrary, not all gay men are ‘good with colours’. I strongly suspect that quite a number of the judiciary hold prejudicial views about the place of women, blacks and gays, that is fine but they ought not to let those views slip out when they are presiding at court. These guidelines seem to me to be aimed at ensuring that people are treated fairly and respectfully rather than being part of some mad plan to subvert justice.
I admit that I have never been in a court (thankfully) and my knowledge of the goings on comes mainly from Kavanagh QC and Judge John Deed.
Paul – Men ceased referring to women as “girls” around 30 years ago. Nowadays, men wouldn’t even say to one another (out of hearing of women) “Let’s lunch! I’ll have my girl call your girl.” That has taken on the sepia tones of an old photo. It went out around the same time men stopped offering to carry women’s briefcases. Pulleeze!
Does anyone refer to people as “coloured” any more? People are pretty sophisticated now and are much more likely to designate non-whites more efficiently as black (or W Indian), Indian, etc. If the general population routinely speaks like this, what makes the writers of The Little Red Book think that judges, who hear people speaking in their courts all day long, day after day, are any different? They’re already in the flow. They don’t need additional hectoring.
These men do have families. They have daughters who are lawyers and doctors. They have colleagues who are non-white. They have colleagues who are gay. (Think about it, MPs have known over at least a hundred years which of their colleagues is gay and they never made an issue over it. Seriously. Think about that.) Why do judges need a little book, written by some bossy, hectoring little fascists, when their own lives illustrate how we live now?
Paul – you old type-caster, you. I’ve known gay cops, gay waiters, gay shop assistants and a gay truck driver who had a pretty sharp line in wit. Some of them were terrible with colours, though.
Well Verity, in that case, these guidelines are just telling people to do what they’re doing already, in which case they’re not sinister or meddling; just stupid & laughable, no? Like issuing guidelines on walking, or standing up.
Paul Coulam writes:
“I admit that I have never been in a court (thankfully) and my knowledge of the goings on comes mainly from Kavanagh QC and Judge John Deed.”
And a finer pair of Leftist heart-throbs it would be harder to imagine.
As any fule kno, an attempt to control and confine language is an attempt to control and confine the thought which might be expressed in that language.
Clearly, the barely-concealed goal behind this latest piece of meddling is to instil in the judiciary a prejudicial atitude in favour of the ‘oppressed’, though, heaven knows, with the legal profressional now so widely packed with former student activists, this hardly seems necessary.
GCooper, no-one in any public position in any organisation i can think of could refer to “coloured” people or “girls”. This is hardly a prejudicial attitude in favour; just a lack of (expression of) a prejudicial attitude against…. I fail to see how not saying “coloured” will give ex-coloured people an advantage over us colour-disadvantaged individuals….
If you think it will confer some advantage, would you care to explain how?
A-t writes:
“If you think it will confer some advantage, would you care to explain how?”
You’ll have to do better than that, A_t.
Self-evidently, the moment you place any category in the box marked ‘speak cautiously about this person’ you confer on them an advantage. If they must be treated specially in the language you use, clearly, they are being deemed worthy of special treatment.
Perhaps you would like to explain how you believe a judge (consciously or unconsciously) can be expected not to find more leniently in favour of someone whom he has been commanded to regard as a special case?
OK, A_t – Then why do it, if not from an overwhelming urge to control – and the intent to issue rules that have to be obeyed?
As in Herr Trevor Phillips’ CRE, there are now legions of people who’ve crept up laying down “guidelines” which brook no dissent. It strikes me that Britain is further down the path than Europe in this respect … I could be wrong because my French is awful and could be missing a lot of their more nuanced statements.
But is Trevor Phillips the first black Nazi in Europe? Paul, notice I said ‘black’, not coloured. Although he is coloured. Red.
G Cooper – Where the hell have you been?
Your insight that the minute people are placed in a box marked: ‘Speak cautiously about this person’, you have accorded that person an inestimable advantage is welcome and why didn’t I think of that?
This is what they are trying to do to British judges who, until a few years ago, administered justice without prejudice. Push the envelope of political correctness (read: Very Hazardous Waste) through the door of the courts and you can move on from controlling the legislature to controlling the administration of justice.
What’s been pretty well run down in this thread. Here’s a stab at why. It doesn’t depend on some vast over-arching Gramscian conspiracy, but it does rely on the rise of an hegemonic idea.
Judicial reform was always a standard New Left demand. Judges were seen as an instrument imposing conservative values. (Though in a Common Law system based on precedent and cautious development, it makes no sense for them to be anything else.) We have in power for the first time a generation of radical lawyers and social scientists brought up on John Griffith’s The Politics of the Judicary, which makes the standard case that judges are white, upper-middle class men, educated at Oxbridge, who can be relied upon to do the establishment a good turn, and are–gross sin–unrepresentative of those who appear before them. They need to be made balanced. That is, radical activists of a moderate mien.
Never mind that Griffith’s case for the general iniquity of decisions arising from this condition of justice is selective (and still weak), that the personnel have changed a bit in 35 years, and that even the author appears to have resiled somewhat from his position: it is the standard view on the left. Even, oddly, among practising barristers with recorderships. It is an idee fixe. Fix the judges and we will start to have substantive justice done in the courts, not the fuddy-duddy insistance on procedural probity and the application of the rules of law.
It’s in Charter 88. It is in the thinking behind the Human Rights Act, and the attempted abolition of the Lord Chancellor. It is even, sad to say, in Helena Kennedy’s otherwise worthwhile polemic against the Blairite destruction of the criminal justice system, Just Law.
The nature of public policy is to be changed; the courts are where public policy is applied; the courts must be changed.
Perry may wipe this comment at any moment … zo I vill only say zis vonce.
My guess is that the present proposal is a wedge. The call for sensitivity will quickly proceed to another call to formalise things with sensitivity training for the judiciary, say an eight-hour course initially, followed by a two-hourly refresher every year.
A short time later, notice will be drawn to apparent racial disparities in sentencing. When the judiciary fails to correct this obvious bias – because it does not exist – further guidelines will be issued. These will, in due time, be followed by legislation to reverse this blatent discrimination and promote what will, to the liberal mind, be true equality under the law: a kind of access regulation for the prison system.
Banned on the run: d’accord! This is the first, low level step. Next year they will “address the inconsistencies” in sentencing and crawl all over transcripts. The “thought errors” the judges make will become the subject of “judge workshops” at spas outside Milton Keynes.
Don’t look back, folks. They’re gaining on us!
Verity enquires:
“G Cooper – Where the hell have you been?”
I’d dearly love to say that I got six months for forcing my boot up the rectum of a “peace protestor”… but the truth is far sadder. I have serious doubts about the value of this kind of debate. I know my words will never cause thought to occur in the minds of the little knot of Leftist worthies who so delight us here and simply agreeing with like-minded souls is enjoyable, but does it achieve anything?
I do, incidentally, very much agree with Guy Herbert’s analysis of what has happened to the UK’s legal system. I would add that there appears to have been a consistent and dangerous judicial appointments policy at work for at least two decades, the results of which have been particularly apparent in the farcical judgements of some employment tribunals.
As the “human rights” industry has grown and these once junior bewigged fools have clambered up the greasy pole, so the number of truly terrible judgements has grown in more general legal cases, too.
It is probably worth noting that the guiding spirit behind this particular bout of PC madness is one Mrs. Justice Cox – who apparently made her career (and, no doubt, a magnificent living) specialising in (all together now!) “discrimination law”.
As ever, the appropriate – and unanswerable – question seems to be how do we rid ourseves of these deeply silly people and their malign influence on our society? I don’t recall ever having been asked my opinion abut the appointment of one of these twerps? Do you?
G Cooper,
I sympathise with your frustration for, I too, fall prey to occasional bouts of despair.
Knowing what is wrong is one thing. Putting it right is something else.
Believe me, if I knew how I would tell all.
“Historical persecution and oppression is a fact.”
All right which swine has been persecuting and oppressing history?
G Cooper – it’s still nice to see you back -, Guy Herbert and David Carr, who never went away: You are all three correct and there is a solution.
We adopt the American system of electing judges. I lived in the US for 16 years, and believe me, elected judges try to please the electorate, not a coterie of leftie destroyers of civil society. The only judges not elected are the Supreme Court. With everyone else, it’s Katy-bar-the-door.
The administration of justice in the US is reflective of the wishes of society. In most places (not Massachusetts or California, maybe) an American judge would not have given Maxine Carr such an easy ride. And in many states, Ian Huntley would be on death row, embarked on his 10 years of publicly funded appeals.
There’s a reason the “human rights law” practised by the Tsarina living in No 10 Downing St has never caught on in the US. The electorate, in the main a level headed bunch, don’t want it.
Try mentioning electing judges in a British contest and you will, predictably, be met with sneers, contempt for the American justice system and contempt for Americans generally. Yet one is hundreds of times safer in the US than in Britain. The police come zipping out to your home when you call, and they’re armed and they have no sympathy for the perpetrator.
(When I had a peeping Tom who gave every sign of also being a psycho, the first time I called the police, they were there within five minutes – two officers who asked me where I kept my gun. When I said in my desk, they said, sleep with it on the bedside table, and if he comes back shoot him. An hour later, the psycho was back, and this time the police sent two police cars one with three officers instead of the normal two, one of whom was armed with a rifle. Again, the perp melted away into the night. The third time I called, they sent two police cars and a helicopted with an extremely bright light that turned my back yard into daylight. We never did catch the guy, but on the other hand, he also never returned.)
Although elected judges work, there is no way this system will be adopted in Marxist Britain or the socialist EU, where the rights of the unemployed and criminal class supersede every other consideration.
I am getting out.
“Oriental: The term should be avoided because it is imprecise and may be considered racist or offensive”
“Oriental” = people from SE Asia
“Asian” = people from the sub-continent (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka).
That strikes me as a pretty precise and necessary distinction.
Cobden Bright – I don’t understand what you mean. Your “pretty precise and necessary distinction” makes absolutely no sense.
Asia is the vast landmass starting in Turkey and ending at the Pacific Ocean. Oriental descretely describes Mongoloid people: Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai, Laotians, Cambodians, Vietnamese.
Asians, along with people from the sub-continent, Afghanistan and the Middle East, includes the Filippinos, Indonesians, Malaysians and the above-mentioned Oriental people. Everyone from Asia is an Asian.
“Asian” is a word which caught on as a politically correct way of saying Pakistani, or Paki. When the Brits say Asian, they mean Paki, or sometimes Arab. When they mean Indian, they say Indian, not Asian. This is where political correctness gets you: perversion of perfectly good definitions, as written in every dictionary in the English language, in order to suit the political purpose of the people imposing the terms. “Asian” to describe, essentially, Muslims, reeks of local Labour council newspeak and is illiterate.
Verity writes:
“it’s still nice to see you back -, Guy Herbert and David Carr, who never went away: You are all three correct and there is a solution.”
Thank you for the kind words – that is elevated company.
As for elected judges, yes, I agree and, again, clearly you are also right about the impossibility of getting such a system established either here, on in the Franco-German protection racket called the EU.
British judges have always been part of a self-perpetuating oligarchy, something the Left realised, infiltrated and captured within the past two or three decades. A Gramscian plot? More than likely. Certainly, it was deliberately done and gives every appearance of having been well (if loosely) co-ordinated.
“I am getting out.”
I suspect many of us here keep a bag packed. But, damnit, I resent being forced out of my own country by a cabal of hard-eyed social workers, jumped-up polytechnic lecturers, radical-chic lawyers, bien pensant media bimbos and the rest of the (tiny) readership if the Graduina.
Stan Freeberg’s “Elderly Man River” sketch in which his attempt to record the song is continually interrupted by a PC monitor who suggests revisions begins to seem positively prescient.
Elderly Man River, that Elderly Man River,
He must know something, but he don’t (sorry) doesn’t say nuthin — anything!
He just keeps rolling along.
Etc.
G Cooper – Yes, I understand why you don’t want to be forced out. But this leftist tsuni (sp) is one of the great tidal waves of history and a couple of hundred thousand of us cannot stand on the shore and order it back. This is going to have to run its course, and I don’t want to waste my life waiting in vain. It will probably be another 50 years before the last sandy rivulets trickle back into the sea.
In addition, I believe that Europe has run its course. Two thousand years is a pretty good whack, but it’s imploding and there are other leaner, hungrier countries with intelligent, educated populations and fierce ambition coming up on the inside track, and my bet’s on them and the United States.
Verity, “Asian” is not shorthand for muslim, but (at least in UK common parlance) a general catch-all for people from the Indian subcontinent. Similarly, ‘Paki’ was used in very much the same fashion. Do you think the average brit can distinguish between people who originated in India & Pakistan? (particularly considering there are muslims in India too). Your foolish obsession with the ‘special treatment’ you believe is given to muslims ends up twisting your whole view sideways.
A_t – Yes, of course I think the average Brit can distinguish between people who originated in India and Pakistan, especially if the Pakistanis are dressed in the flowing desert gear of their forebears. Indians tend to be well dressed, Western style.
Bangladeshis and Sri Lankans tend to be much darker skinned. So yes, I think they can distinguish, not always correctly, but I think they can pick up enough non-verbal clues to be right a lot of the time, if they stopped to think about it.
Verity, I think you generously overestimate the perceptive powers of the average brit, particularly those prone to using the word ‘paki’. I would count myself as relatively aware (& unwilling to call anyone a paki), & to be honest i have not the faintest clue what religion the guys who ran my local shop where i last lived were. Their families were definitely from somewhere Indian subcontinent-ish, but where, I haven’t the faintest. Never really ocurred to me to even think tbh; as far as i was concerned, they were from South London.
As for pakistanis being “dressed in the flowing desert gear of their forebears” errr.. not many of the ones i’ve known! (the ones i actually knew, that is, so knew they were pakistani)… & are you implying that they’re somehow badly dressed when wearing this ‘desert garb’?
Also, does anyone know when the shirt became the established standard Indian garment, and what people wore before it’s introduction? (genuinely curious… was wondering this when i was in India recently)
A_t – regarding your last question, I don’t know, but I do think some Indian men, especially in Delhi, look dashing in freshly laundered pyjamas and kurta.
Regarding shirts in India, I really don’t think they’re that standard. Some switch back and forth and just wear pyjamas and kurta during the hot months.
If you didn’t know what part of the sub-continent your corner store people were from, they would have been from Pakistan or Muslims from India. Hindus usually have a diety tucked away somewhere on the shelves and a calendar featuring pictures of dieties and you can often smell the faint tang of incense.
No, the reason Pakistani men and women look ridiculous and out of place is, their garb isn’t appropriate for a damp northern climate and, as in much else, they seem unable to adapt.
Verity, aha! good point.. & yeah, no sign of any deities, so they may well have been of muslim descent. Thinking about it, i’m sure there was a collection box for a local mulslim charity by the till. No sign of any “flowing desert robes” tho’, & they seemed very able to adapt, running a thriving shop; no culture clash going on.
I do think shirts (kurta and kameez–what’s a kurta if not a shirt?) are pretty standard in India, nowadays. My guess is they have spread quite so far because they are easy to wear, store and wash in modern life.
Trad dress was based on loincloth for men and sari for women, with a varity of accessories. This was pretty practical in such a screamingly hot country, but when Islam came to stay with the Mughals (1520s), all those bare arms, legs and torsos were clearly haraam. So in the north and northwest a Persian-style shirt with loose trousers or a long skirt became respectable garb and it slowly spread from there.
A_t – I will not be triumphalist, but I did say the average Brit could subconsciously pick up on non-verbal clues. Also, why make note that they were running a successful commercial establishment, as though that proved a point? People are making good money running commercial establishments all over the world! It’s not a talent unique to just a few races …
Anyway, to return to the topic our generous hosts proposed, I suggest readers go back to Guy Herbert’s post of several comments above, beginning “What’s been pretty well run down in this thread …” as it does lead on to a new direction of thought.
What, just as I was getting excited about the socio-political significance of costume?
The hostility to the former judicial system noticably extends to other externalities than vocabulary. The New Left reformers become virtually apoplectic on the subject of court robes and wigs. I’m interested in why they find these quaint anomalies quite so distressing.
If court proceedings are a special and important kind of civic ritual, having a costume to indicate that doesn’t seem all that objectionable prima facie. And the reformers seem to accept that principle, because they can often be found saying they would like something formal but simpler–like the German courts, say.
I’d suggest it can only be the way that English court dress is symbolic of the Common Law. It isn’t designed or systematic, not decreed by a modern government, not drawn up out of abstract and thin air, but full of relics of the daily usage of different ages, and the marks and distinctions of an ordered society. The contempt in which it is held by the progressives is an expression of their veiled contempt for the workings of the law itself.
Bring back the assizes triumpeters, say I. Rituals do convey social meaning. The more respect for the processes of law can be bolstered by it, the better.
Guy – I’m in full agreement with you. But not only does the left hate an ordered society, they see (or pretend to see) wigs and robes as being arrogant costumes of “their betters”. So these, too, must go. In fact, they’d like to see the police dressed in jeans and T-shirts. (Or pyjamas and kurtas and saris for the sub-continentals; why should they be robbed of their cultures just because they want to serve in the British police?)
Not ony are they full of bile and hatred, but they’re ignorant, too. They think everything in EU countries has been levelled down, but it hasn’t. In France, they don’t wear wigs – presumably either never did, or the wearing of them was too redolent of the people they’d beheaded – but they certainly do wear robes and they wear special cravats that mark them out in the halls of justice and make them look formidable. Gustave or Sylvain may tell us of other small signs that distinguish one level of trial lawyer and judge from another. The formalities have by no means been abolished in France.
Verity:
Re electing judges, from what I have read , this would be a disastrous step. The U.S. judiciary at a local level is highly politicised and mired in stuff which comes very close to outright corruption. Take a look at Robert Surrick’s book on the Pensylvania judicary:
http://law.lotsofgoodbooks.com/us_law-item_id-1410760324-search_type-AsinSearch-locale-us.html
In the U.K. I see no signs of anything like that and I would not wish it. As the saying goes, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”.
Cydonia – It’s broke. It needs fixin’, boy. I’m surprised that, with your knee-jerk disapproval of all things American, you should choose to use a Texas saying to try to make your point.
So you speak from the lofty position of having read a book once. I lived in the United States and I know how elected judges work. Here is how: if, at election time, the electorate thinks the judge’s record of administering appropriate punishment to the guilty is lacking, guess what!! – they vote him/her off the bench and vote in someone more to their taste. This is what is known as “democracy”. The people in the United States insist that their will be consulted. They’re quirky that way.
Basing an opinion on the entire legal system of the United States on one book, whose author may well have a grudge to settle, is awfully silly. I’m sure there are corrupt judges in the US, as there are corrupt judges in Britain. In Britain, snobs that we are, the corruption may be more tilted to seeking preferment rather than payoffs. But there are plenty of corrupt judges in Britain.
You also cite one book written about elected judges in one state. There are 50 states in the United States, so that leaves 49 more about which you should perhaps inform yourself.
I predicted above that there would be a mindless and ill-informed reaction to the notion of applying a democratic American system to Britain. You know nothing about the American system. I can tell. Have you ever been up before an American judge? I have. Did I get off? No. Did I think the judge had been fair? Yes.
Verity is absolutely right on the term “Asian”, which encompasses “Orientals”. As for the word “Oriental”, it is so obviously imprecise and vague that it is absolutely incomprehensible to me why any educated, knowledgeable person today who writes with clarity would want to use or keep this word, unless for certain hidden motives.
If (according to Cobden Bright) “Oriental” = people from SE Asia is true, why is it stated in the dictionary that “Orientals” refer to the “peoples of eastern Asia, especially to China, Japan, and their neighbouring countries”?
Southeast Asia, for your information, refers to the region comprising the countries of Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. (Where’re China and Japan in this definition?)
The question is, what countries do “neighbouring countries” refer to? It can mean anything from Korea inclusive to the whole of Southeast Asia, which, by the way, consists of Indians, Chinese, Malays, etc (as in racially). In fact, a person can be of Chinese origin and yet not be a Chinese national. He/She can be an American, a Singaporean, an Indonesian, an Australian, so on and so forth. So then, is he/she an “Oriental” (people of eastern Asia, especially to China, Japan, and their neighboring countries)? Where exactly do the parameters end?
Asia is such a huge continent with different countries, races, religions, and cultures, that when you describe a person as Asian, it doesn’t say anything much except the fact that the person hails from Asia.
Eledolie – “As for the word “Oriental”, it is so obviously imprecise and vague that it is absolutely incomprehensible to me why any educated, knowledgeable person today who writes with clarity would want to use or keep this word, unless for certain hidden motives.”
What “certain hidden motives” would they be? Orientals use the, perfectly correct, word Oriental when referring to themselves. Being Chinese, Japanese or Korean is hardly something anyone would be ashamed of! It refers to the Mongoloid race, that is all.
What you think about electing judges rather depends what you think judges are for. Since I don’t see reflecting popular prejudice in their sentencing practice as desirable, nor sentencing people as the most important part of their job, I think electing judges by universal sufferage is a very bad idea.
The main thing I want from judges is to run fair trials and other hearings, and to apply and develop the law properly. For them to be elected by practising advocates and existing judges (who are in a position to judge their forensic skills) might make some sense. But count me out of a severity auction to the general public.
Guy – You make fair points. But judges are there to interpret the law, are they not? So, sticking with my original example, Maxine Carr, this woman was found guilty of perverting the course of justice in the case of a double murder of children. Personally, I think she got an extremely easy ride. I put this down to the leftie – “she’s weak; it’s not her fault” and the facile sympathy of “she stood by her man” – prejudice on the British bench today.
In the US, in most jurisdictions, the judge would have been more likely to take the point of view of the electorate rather than the social worker. He/she would be more likely to think that Maxine Carr was responsible for her own actions and was motivated by selfishness. She had a lot invested in her years with Huntley. She intended to marry him. She didn’t want it all to slip through her fingers.
In other words, I think the judge was wrong. In most (all? – I don’t know) states in the US, people would have been able challenge him (not legally, but as in “explain yourself, my good man”). In Britain, judges are too lofty to have to be answerable to hoi polloi who don’t understand the nuances. Well, screw that. If it’s so subtle, explain it to us.
I understand your position, Guy, but I will still vote for democracy. The function of judges is too important to be left to self-governance, as far as I am concerned. They should be more widely answerable. Like chiefs of police, they should be answerable directly to the people who are paying their salaries.
Verity: Indeed some Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, etc may refer to themselves as so-called “Orientals”, but this does not mean that it is right to do so, or that the word “Oriental” is not elusive. Centuries ago, the Europeans themselves had an distorted view of what they termed as the “Far East”, thus not surprisingly, the word “Oriental” which was often used to describe a person from the “Far East” has an equally elusive meaning.
“Oriental” was never defined as the Mongoloid race originally and still is not, according to the dictionaries I checked. “Oriental” has the outdated “connotations stemming from an earlier era when Europeans viewed the regions east of the Mediterranean as exotic lands full of romance and intrigue, the home of despotic empires and inscrutable customs”.
Personally, it is beyond me why anyone today would want to use an elusive word like “Oriental”, which is shrouded in mystique, associated with strange alien cultures, people with three eyes and the like, professionally, unless the person wishes to return to that age of illusory.
Verity, you offer a good example of why we differ. The judge has heard the facts of the case and sentenced within statutory guidelines on the basis of a conscientious decision. The public wishes to override that to satisfy tabloid-fanned bloodlust.
Which is often particularly harder on some criminals than others. See last week’s Spectator leading article for a good discussion of the repulsive sexual politics of the Carr (Maxine, not David) case.
Democratic mechanisms are valuable to restrain tyranny; but the tyranny of the mob is more dreadful than that of the traditional despot.
“[…] too important to be left to self-governance […]” Where have I heard that before?
Guy, No. Not at all. For one thing, there aren’t any tabloids in the sense you mean, in the US. There are no national newspapers (other than the purpose designed wimpy USA Today). Yes, the leaden, pompous, wordy NY Times and Washington Post get read by a certain class of people (mainly lawyers and accountants) all over the country, but I think you will agree that neither is incendiary.
As has been so widely remarked upon that it’s now a cliché, Americans are focussed on local news. That means their city. The folks in Houston don’t take an avid interest in what goes on in Dallas, 250 miles away. It’s a vast country. The Soham murders, for example, had they occured in MA, would be totally unfamiliar to people living in Texas, Alabama, Oregon, etc.
But to your main point: American judges administer justice under very strict guidelines. They do not respond to public pressure, even if there were any, in a particularly notorious case. In fact, they proceed even more cautiously in those instances.
What I am talking about is a judge’s over all record. If he habitually gives black offenders who have been found guilty by a jury, let’s say, or Hispanics, or welfare queens or any other special category, a free pass, the people who put him in office will yank him back out again come election time. In matters of democracy, the average Joe in the US is more sophisticated than his British counterpart (partly because the British are treated like children by “their political masters” – a disgusting phrase). He doesn’t evaluate a judge on one case (and how often in any judge’s life do sensational cases come along? Probably never), but on the judge’s record.
If criminals (don’t forget, they are tried by a jury) are let out on the streets to offend again, the electorate has the means to show its anger. If a judge constantly applies leftish leniency, people will tackle him on the stump. In Britain, there is no such recourse, which is why the British are more beaten down and passive than Americans.
BTW, I find the idea of David Carr having repulsive sexual politics quite intriguing. Perhaps we could hear more on this.
Eledolie – The Orient means the East. Oriri means to rise – especially the sun. Sol oriens means rising sun. That’s all. I don’t think you need to tie yourself into politically correct contortions, which in any case will attract precious little sympathy on this blog, imagining it to be racist. (BTW, there are no people on planet earth more racist than the Chinese, but that’s by the way.)
Japan actually bills itself as the Land of The Rising Sun. Oriental people in the West establish supermarkets called “Oriental Supermarket”. We all know the word means of the East, especially the Far East.
“Personally, it is beyond me why anyone today would want to use an elusive word like “Oriental”, which is shrouded in mystique, associated with strange alien cultures, people with three eyes and the like, professionally, unless the person wishes to return to that age of illusory.” I’m not quite sure what you mean by this, but I’ll have a bash.
That the Orient is “shrouded in mystique and associated with strange and alient cultures” is rather thrilling, which is why people might like using the word. I think Asia is vastly and endlessly intriguing. I couldn’t figure out what you meant by “people with three eyes” until I hit on, perhaps you were referring to the “third eye”, which all of us have. It’s referred to in the Occident, you should excuse the term, as the sixth sense. A means of intuiting the truth, often the spiritual truth. Why does this give you offence?
I must admit “that age of illusory” has me baffled.
I find it shrouded in mystery.
Verity:
The Orient means the East.
This statement itself is vague. Essentially, you are equating “the Orient” with “the East”. India is also, by definition, in “the East”. (Nonetheless, it doesn’t seem like people would regard an Indian as an “Oriental”, would they?) According to the Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=55956&dict=CALD), “the Orient” refers to the countries in the east and south-east of Asia. As for my Oxford’s Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, “the Orient” means the eastern part of the world, especially China and Japan. As anyone can observe, the meaning of “the Orient” itself is vague; sometimes it includes Southeast Asia, sometimes it does not. “Countries in the east” is also not specific. Does it mean all of Asia (or Asia-Pacific)? Or does it only mean China and Japan? If “Oriental” means a person from “the Orient”, how can “Oriental” be, in any sense, clear, when the word “the Orient” (a geographical concept) itself has a vague meaning?
Contrary to your belief, I have hardly any intention or interest in garnering any ounce of “sympathy” from any single person in the world or in proving that the word “Oriental” is actually “racist”. However, since it is, indeed, an imprecise and outdated word (as I have tried, painstakingly, to explain), I think it should not be used in an official context (or even used at all to describe a person clearly when there are clearly words like Chinese, Japanese, Asian, etc., except for historical purposes).
Actually (I should have mentioned this earlier, but hey, it’s not too late), I do not see why one should be ashamed of one’s race when one has no control over one’s race by birth. A person does not choose his/her race, but he/she has control over his/her actions and thinking. In fact, according to Objectivism, it is racist to assume that the acts of one’s past generation of people have any connection with a person’s cultural identity or the person’s personality and character just because the person is of the same race. Thus, it does not make sense to me why anyone should be ashamed or proud or feel anything about belonging to a certain race as a collective.
In fact, I am deeply curious what makes you think I imagine “Oriental” to be a”racist” word. If anything, I find the historial connections with this vague word amusing precisely because of the strange conceptions of the people in “the East” the Europeans had, but I remembered incorrectly about the one on “people with three eyes” (should be one eye): http://img63.photobucket.com/albums/v191/eledolie/east.jpg
So there, hope this clears things up, but I am not convinced why “Oriental” should be used today since it is obvious to me that it is vague because of its unspecific definition(s), and therefore should not be used in a professional context, especially in the practice of law, where ambiguity should be strongly discouraged.
Eledolie – … it is, indeed, an imprecise and outdated word (as I have tried, painstakingly, to explain) … You have no basis for assuming that you have a better grasp, and therefore a superior ability to “explain” anything than I do. I don’t accept your qualifications to “explain” anything to me.
I have said several times, in refutation of your attempting to promote more politically correct usage, that there’s absolutely nothing wrong with the world Oriental. Now you accuse me of thinking the word Oriental is racist. And you’ve abandoned the “three eyes” aberration, when I pointed out that the third eye is just a device for describing insight, claiming you mistook it for a “one eye” aberration. I’ve never heard Orientals referred to as having only one eye. I’ve never even seen a one-eyed diety in the vast pantheon of Asian dieties.
You at no time indicated in your previous posts that you were ruling with specific reference to the Little Red Book of Correct Usage for Judges. Certainly, the word Oriental is imprecise and if possible best avoided in a legal context. Who would argue? But what about the witness who is not able, with a suave glance, to determine whether an Oriental is Chinese, Japanese, Korean or perhaps a SE Asian with some indigene mixed in? What is wrong with a witness referring to having seen an Oriental in lieu of more precise ethnicity?
I sometimes wonder how novel this political correctness lark is. In the early 1950s, when Frank Muir and Denis Norden began scriptwriting, the BBC gave them guidelines which advised them to avoid jokes about colour, religion, disability, sexual deviancy or the Royal Family.
They thereupon submitted a script which began:
THE QUEEN: Christ, that one-legged nigger’s a poof!
You can get away (just) with calling a Scotchman Jock or a Welshman Taffy, even in a pub late on Saturday night. But judges may not refer to “coloured” persons. Is not this sensitivity a measure of the failure of integration?
I notice that “ethnic” is often used now as a bloodless substitute for “coloured”. From which I infer that white people are not only colourless but devoid of ethnicity.
Further, “Asian” always seems to mean people descended from the Indian subcontinent, never (leftward) Jews and Arabs or (bit over to the right) Chinese and Japanese. It’s also amusing that feminists prefer talking about “gender”, not that disgusting word “sex”. Gender is “constructed”, you see, like the extra appurtenances of somebody who has him/herself surgically altered to assume the gender (s)he believes is rightfully its.
WJ Phillips – Well, that quote certainly beats that old supposed opening of a novel: “Hell!” said the Duchess. What a long time ago that must have been.
But, you can’t “assume” a gender. You can’t alter your chromosomes. It’s only pretend.
Like all else, the word “ethnic” plus “minority” was imported wholesale from the United States, just about the time it was being phased out there. The British political class, especially the left, is always a day late and a dollar short. (NB lefties: this one has legs.)
I know it’s only pretend. I was doing that thing Americans are alleged not to understand: irony.