Saturday 21 August 2021

Taking Offence

There's a bit of a furore going down in Stroud. A local clock, which is surmounted with an image of a tethered black boy, is the subject of both offence and the insensitive vocalisations of a local Tory MP who has gone to the Dark Side of the War on Woke, which has just about overplayed its hand and is becoming a joke in its attempts to egregiously cause offence in the cause of nazionalism.


Who is best qualified to determine if a tethered black boy clock in Stroud, incidentally dating from the height of the slave trade and colonialism, is offensive to black people? A white, Tory politician with a penchant for the new wave, pantomime fascism of the anti-woke brigade, or a black descendant of the Windrush Generation? 

A stab in the dark here, but I'd hazard a guess at the latter, as the former doesn't have a clue how the latter feels. Offence is in the eyes of the one voicing offence, not the apologist for the offence.

Only a year ago the anti-woke warriors were saying that the policy should be 'retain and explain', meaning the addition of explanatory plaques. This entirely sensible policy, however, is now referred to as 'rewriting history', which is as illogical as you can get.


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