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[CLKD]

Yep.  People get picky about the wrong issues  .  If they got their teeth into HS2, pot holes, drunk drivers ............. 

There's a little green frog, sitting in the water ............

You're a pink toothbrush, I'm a blue toothbrush .......... and we met by the bathroom door. would that be allowed these days 

[Ladybt28]

….er...um probably not CLKD - probably not considered "gender neutral enough"    and don't bring bathrooms into it! To be honest I really don't know - I would never ever imagine being offended by half the things people complain about.
The worrying thing is about all this is that the average person now no longer knows what is acceptable and what isn't - it's all so picky and so it seems easier to say nothing in case it offends someone. x

[CLKD]

I would be offended if someone took what I suggested the 'wrong' way  or maybe I simply wouldn't be woke enough to notice  .  The minority should never overtake the majority in a democratic country.  Nor should Councils be spending money 'unwisely' 

[Ladybt28]

Actually I just looked over my post and I'm thinking where did the word "woke" come from and why the hell am I using it??? and the same with "virtue signalling"!  There is so much I don't understand these days - does that make me officially old cos I don't want worry about Blacks Road, Whitehaven, stuff from history, pink for a girl, blue for a boy and a whole host of other things? or does it mean to the young, I am officially classified a bigot?
It's amazing what gets into our consciousness these days and sometimes we don't even notice.  Starts off a simple question about a place with white houses but its more complicated than that....maybe I put my "grumpy knickers" on today. xx

[CLKD]

I've had grumpy knickers since I stepped out of nappies at 14 months  - didn't walk until 22 months .......... never looked back 

[jaypo]

Haha my sister went back to teaching after having her children,she had an assessor in her classroom one day,to make sure she was up to scratch,after the lesson,the assessor told her,we don't say blackboard anymore,it's chalkboard 
Are we not allowed even the actual colour anymore?

[Pennyfarthing]

Well, it's not called 'Little white town', that's the welcome visitors encounter when they enter Bideford because it's written on the signs.  Plus, it's not exactly traditional or particularly historical, it was a description in a novel from 1855.  Given this, yeah, it sets the wrong tone, and the town might want its history back rather than this terrible slug line on its signs.

In terms of re-writing history, I find that interesting, mostly because I'm a trained historian.  People often seem to think 'racist memes' have roots stretching much further back into history than they do.  For example, black face morris - you know, the folks with sticks and bells.  It relatively recent.  It gained popularity round about the same time as the black and white minstrels and, with the best will in the world, they're racist.

I think the starting point here is trying to understand why and how people might be offended.  The why is easy.  Slavery (from which Britain profited massively) was a form of genocide.  Millions upon millions died.  All because the white man thought the black man was little better than a savage.  Another example, when the slave trade was banned, slave owners realised they wouldn't be able to import any more labour, and so they forcibly bred their women slaves.  Forcibly.  Like animals.  They did this because they had the power to do it.  Imagine if this was your history.  And this brings us on to the how.  There's such a thing called 'ancestral trauma'.  It's where the descendants and the survivors still feel it, because it was so awful, so indefensible, that it sort of defies closure.  It's triggering, in pretty much the same way as antisemitism triggers people these days.  Maybe they're oversensitive, but I wouldn't like to draw that conclusion because it's not me who's been subjected to the trauma.  If they're asking me to do x, y or z because it would make them, in their trauma, feel more comfortable, then I'm willing to listen to that.

Finally, as for rewriting history.  I live in Brighton.  If we were to accurately describe this town our signs would say 'Built off the back of slaves, profits from the plantations'.  Pretty sure none of us are demanding that kind of accuracy.

I thought Black faced Morris dancing went back to the 16th century.  My hubby used to have a friend who was a Morris Dancer and he turned up at the hospital in full gear with a pigs bladder on a stick when I gave birth to my son.  He was so excited and came straight from dancing at a nearby pub.  We still laugh about that.

[Pennyfarthing]

Haha my sister went back to teaching after having her children,she had an assessor in her classroom one day,to make sure she was up to scratch,after the lesson,the assessor told her,we don't say blackboard anymore,it's chalkboard 
Are we not allowed even the actual colour anymore?

It's been called a whiteboard actually for many, many years.

[Ladybt28]

Oh Pennyfarthing - I've been living in another dimension - that's what's wrong! I really, really didn't know that  and I would have called it a blackboard.  I got some of that paint a few years ago, called blackboard paint that you can use in children's rooms and offices to use on cupboard doors and ordinary wood etc?

[jaypo]

It's craaaaaaaazyyyyyy
I'm going back maybe 20 years now re my sister

[jillydoll]

Still doesn't stop people taking the p*#@ out of  blonde women!
I've had enough of that all my life! 🤨

[getting_old]

I'm definitely not pc enough, and really think the world has gone mad. So, is the whiteboard actually white? or still black? and it's not going to be long before someone has an issue with whiteboard, so then it'll just be a board??

[Sparrow]

Just ban all colours.  Sorted 

[CLKD]

White; black; grey ..........  aint colours!

Red and yellow and pink and blue .......... now I have an ear-worm [which is a Germanism]

Rainbow colours only ;-)

[Pennyfarthing]

Oh Pennyfarthing - I've been living in another dimension - that's what's wrong! I really, really didn't know that  and I would have called it a blackboard.  I got some of that paint a few years ago, called blackboard paint that you can use in children's rooms and offices to use on cupboard doors and ordinary wood etc?

It must be over 20 years now since I worked in schools and colleges and whiteboards were commonplace then.  You use a thick marker pen to write on them.