Don't forget the infamous eenie, meenie, minie, moe incident...
Well, now, I have
some
sympathy for Clarkson there. It was more recitation than active racism, and his apology made it clear that he was aghast (for once) at the implication. He could do with trying humble more often.
I'd also argue nobody knew what "slope" meant until people started to moan that Clarkson said it.
That being said, anybody who says Clarkson has never said anything offensive and just "goes against PC" has no idea what they're talking about.
I'm not one to get offended on behalf of other people, and Clarkson has never offended me personally, but if somebody has been offended by an insult, you can't cover it as "political correctness gone mad". There are ways of justifying it if you need to. Claiming "it's because PC is silly" is a sh*t method.
I'd also argue nobody knew what "slope" meant until people started to moan that Clarkson said it.
Indeed.
The fallout seemed surreal to me at the time. I felt like Clarkson himself and whoever complained were the only two members of the entire human race who would apply any racist meaning to the word.
Before this particular Top Gear episode, if you'd have asked me to write down a list of all the words that I am aware get used as racist slurs, I would never have even remotely thought of the word "slope". I have only ever known it to mean e.g. "gradient". I expect the same is true of 99.9% of people who saw the original broadcast.
Presumably the word's use in this sense is limited to certain people, e.g. those over a certain age, or those who went to posh school, or only really known outside of the UK, or whatever.
Don't forget the infamous eenie, meenie, minie, moe incident...
Well, now, I have
some
sympathy for Clarkson there. It was more recitation than active racism, and his apology made it clear that he was aghast (for once) at the implication. He could do with trying humble more often.
That and he never said it on TV, it was from unused rushes some git sold to the sun!
Jeremy Clarkson never made racist comments, he just went against the whole PC nonsense. People are way too sensitive.
I'm going to deck a colleague whilst reassuring everyone around me "don't worry, I'm just rallying against the whole PC nonsense", as I slap them repeatedly across the chops.
Then I will rock myself to sleep in a nice padded room all of my own.