Colourful legal quibbles

As usual I find myself in a state of confusion over the law and its ramifications, particularly the law regarding the use of racial epithets.  For example, if I call a Negro ‘a black bastard’ am I likely to be charged with using the word ‘black’, a specific and impeccably accurate adjective; or for saying ‘bastard’, a term of insult and abuse?  I can see no harm in the former which is merely descriptive but, if said loudly in a public place, even in this day and age, such a mild epithet might cause someone somewhere to be offended.  (Of course, if in fact it does turn out that the target of my language actually is a bastard, then how does the law stand then?  All I have done is tell the truth!)

I gather also from the media that a young man has been sentenced to 56 days in jail for using racial abuse in a series of ‘tweets’.  In other words, they were not said face-to-face and therefore were unlikely to cause a breach of the peace, although given the state of British streets on a Friday and Saturday night another breach of the peace is unlikely to register on the police radar!  I thought Kenneth Clarke had laid down that prison sentences were to be confined to hardened criminals only, so why a twit of a ‘tweeter’ should end up being housed and fed at my expense I do not know, particularly when the number of burglars getting off scot free so-called ‘Community Service Orders’ is steadily rising.

Finally, we have the brave Guardian publishing the recorded comments of a copper allegedly using ‘racist language’ to a young man he was arresting.  This was reported at the time and all the facts were studied by the Crown Prosecution Service and the Independent Police Complaints Authority who decided that no prosecution was warranted.  Now, however, The Guardian is bellowing from the rooftops and every black loudmouth in the land is on TV demanding a trial.  If it turns out that one or both of the authorities change their minds, not on the grounds that fresh evidence has arisen but because they are under public pressure, how can a judge do anything other than throw the case out?  Unless of course, the authorities, to use the current jargon, ‘name and shame’ – and fire – the officials within their bounds who made the mistake.  Do not hold your breath!

Comments

[Webwrights]

When (the, by all accounts, rather loathsome) Mr. Terry of the Chelsea football club was caught and prosecuted for (allegedly) making ungentlemanly 'racist' remarks to Mr. Ferdinand of the Queens Park Rangers club, the Times carefully reported his (alleged) imprecation verbatim as: "You f******g black c***".

This struck me as curious, since the paper had carefully asterisked the two words which seem to be common parlance on the pitch and in the crowd, but left the single 'offensive' word in full for all to be appalled and disgusted by its employment.

[Whyaxye]

"if I call a Negro ‘a black bastard’ am I likely to be charged with using the word ‘black’, a specific and impeccably accurate adjective; or for saying ‘bastard’, a term of insult and abuse?"

These days, you can probably get done for using the word "Negro".

Scandalous that someone can be jailed for tweeting what any saloon-bar bigot can say with impunity. Culpability and seriousness is, these days, defined by what a small metropolitan elite think.

"Webwrights" makes a very interesting point. The individual words used would never in themselves get you charged. There seems to be some ill-defined and complicated rule by which using a term which might refer to human negritude, coupled with some other terms of disapproval, push you over the edge into being a "racist" who must be dealt with. I'd love to see them formulate the exact rule in the form of a statute!

[dearieme]

I'm guessing, but if you used "negro" in the sort of serious discussion that demands a less wordy equivalent to "someone whose descent derives from sub-Saharan Africa" you should be fairly safe, but if you use it in a context where it's might be views as intended to offend someone, you aren't. Even if that someone himself uses the igg word freely. Funny old world.