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How about if they publish an official list of words that we are allowed to use in every day life which are in no way offensive to anyone? Probably because our language would be reduced to about fifteen words if they did.
We've already been bullied senseless into avoiding certain phrases such as fat, skinny, ginger, bald, etc. But we're now falling into traps with words that we may not necessarily realize are offensive. Before reading this thread I had no idea whatsoever that calling a person of ethnic origin a coconut could land someone in court. It reminds me of a certain scene in a movie called The Human Stain in which Anthony Hopkins referred to a couple of absent students as "spooks". In his mind there was a bolt of sarcasm aimed at the absent students who were either missing or invisible, like ghosts. Little did he know that his words would land him in deep trouble defending his career, as the term (he later discovers) is also a racist term and the absent students were black. Despite the fact that his "insult" was totally generic, non-racist and ironic, the authorities went hell-for-leather on a career wrecking fetish. This "coconut" incident sounds like a very similar thing to me.
We've been conditioned (or should that be "bullied") into a state of over-sensitive, defensive political correctness which make normal exchanges between people virtually impossible. We actually live in an age where a person can be compensated to the tune of thousands for "injury to feelings" and there is a general level of fear to express free speech which is almost as insane as the current health and safety regime. Before long, people in office may consider conducting risk assessments before engaging in conversations with colleagues.
It really is ridiculous and stupid. And, of course, with so much fear to use free speech, the only people left doing it are people such as the BNP who receive a lot of bad press for being Nazis and so on, but when you break it down into its component parts, they're only doing what we should ALL be doing - expressing our true views! I absolutely agree that a level of responsibility should go alongside that ethic, which the BNP seem to disregard, but we're not allowed. Even a guarded or innocent remark can land us in a world of trouble these days.
Certain ethnic groups, certain sexual orientations, and certain religious factions have managed to impose a type of "language fascism" on the rest of us, backed up by institutionalized bullying with a political agenda.