"Are you being pushed out?"

Big Brother has hit the headlines yet again on a "racism" issue. I watched it last night and I have to admit that I was seriously annoyed. Not by the use of the N word! But by the stupidity of it all!

It is clear from the clip and from the transcript that Emily meant no offence and was simply trying to ingratiate herself with the "ethnic" crowd ... Ok .. she's nineteen, and has no idea what effect the word has on the older generation of blacks ... but having said that it is clear that the younger generation use it in a very different sense. They have reclaimed the word and changed it's meaning. You can easily tell when someone uses it with malicious intent ... it was obvious that Emily did not mean any offence by her comments. The girls originally giggled about it. What I found more interesting was what happened afterwards ...

Emily insisted that she was not the first person to use the word and Charley even seemed to accept this and repeated it again. So was Emily simply repeating what she thought was accepted language in the house? If Big Brother's stance is that it is not the intent but the mere use of the word, then surely that means that everyone who used the word should have been booted out. BB Big Mouth was so sensitive about offending the public that they referred to it only as the N word! To be honest I am offended by the frequent and gratuitous use of the F word but no-one has been booted out for that yet!

Charley then spent the evening, making the most of the opportunity. Let's be honest .. Charley was more offended earlier when Leslie asked her if she was stupid, than by Emily's use of the word nigger ... but what happened then was amazing ... Charley managed to tell the whole household just how shocked she was about it. If she were truly offended, go into the diary room and make your view known, but to whine around the house whispering to others and then pretending they must have overheard you rather than you couldn't keep your mouth shut. I thought her comment "I'll be on all the front pages" was more telling about what her thoughts were at that moment in time.