Royal Racism and the Nanny State

The world has gone into politically correct overload. The recent story about Prince Harry and his so called racist remarks has been banded all around the news channels and everyone seems to have a point of view on it. The royal correspondents are parked outside St James’ Palace giving their expert opinions and points of view and the palace spokesman has been extremely busy explaining Harry’s comments.

The prince has been reported for using the racist term “paki” in relation to one of his army colleagues who was born in Pakistan. Does this mean that referring to someone as a “Brit” is racist or even a “Jap”, if that person is from Japan?

It seems there are one set of rules for some and a totally different set of rules for others. Terms like Yank, Paddy and Pom are all generally accepted and it is unlikely that there would be such a fuss caused if the Prince had used these terms.

In addition, the Prince was also in trouble for pretending to make a phone call to the Queen, his grandmother. For goodness sakes, the guy was out in Iraq fighting a war at the time. It is a war that we started and still cannot seem to finish. He was trying to entertain the rest of the troops by acting the clown and lightening the mood, so why can’t it be seen for what it was?

Nobody has the right to victimise anyone on the grounds of their colour, ethnic origin or otherwise but surely these things have to be put into context. It is the situation, attitude, tone and direction of a comment that leads it to be racist and not the word itself.

When will the world come to its senses and stop trying to Nanny everyone and make instant moral judgements without the full picture?