brainwashed Americans

[Rough Hewn]

He was referencing something the soldiers said. In that context I don't find it racist at all.

Not accusing anyone of anything.
Just informing our fellow reader that certain words are not acceptable in Britain.

[doobin]

12 minutes ago, Rough Hewn said:

Not accusing anyone of anything.
Just informing our fellow reader that certain words are not acceptable in Britain.

Give it a rest mate, it was in quotation marks and everything. Go be woke elsewhere. 

[Woodworks]

8 minutes ago, doobin said:

Give it a rest mate, it was in quotation marks and everything. Go be woke elsewhere. 

Keep seeing this phrase "woke" so looked it up. Sounds like a good thing to be  "political and social awareness"

[Mark J]

1 hour ago, Rough Hewn said:

Not accusing anyone of anything.
Just informing our fellow reader that certain words are not acceptable in Britain.

He was quoting from records. I'd even go as far as to say he was highlighting the word as something we shouldn't be proud of.

How can it be unacceptable to say things in historical context?

You can't just pretend that words don't exist.

I'm 43 and casual racism was the norm when growing up, thankfully we've mostly moved on from there as a society.

It's usually clear when someone has an agenda and I don't think our American friend has one.

 

Edited March 26, 2021 by Mark J

[Stubby]

I thought it stood for Western Oriental Gentleman  .?

[Khriss]

14 minutes ago, Stubby said:

I thought it stood for Western Oriental Gentleman  .?

You are correct there Mr Stubby, but take a few tram stops from me, and say it and i would give you five minutes ...K  ( even if it was in quotations 😉 ) 

[Youngstu]

46 minutes ago, Stubby said:

I thought it stood for Western Oriental Gentleman  .?

In Australia I was told it means "West of Gaza" and is (or was 20 years ago!) widely used to refer to people who originated from the Mediterranean, including Italians, former Yugoslavia, Turkey etc. Not necessarily used or taken as an insult, although not always easy to to be 100% sure with the Aussies!

[monkeybusiness]

58 minutes ago, Youngstu said:

In Australia I was told it means "West of Gaza" and is (or was 20 years ago!) widely used to refer to people who originated from the Mediterranean, including Italians, former Yugoslavia, Turkey etc. Not necessarily used or taken as an insult, although not always easy to to be 100% sure with the Aussies!

Yeah, the Ozzie’s use it when referring to Mediterranean’s, and it certainly isn’t meant to be anywhere near as offensive as when used in the northern hemisphere. 
Not a nice word, but no issue with the context here IMO.

[rarefish383]

1 hour ago, Stubby said:

I thought it stood for Western Oriental Gentleman  .?

Oh My. My son in law is of Chinese decent. I've got to drop that one on him.

Thanks to those that understood my point. It was historical only. We all have things in our past to be, "not so proud of".  I have a 10 volume set of Kipling, it's a beautiful set of leather bound books. Much of the leather is worn thin from years of reading. It may have been in one of those volumes I first heard the term. My apologies, Joe

[openspaceman]

2 hours ago, Stubby said:

I thought it stood for Western Oriental Gentleman  .?

Golly I thought it was wily