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When racism is not racism

Bugga, I'm stuffed. The flight to the anti-racism conference in the Caribbean was an absolute swine.

The beer was warm, the ice was warm, the hosties ugly and the food ... well, it had been eaten once before.

Never mind, the cold-water shower at the $1000-a-night hotel had momentarily freshened me up and I was looking forward to fighting the evils of racism wherever they appeared.

One of the hot items on the World Conference Against Racism agenda was dealing with the painful issue of slavery.

I was going to give a speech about being held slave in a nursing home (sorry Matron, I lost the keys to the handcuffs) and had some pretty damned interesting things to say about how Old Folks get treated.

Anyway, as I was making my way up to the podium the British delegation moved a motion to expel non-blacks. The reason - "discussing slavery was too traumatic to do in front of people who hadn't suffered from it."

"Hang on," I called, "isn't this racism? Expelling whites?"

"No," came the chorus, "You are evil. You caused slavery."

"Hang about again," I called, "I wasn't around at the time."

"That surprises us, you old fart," came the chorus, "we weren't around either, but we still suffer from the trauma of our great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandparents."

"Aren't you being a bit silly?"

"Don't you oppress us!!!!!" and with that I was forcibly ejected by a couple of slavvering security guards.

Sitting on my backside in the middle of the street I saw about a dozen other non-black folk moping around the place. They'd also been expelled because of their colour.

"Aren't you people pissed off that you've been chucked out like that. Just because you aren't black?"

"No," they bleated in unison, "we deserved it. Our forefathers must have profited from the slave trade and we are evil."

"And were they slave traders?"

"Well no, they baked bread, made sammies and worked on farms. But they are still evil!"

"Because ...?"

"All non-blacks are evil, the conference told us so."

Oh bugga it then, I'm off to seek solace in a nice rum and coke and watch a bit of cricket....

If there is something that has really got up your nose, let Grumpy Old Coot know at grumpy@webwombat.com