Two incidents worthy of mention happened on Friday, October 11 in the USA. On the news that night, I could not believe my ears when a clip was shown of President Trump speaking at a function and letting loose a most disgusting and insensitive tirade against the late young Hunter Biden and his Dad.
My wife and I were agreed that no national leader of any country should have stooped as low as Mr. Trump did in berating Senator Biden’s role as former Vice President beside President Obama.
I am not a fan of political correctness but I wish Mr. Trump had indulged that option or pick from the spectrum of euphemisms available to any well educated person. But maybe I expect too much of him.
The other incident happened in a Meat and Produce store owned by Hispanics. We were standing at the section with yams and I reluctantly called my wife’s attention to one of the signs in English marked ‘Black yam’ (Jamaica).
In all of my life in Jamaica I had never heard of that yam and since I have a few years on my wife I thought of just dismissing what I saw as wrong labelling but since her Ph.D work was on disease in yams in Jamaica I thought it wise to alert her to the sign in case I was just unaware of that particular yam.
My Baby took a few seconds to think, picked up a piece of the yam to examine the shape and the cut face then whispered to me that it was a case of political correctness.
It was a sign she said, for Negro yam (popularly called Nigga yam in JA and perhaps too in Florida by Jamaicans). The owners, no doubt knowing the offensive nature of the ‘N’ word in the USA opted for the safe Spanish equivalent ‘black’ for ‘Negro’.
I guess I can’t help myself wondering if the shop could create a vacancy for Mr. Trump especially in the yam section, to learn euphemism and defensible political correctness.
No, I don’t think President Trump is a derriere but he is most definitely not well in the organ a few vertebrae north of that anatomical location! Just my uninformed thought.