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Swirl baby

Posted by Silver Surfer on January 15, 2003

In Reply to: Swirl baby posted by Bob on January 14, 2003

: : : : : SWIRL BABY - Multiracial. "She's bummed because she isn't a 'swirl baby'- the term at school for being half white and half something else. It is the 'in' thing here - not boring all white!" From an online discussion group, accessed Jan. 13, 2003.

: : : : : I'm guessing it refers to the ice cream swirl of vanilla and chocolate.

: : : : This has all the hallmarks of a phrase that will, in the near future, be roundly condemned by the great and the good and certainly mark any user as a racist of the worst kind. I speak from experience since I find it unwise to openly discuss the activities of my childhood as a wartime evacuee when I roamed the hills and byways with '[word removed in order to comply with Google's Publisher Policy]', my beautiful black curly haired spaniel, without substituting with the name Rex - they might have waited until I was dead before outlawing that word.

: : : You'd have to be roughly 175 years old to have that make sense.

: : Plainly you didn't major in maths or history given that I was sent to the country in 1941, the war in question was WWII, the country being bomber was the UK, the nice people doing the bombing were the Germans and the city I was evacuated from was London. I can perhaps forgive you if you are an American since I have, over a lifetime, discovered that events happening outside the continental US normally remain a mystery to approximately 80% of Americans: never did figure out why.

: If I might interrupt the xenophobic huffing and puffing for a moment, I am quite aware of the chronology of wars in our century. What you seem to be unaware of (and why you missed my point) is that "that word" did not become offensive in your lifetime. It has been offensive and unacceptable in polite company for far more than a century. Ergo (do I really need to spell this out? Probably...) you are either 150+ years old, or blissfully insensitive. (Perhaps both?)

Bob, dear old chap, polite company had many vices in England but fortunately the common man paid little heed to their chatter and simply got on with life. For the record I am notoriously sensitive, well mannered but impatient of purveyors of flimflam.

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