On the street where I grew up there was an old man who was sweet, friendly… and racist. This was the 1980s: every street had one. Always draped in an overcoat, even when it was tarmac-meltingly hot, he’d march back from the corner shop each morning, tabloid tucked under arm, looking to ensnare one of us in chat. About the weather. The football. ‘Coloureds.’ One time, I was walking back from the Chinese takeaway when he appeared. Spotting the takeaway’s distinctive white bags, he cried out cheerily: ‘You don’t wanna be eating that muck! Can’t your mum make a roast?!’
His blather burst out of my memory banks recently when I was reading about Lena Dunham, Girls star, feminist and fan of the unflattering nude scene. On hearing that students at her alma mater, Oberlin in Ohio, were demanding that the college canteen stop serving sushi because it’s ‘cultural appropriation’ for white brats to make and eat such fare, Dunham declared: ‘Right on.’
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