The Angry Exile: Offence seeking for toddlers

The Hangman

Into our town the Hangman came,
Smelling of gold and blood and flame.
And he paced our bricks with a diffident air,
And built his frame in the courthouse square.
The scaffold stood by the courthouse side,
Only as wide as the door was wide;
A frame as tall, or little more,
Than the capping sill of the courthouse door.
And we wondered, whenever we had the time,
Who the criminal, what the crime
That the Hangman judged with the yellow twist
of knotted hemp in his busy fist.
And innocent though we were, with dread,
We passed those eyes of buckshot lead --
Till one cried: "Hangman, who is he
For whom you raised the gallows-tree?"
Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,
And he gave us a riddle instead of reply:
"He who serves me best," said he,
"Shall earn the rope of the gallows-tree."
And he stepped down, and laid his hand
On a man who came from another land.
And we breathed again, for another's grief
At the Hangman's hand was our relief
And the gallows-frame on the courthouse lawn
By tomorrow's sun would be struck and gone.
So we gave him way, and no one spoke,
Out of respect for his Hangman's cloak.
The next day's sun looked mildly down
On roof and street in our quiet town,
And stark and black in the morning air
Was the gallows-tree in the courthouse square.
And the Hangman stood at his usual stand
With the yellow hemp in his busy hand;
With his buckshot eye and his jaw like a pike
And his air so knowing and business-like.
And we cried, "Hangman, have you not done
Yesterday, with the foreign one?"
Then we fell silent, and stood amazed,
"Oh, not for him was the gallows raised."
He laughed a laugh as he looked at us:
"Did you think I'd gone to all this fuss
To hang one man? That's a thing I do
To stretch a rope when the rope is new."
Then one cried "Murder!" and one cried "Shame!"
And into our midst the Hangman came
To that man's place. "Do you hold," said he,
"with him that was meant for the gallows-tree?"
And he laid his hand on that one's arm.
And we shrank back in quick alarm!
And we gave him way, and no one spoke
Out of fear of his Hangman's cloak.
That night we saw with dread surprise
The Hangman's scaffold had grown in size.
Fed by the blood beneath the chute,
The gallows-tree had taken root;
Now as wide, or a little more,
Than the steps that led to the courthouse door,
As tall as the writing, or nearly as tall,
Halfway up on the courthouse wall.
The third he took -- we had all heard tell --
Was a usurer, and an infidel.
"What," said the Hangman "have you to do
With the gallows-bound, and he a Jew?"
And we cried out, "Is this one he
Who has served you well and faithfully?"
The Hangman smiled: "It's a clever scheme
to try the strength of the gallows-beam."
The fourth man's dark, accusing song
Had scratched our comfort hard and long;
"And what concern," he gave us back.
"Have you for the doomed -- the doomed and Black?"
The fifth. The sixth. And we cried again,
"Hangman, Hangman, is this the man?"
"It's a trick," he said. "that we hangmen know
For easing the trap when the trap springs slow."
And so we ceased, and asked no more,
As the Hangman tallied his bloody score.
And sun by sun, and night by night,
The gallows grew to monstrous height.
The wings of the scaffold opened wide
Till they covered the square from side to side;
And the monster cross-beam, looking down,
Cast its shadow across the town.
Then through the town the Hangman came,
Through the empty streets, and called my name --
And I looked at the gallows soaring tall,
And thought, "There is no one left at all
For hanging, and so he calls to me
To help pull down the gallows-tree."
So I went out with right good hope
To the Hangman's tree and the Hangman's rope.
He smiled at me as I came down
To the courthouse square through the silent town.
And supple and stretched in his busy hand
Was the yellow twist of the hempen strand.
And he whistled his tune as he tried the trap,
And it sprang down with a ready snap --
And then with a smile of awful command
He laid his hand upon my hand.
"You tricked me. Hangman!," I shouted then,
"That your scaffold was built for other men...
And I no henchman of yours," I cried,
"You lied to me, Hangman. Foully lied!"
Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,
"Lied to you? Tricked you?" he said. "Not I.
For I answered straight and I told you true --
The scaffold was raised for none but you.
For who has served me more faithfully
Then you with your coward's hope?" said he,
"And where are the others who might have stood
Side by your side in the common good?"
"Dead," I whispered. And amiably
"Murdered," the Hangman corrected me:
"First the foreigner, then the Jew...
I did no more than you let me do."
Beneath the beam that blocked the sky
None had stood so alone as I.
The Hangman noosed me, and no voice there
Cried "Stop!" for me in the empty square.

Maurice Ogden

Monday 14 February 2011

Offence seeking for toddlers

Okay, Rastafarian mice seem a bit lame, though not as much as mice with cat hair stuck in them, but racist? Oh, please, people, try try try try to get a fucking grip.

... Rastamouse has provoked more than a hundred complaints to the corporation with parents expressing fears the show is racist and encouraging the use of slang.
...
One mother on the Mumsnet forum, using the name TinyD4ncer, says she is concerned her child be attacked for repeating some of the Jamaican Patois phrases used by the mouse.
"The thing I'm most worried about is her saying the words like 'Rasta' and going up to a child and saying (these) things ... my child is white and I feel if she was to say this to another child who was not white that it would be seen as her insulting the other child."

Okay, I know I had a pop at wiggaz in a footnote the other day but a toddler copying a cartoon Rastafarian rodent is hardly in the same league. And hey, TinyDuncer, don't you think that deciding for another ethnic group whether something is offensive to them instead of leaving it for them to decide is maybe a bit patronising? A bit racist even? No?

Actually it isn't because it's not about other ethnicities at all, is it? What did you say again?

... my child is white and I feel if she was to say this to another child who was not white that it would be seen as her insulting the other child.

This is just your middle class right-on white guilt, isn't it? It's not about kids upsetting each other but about how your own self image and how you want to be perceived among your peers, especially the white ones I expect, am I right?

Another parent, on Bumpandbaby.com, says: "just watched a couple videos .. i'm going to say it is racist,"...

Thank you, o discarder of capitals and wise suppository of wisdom on what is racist. We'll all come to you the next time we need a ruling on that, shall we? Arrogant cunt.

And how many of these tools are there? It's not going to be many, is it? It never usually is.

The BBC has received complaints from six viewers that the animated show stereotypes black people, while another 95 have complained about the language used in the show.

101. All this for 101 complaints. I'm tempted to make it 102 by writing in to complain that it stereotypes fucking rats and sign it Mister Squeaky.

Grow up, the fucking lot of you. If someone's offended you'll know and they'll get over it. They have no more right to live their entire life in blissful unoffendedness than you or I. And to prove it I'll tell you that I'm fucking offended that these witterings came from the mouths of people who are apparently the same species as me, and I find it deeply embarrassing. And offensive. Actually doubly offensive because I hate having to take the BBC's side. That's you all told, but don't feel obliged to do or say anything - I'll get over it.

See how it works? Good. Go practice.