[WillowTheWhisp]

I was under the impression that racism was so not permitted on this site that once when someone used a perceived racist word, not with any racist intent but merely as a way of identifying a group of school children who were being criticised by the media because they had been permitted to converse in their native language in order to clarify a point as some were less fluent in English than others, that person was severely reprimanded despite the fact that he had been defending the children's right to understand the lesson.

If you find anything which someone else says on here to be offensive or objectionable then you should report it to the moderators. If you find the moderator to be breaking site rules as you say then you should draw that to their attention.

I have seen instances when some members come out with the old chestnut that immigrants (whatever the current flavour of the month the nationality may be) just come here to this country and get benefits and houses etc which those born here (of whatever creed or colour) are unable to get - and I've seen others point out what absolute nonsense they are talking.

Yesterday someone used the term 'negro' without meaning to be offensive. That was once an accepted term which people didn't use as an insult but it is now classed as racist. You have used the word 'black'. Others regard that as racist and prefer the term 'people of colour' and yet the phrase 'coloured person' is also deemed to be offensive. Well I'm a coloured person. I'm pale pink. Pink is a colour. I have yet to see a black or white person. I've seen some very dark brown people and some very pale beige/pink people but if you analyse skin tones as an artist even white people are a shade of brown.

I find it ironic that people I know with brown skins use a cream to lighten them and people I know with pale kins use a fake tan to darken them. Similarly my daughter who has naturally curly hair straightens hers and the other one who has straight hair uses curling tongues. Maybe none of us are ever happy with who we are and what we are. I'd love to have thicker hair and not to look like a cross between a boiled lobster and an overripe tomato in the summer but I just have to live with the fact that I take after my dad not my Mum.

People do tend to be suspicious of in-comers. Sometimes even to the extent of excluding people from the next village. When my Dad married my Mum he was regarded as an outsider for years because he wasn't born in the village. Busman gets stick for being a southerner and a friend of mine from Yorkshire is forever on the receiving end of 'racist' comments.

I'm pleased to hear that your wife has never been subject to racist abuse here in Accrington. Perhaps then it isn't as bad here as you first made me fear.