WHAT!!!

Sometimes, you just have to shake your head as there are ^NO WORDS!!

It is {sad]

This could happen when you have an "ology" you could loose all your common sense, what an absolutely stupid comment.

GLAM, well that leaves me okay then , as ^ I ^ haven't got any" ology"
LOL.

I've got an 'ology' but I wouldn't dream of coming out with rubbish like that! Plonker!

Someone is claiming it's not quite the context we're being led to believe - as a GQT listener, I wouldn't for a moment think that chats about non-native plants had racist connotations. Here's an article about it:

www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/11012398/Is-Gardeners-Question-Time-racist.html

Why do they give these people air time- there is always some impractical academic pontificating from their ivory tower.

This is the author of that distinguished academic tome:

The Cultural Politics of Being a Knob.

Well, he should know.

You cannot be serious!!!!

Perfectly serious.

Good Grief and Hell's Bells.

Oh, for heavens sake, why doesn't he get a life and go and dig over his spuds! There is always 'someone' who has to wave an irrelevant racist card

It beggars belief. I thought at first that this must be a first year student (as they can often be a bit radical at the beginning of study) but then read:

Dr Ben Pitcher, a senior lecturer in sociology at the University of Westminster

and I am shocked.

Then to read:

Speaking on the same programme, Lola Young, a crossbench peer and former professor of cultural studies, backed Dr Pitcher’s analysis.

She added: “I remember back in the late 80s-early 90s when rhododendrons were seen as this huge problem, and people were talking about going out rhododendron-bashing.

She compared it to a time when P* bashing was something that was all too prevalent on our streets.

surprised me even more - it just shows that position in society is no guarantee of intelligence. So when local authorities take action against Dutch Elm Disease, are they being racist towards the Dutch, when trying to eradicate Japanese Knotweed, are we secretly saying we hate the Japaense

“Gardeners understand the fluidity of species over space and time.

It would seem they also understand word meaning: non-native: (of a person, plant, or animal) not indigenous or native to a particular place.

As I have said before, people who come out with comments such as Dr Pitcher and Lola Young have in this instance - it says more about their perception of non-British people than it does about anyone else if they can see racism in such things as this.

Doctors and the media best not mention things like Spanish flu anymore as well or who knows where it will all lead.

One person has said this. Clearly after publicity. I cba to rise to the bait - he must be loving it! And the media will be relishing the inevitable rubbishing of the social sciences and the serious topic of racism. This man is a self serving attention seeker who should be ignored

He is not even a gardener - they fully appreciate the difference betwen native and non-native species. The native ones have evolved to suit the climate, soil conditions etc over so many eons that that they do very well in their situation. so well that they are generally regarded as weeds and exterminated in favour of exotic imports.

Plonker!

Plonker says it all, really. The term racist is losing its meaning because it is used so often so indiscriminately. Maybe that's a good thing in the end.

I obviously behaved in a racist way towards a non-native tree yesterday – got it chopped down. I'm going to split some of its logs today, racist tree-torturer that I am.

Bloody immigrant trees falling down on top of our cars without a by your leave.

I'm a non-native of lots of places I go and am happy to be called so.

Bloody rhododendron pontica introduced by plant explorers and taking so well to the new territory that it covers whole country estates in scraggy-branched mauve shrubbery, with nothing whatsoever growing beneath or around it.

Where does GM fit in this?

Oh dear! Political correctness gone mad! I think this sort of thing minimises the nastiness of true racism!

Saw this in th DM (DH buys it ) I had to read it twice. I couldn't believe it first time. What utter piffle !! That's the polite version.

I happily posted several times on a wedding planner forum recently - commenting on a thread about hiring extras for the wedding of my at-that stage-soon-to-be-wed daughter, till she phoned and pointed out to me that I was the only one who mentioned that we were hiring a "blackboard" (to write the day's programme on) when everyone else was writing about hiring a "chalkboard" . (She wasn't being critical, just thought I should be made aware!)

Where you suitably humbled ?

If the colour of the board is black, I see no problem in calling it a blackboard. No-one objects to blackbirds and black-eyed peas, do they?