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GlosREC News |
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Chief
Executive Officer GlosREC GL1 1HG Tel: 01452
301290 Fax: 01452
412876 Email: enquiries@glosrec.org.uk |
Gloucestershire
Man and Son Accused of Racist Name-Calling Charles Windsor ( 60 ) and his son Harry (24 ) who live at
Highgrove, near Tetbury
have both been criticised in the national press
because of two separate incidents when they called Asian friends by nick
names which some thought to be racist. Charles, an organic farmer who is a
major landowner in the South West is a polo enthusiast but can no longer play
because of injuries sustained playing the game . One of his friends in the
polo playing circuit is Kolin Dhillon,
also a major landowner in In a separate incident the ‘ News of the World’ made public home video footage taken by Charles’s son Harry Windsor, currently serving with the Blues and Royals, a fashionable cavalry regiment, in which Lieutenant Windsor is shown with a fellow officer, Ahmed Raza Khan, who is from Pakistan, while they were training to be officers at Sandhurst and whom he refers to as ‘ my little Paki friend’. Well, alright, maybe GlosREC will do anything to give a
national story a local slant , but Mr Dhillon and Lieutenant Raza Khan could well have come to their local race
equality council for advice about name-calling which either of them might
have found offensive. If they had, GlosREC might have advised them that if
they felt strongly about the matter, they could report what had happened as a
racist incident to the police and, if they had reported it, the police
would have been obliged to investigate both incidents. If the police had
formed the view that both incidents were sufficiently serious and Mr Dhillon and Lieutenant Raza Khan had been extremely offended or indeed
intimidated by the name-calling, Prince Charles and Prince Harry could have
ended up in the Of course neither man who was the object of the nick name calling says he felt offended. Mr Dhillon apparently ’ enjoys being called Sooty ‘ by his friends and thinks that Prince Charles is entirely devoid on any racist feelings while Lieut. Raza Khan, who pointed out that the video was filmed three years ago, said Prince Harry was his friend and was not a racist although he did point out that Paki was a nickname which was usually very insulting. What does GlosREC think of these incidents? Prince Charles’s mother is head of the Commonwealth and he will inherit the title. Both men have had an expensive education and should be, by virtue of the positions they hold and the advice they should be receiving, aware that nick names like ‘ Sooty’ and ‘ Paki’ which obviously refer to a person’s pigmentation should be avoided. Mr Dhillon was apparently first given the nickname Sooty thirty years ago when he first joined Cirencester Park Polo Club ( not a milieu where one would even today expect much political correctness) when people thought less about giving racist offence than they do now. Once he had been given the name, as the years went by, I suppose it became increasingly difficult to reject it. For all I know there may be people called ‘ Ginger’ or ‘ Snowball’ in the polo club. If I had been introduced to Mr Dhillon and told his name was Sooty, whatever Mr Dhillon thought about it, I think I would have asked if I might call him ‘ Kolin’ and I think that the Prince should now have the sensitivity to ask his friend if he to can call him ‘ Kolin’ too. I think that in the case of Price Harry, GlosREC can be
more critical. Everyone knows or ought to know that Asian people do not like
being called ‘ Paki’ – especially if they don’t come
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