Is 'Anglo-Saxon' being used as a term of racist abuse?

I ask this in the context of Shroeder and Chirac using the term to describe the worst excesses of the evils of free trade and the capitalist system - as practiced by the UK, USA, Australia, etc.

The influxes of Celts, Vikings, Romans, Normans, Jews, Asians, Africans, West Indians, Europeans, etc., etc. over the last few thousand years hardly qualify our citizens as Anglo-Saxons, so I ask...

Is 'Anglo-Saxon' being used as a term of racist abuse?

 

Steve,

My initial reaction would be no; however, it would be instructive to see the context of these remarks.

Regards,

Stuart.

 

... don't get me going about those Normans! Bunch of incomers, win one battle and they behaved as though the owned the place - celebrate Domesday Book, just a stealth tax form if you ask me. And as for that Robert du Bru, and that Poll Tax ...

... excuse my French but ****

 

You'd think that after nearly a thousand years they would know when they're not wanted!

And to think I let them use my best China.

Harumph

 

Pretty sure the French were happy to see the "Anglo saxons" and their allies around 50 years ago, bloody whinging french, how quick they forget.

 

That's Krauts and Frogs for you, eh?

 

Possibly, but because of our natural superiority we Anglo-Saxons can rise above it. Stiff upper lip and all that.

 

Don't know about Anglo-Saxons, but terms such as Krouts and Frogs are offensive, so please show due respect to our German/French etc. members by either not using these terms or offending all races equally!

Many Thanks.

 

So is the term 'Krautrock' verboten?

 

I wonder if Chirac etc might be correct- given that we "Anglo-Saxons" (english speakers might be a more accurate term) tend to have in the developed world the least amount of holidays, the highest number of working hours, the highest incidence of work-related stress, illness and depression, and all the associated social problems that go along with it.

 

I actually heard a German who emailed me say he was a krout himself!!

I called myself a pom to an aussie.

That also means that if you are to 'censor' calling people after local food dishes, then scousers must be offensive, too, indeed without getting too much into this, labelling of any kind, even describing...that bald man, that fat person, its all the same thing.

Did you know some white middle class folks in leicester are banning gideons from putting bibles in as they THINK its offensive to other religions, whereas local Muslim leaders say its not?? And some crematorium is being made to take down a cross for the same reasons.
I find taking Christian things away offensive, yet they don't care about my sensibilities

 

I was once at a Sandoz do in Basel with my all-American girl secretary, when up came the Big Boss's wife (a Swiss lady) Somewhere in the conversation, she said words to the effect, "you are both Anglo-Saxons". "No," I said. The poor woman looked most perplexed. I explained that I was Irish, and therefore Celtic, and that my secretary was the product of a Hungarian father and a Polish mother, and that neither of us had anything to do with the Sassenachs. Like many continentals, she just labelled anyone English-speaking and having a US/(white) British Commonwealth background as "Anglo-Saxon".

 

Much like most white people would label someone with brown skin as 'Asian' and someone with black skin as 'African'. My daughter has a friend who was born in Peru, but is often described as 'Asian' because of her skin colour.

Being of mixed Scottish/English/Irish ancestry I don't suppose I'm really Anglo-Saxon, but having fair hair and blue eyes it's as good a description as any.

 

I always though "Anglo-Saxon" was a euphemism for "fruity" language!

The way Chirac used the term was, I felt, descriptive of a particular economic view - with Gallic being the "opposite". I think I have slightly more sympathy with the Gallic model.. Anyone who's been treated in a French hospital, or travelled on a French railway would probably agree!

As for being Anglo-Saxon, I'm not - being of German-Polish/Scottish descent..

 

I find this indignatory PC on behalf of someone else very annoying. If someone told me I couldn't call myself a blind cripple because it's offensive, I'd tell them to f*** off. If you can't laugh at yourself, who can you laugh at?

BTW - I agree re the comment on whinging French. Let's face it - they didn't raise a finger when the Germans invaded. I'm amazed the French Resistance movement ever happened.

 

I work a lot with the French. They use Anglo Saxon more to refer to a culture and approach to life than strictly to a race - it's basically 'the American and British way'. In the business world, typical A-S attributes in their view are ruthlessness, aggressive/dictatorial rather than consensual management style, over-planning, hasty decision making etc. We would in turn see them as chaotic, unstructured with no transparency around decision making.

They are paranoid about having their culture swamped into an Anglo-Saxon (really American) global mono-culture. Fair play in some respects, though institutions like the Academie Francaise, which tries to stop people using English words by litigating against them are distinctly Canute-like.

'Cheese eating surrender monkeys'? Debate...

 

I'd have thought the 'British way' was fairly chaotic and unstructured too, in a 'brilliant amateur' sort of style. Muddling through, bodging things up, old maids cycling to Evensong, small boys using pullovers as goalposts. It's rather depressing to be thought of as simply cut-price Americans.

PS I recall a line from an old US sitcom 'The only good thing about the English is that they hate the French even more than we do'.

 

Why are French roads lined with trees?

So that German soldiers can march in the shade.

 

those trees kill a few thousand motorists a year.

 

Would people please stick to reasonable contribution to debate...