Turquoiseism

Words per sese mean absolutely nothing. They are merely groups of aural or written alphabetical symbols arranged together in such a way as to indicate a sound or a combination of sounds which those of us who speak or read a common language tend to invest with more or less the same meaning. I think ‘discrimination’, a word many of us bandy around in a fairly indiscriminate fashion, is a rather difficult and possibly a rather dangerous word, whether written or spoken.

According to the Concise Oxford Dictionary the verb to discriminate in its first meaning is merely ‘to make or see a distinction’, a perfectly neutral action influenced rather often by innocent fancy. I like the colour red, I don’t very much fancy the colour turquoise, so I choose to buy a red jumper and I choose not to buy a turquoise jumper. Unfortunately some tiresome person then comes along and say: “Look at her, she always wears red and always ignores turquoise. She’s discriminating against turquoise. She’s a Turquoiseist!”

Next the politically correct brigade will arrive, write letters of outrage to the Guardian, boycott my tea-parties, hold silent vigils of protest outside my house, found MAT ( Movement Against Tuquoiseism) and generally attempt to ‘persuade’ me into renouncing my antisocial and immoral actions. The MAT might try to justify its campaign by citing the Concise Oxford’s second definition of to discriminate - ‘to make a distinction, esp. unjustly and on the basis of race, colour or sex.’ Its members would, I believe, in this be wholly wrong because they would have omitted from their reasoning the most crucial factor in this equation: my motive for discriminating between red and turquoise jumpers.

None of them ever asked me why I ignored turquoise jumpers. Did it never strike them that I might just, perhaps, simply have noticed that wearing turquoise makes me look like a swept up, faded, wrinkly old leaf which didn’t quite make it to the municipal bonfire? Or has aesthetic discrimination just become a piece of ‘unjust’ discrimination, non-PC? At least in red I still look like an almost vibrant, only slightly wrinkly old plum not yet quite ready for the municipal bonfire. Or maybe I have deeply held spiritual objections to displaying myself in turquoise - for that is the colour of the mystical and malevolent Greater Three-Horned Toad. Perhaps I am severely allergic to one of the constituents of turquoise dyes. One shred of the offending fabric wrapped around my person, and my skin erupts into a dreadfully uncomfortable and hideous purple rash. Are spiritual convictions and medical problems all now to be condemned as non-PC and to be expunged from a properly ordered society?

Ridiculous isn’t it! Like a story board for some warped fairy tale, quite silly really. But not only might this sort of nonsense conceivably happen, something very like it probably will happen. Indeed, maybe it is happening now, only all the sensible people like you and me just haven’t noticed yet.

Naomi