It’s only a matter of coloured perceptions

With statues being toppled right, left and centre in the battle against racism, it was but a matter of time before the spotlight turned on other unexpected bastions of such discrimination. The apology last week by British retailers Marks & Spencer and Tesco — over a brown bra named Tobacco rather than a less-offensive fudge or toffee, and a children’s T-shirt whose dusky mermaid motif ’s hair was derogatorily depicted as ‘over-fluffy’, respectively — was only to be expected, in this context. There is no defence against perception, after all. And the two incidents certainly show how assessing the racist potential of nouns and adjectives before use is clearly difficult.

Proper nouns — names — are easier to identify on that count though, so there is nothing surprising about the incipient move to rid names of species of the taint of racism too.

Crusaders have even been trawling through directories to compile a list of ‘Problematic Common Names’ from gypsy moths and Jew’s ear fungus to slave-maker ants and Hottentot teals. A flower called Oriental lady’s thumb, however, has an existing alternative name that could be an easy and possibly acceptable switch: Asiatic smartweed. Given that Hitler’s eyeless beetle and biting Bobbit worms are also in contention for a name change, what is the future of the moth named Neopalpa donaldtrumpi?