Race agenda

We're talking about race tonight following the Shilpa Big Brother debate. It's something people love to talk about and this particular debate has received so much attention and, in my opinion, displayed the nastiest sides to Britain - I'm not talking about Jade, Jo and whoever, but how irrational people become when talking about race. Stupid people like the three white witches in BB are callous, narrow-minded, insensitive and, yes, racist. But the people with the view that only white people can be racist, or refuse to consider context really get on my wick.

It's also been blown completely out of proportion so this is the last I'll mention on it. I would like to tell a little of my own experience. I'm pretty hardy, you can call me a c**t and I probably wouldn't take it to heart. However, 'racist' is one of those insults that really hurts.

I was sitting in the pub joking around with my band and the boyfriend. As they normally do, lead singer was involved in banter with boyfriend about Africa. Her father is Nigerian, boyfriend is from Tanzania. She's black, he's white. They often have mock-arguments about west vs east Africa and were really getting into it. "West Africans are fat", he said. "East Africans are boring" she said. He said West Africans were corrupt, she asked what was so good about East Africans. I said 'they're such good runners'. "You're a racist", she said. I couldn't believe it. It didn't sting so badly because of the insult but that here was one of my very best friends and she obviously didn't know me at all.

Boyfriend wasn't called racist even though he often does comedy African accents, guitarist wasn't even though he and her often joke about black stereotypes but I was. I would have never had said anything remotely racial, let alone racist, before I met my lead singer. Guitarist like to joke about the 'dirty black pussy'. Lead singer jokes all the time about what white people do, their food, makes fun of Chinese people and mocks the Asian accent. There is a general banter in our band about race but I was slapped with the insult that can't be returned.

There's not much you can say when someone calls you racist. I was about to stress 'how many black friends I have' then thought how stupid that would sound. In fact, isn't that just typical white patronising behaviour? I was struck speechless by a mixture of indignation and white guilt.

In an empirical society so often context is lost. You are either racist or not racist - there's no 'joking' or 'banter'. Just two friends falling out about nothing.