Picture Source: farm6 – flickr
Folk dances that involve ‘blacking-up’ are an English tradition and should not be regarded as racist, a Labour candidate for Parliament has insisted.
Will Straw, (son of a famous Labour figure) is the candidate in the marginal seat of Rossendale and Darwen, where he is already popular with local voters. young Will is looking a safe bet too keep the Straw familiy in Parilament when his Dad steps down as MP for Blackburn in 2015. In fact the biggest threat to Will is not from the Conservative, Lib Dem and UKIP candidates who will oppose him but from people trendy left wing elitist twats who have never been outside the M25 or north of Watford but are absolutely certain they know far more about the Lancashire Constituency than:
a) People who have lived in it all their lives
b) Veteran Labour MPs who served a neighbouring constituency for 30 years
c) Indian, Pakistani, Bangla Deshi and Caribbean migrants who have made their homes in the area.
Like many areas of England, Scotland and Wales, Lancashire has its own quaint, silly traditions which have gone on for years without bothering anybody. One of these, the Bacup Coconut Dance takes place in the Rossendale and Darwen Constituency and Will Straw thinks it is all good fun. He was criticised this weekend for saying so, after posting an image of himself on Twitter with the Britannia Coconut Dancers of Bacup, a 150-year-old troupe of Lancastrian clog dancers who perform every Easter.
Smug left wing twats who have elected themselves as politicaly correct guardians left wing morality are up in arms, they claim it is offensive and racist for rural English dancers to blacken their faces and that such celebrations show ignorance of history. Well fine, if you are one of those ignorant left wing morons who believes the bollocks written about the slave trade. There was never any slave trade in the Lancashire Mill Towns. Liverpool and before it Lancaster have been branded “slave ports” but that again is an idiotic misrepresentation by leftie activists expressing their hatred of their own race and culture.
Slaves went direct from Africa to the market places of the Americas, cotton, tobacco and other stuff came back to ports like Liverpool, Cardiff and Bristol and from there cargoes of … Tyne coal,
Road-rails, pig-lead, Firewood, iron-ware, and cheap tin trays (h/t Cargoes by John Masefield)went to the traders in Africa, although I suspect axes, knives and guns were more popular that Tyne coal, road rails and pig lead.
While critics claim the Coconutters dance is offensive, because blacking up has often been used by white performers to parody black people and culture, members of the Black and Asian communities (apart from a few troublemakers) are totally relaxed about it, just as they are about the nativity tableaux displayed in town centres every Christmas, which always prompt wailing and gnashing of teeth from lefties determined to be offended on behalf of somebody.
The problem of the left of course is so many of them are emotional cripples who need to be seen to “care” and thus end up offending the people they claim to care about.
The Original Boggart Blog 
