For those not in the U.S. who don't know who he is, Tavis Smiley is one of the very best interviewers working today. His name sounds silly, but he is anything but frivolous: he's an author, activist, public speaker -- amazing guy. He's not terribly well known because he focuses on issues like racism, diversity, and under-representation. The reason he's one of the best interviewers working today is that he has an uncanny ability to get people talking. He interviewed Prince. Who does PRINCE ever talk to?! Nobody, that's who. Except Tavis. Ok, so somebody said, "Hey, here's a great idea! Let's get Tavis Smiley -- the man who gets people TALKING, right? And let's put him in a room with BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH! Because what could go wrong there?" ::facepalm:: And here's the other thing. My fellow Americans, did you know that in the UK there's a long history of people who travel from place to place, sometimes in covered wagons? True: http://www.bbc.co.uk/kent/voices/history_intro.shtml In the US, most of us would probably call such a group Gypsies. But the term "Gypsy" actually refers to several ethnic European groups including the Roma, the Jevgjit in Albania, the Rudari in Hungary and the Sinti in Germany. Most of the "Gypsies" in the UK actually belong to a completely different minority group originally from Ireland. The politically correct name for these people is Travelers; derogatory names are "tinker," "knacker," and "piker". (I'm not sure if I have all that terminology right -- feel free to correct any errors.) I didn't know any of that until I spent some time in England and became friends with a guy who DELIGHTED in pointing out my inadvertent missteps. My point is that the terms we use to refer to people take their meaning from context. It is everyone's responsibility to find out any group's preferred name, true. But it's really not such a shocker that someone should use terminology that is non-loaded in his country but turns out to be derogatory in ours. Especially something like "colored people," instead of the more acceptable but linguistically similar term "people of color". And it's Benny. How would we recognize him if he didn't stick his foot in it at least once? I ask you.
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