jourdain2...Interesting story ! But I would maintain that if white people hadn't been using the P word as a term of abuse in the first place, it would not have been appropriated by these boys afterwards. The same goes for American black youths using the N word.
What saddens me is that there are still plenty of white people in Britain that feely use the word, without understanding the hurt it causes to non-whites.
I'm afraid I must include members of my own family in that.
I have mentioned this recently on AB but my Hindu friends, some very gentle and hospitable people, who invited me the their sons wedding, are now being spat at in the streets and called the P word. They have lived in Britain since being ejected from Kenya when they were children and they tell me this kind of racial abuse is on the increase these days.
When I was younger I was sometimes referred to as a "Mick" despite being born in London, just because my dad was Irish. It would seem that ignorance is a difficult thing to eradicate but we must still go on trying. At least you no longer see those signs on boarding houses that proclaimed
"No Blacks, No Dogs and No Irish"