The Attack, part one

[Tarheel]

Fourth paragraph. Say:

They would have applied for dozens of jobs, but the colour of their hair and skin and their foreign names would be an impediment.

 

[Tarheel]

Say:

I would feel their pain.


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[emsr2d2]

I appreciate what you say, but I cannot see how the word "immigrant" could be derogatory in this text. I hear that word at least dozens of times on the radio every day on a British radio station.. I cannot specify the country of a driver because I do not know where he did come from. I can for example write that he had dark hair and and swarthy skin. In the second part of my text, after the Nobel Prize Banquet is finished, a group of immigrant cleaners will clean all the rubbish. As probably 90% of cleaners in Sweden are immigrants, I do not know how to call them otherwise but immigrants. Here in Sweden, we who have moved from other countries are called immigrants. Even if you are born in Sweden by the immigrant parents, they call you the second generation of immigrants.

The word you hear every day, multiple times, in the British media is "migrant". It doesn't have quite the same connotation (although the political situation in the UK at the moment has made it a very emotive word).

You say you have no choice but to call them immigrants; my point is that sometimes it's better to refer to someone as a cleaner, not an immigrant cleaner.

 

[Bassim]

emsr2d2
I understand your point. But in my opinion, it is better to call someone a heavyset immigrant then a heavyset Arab or Somali. An Arab could be offended and tell me that they call Arabs lazy, so why have I used the word Arab when there are dozens of other nations? I can write for example, " A Roma woman was begging on the street. But if I write a Roma woman from Bulgaria was begging, someone could asked me why I used Bulgaria. The word immigrant in this text is used to delineate two groups of people who live beside each other, but they live in different words. I am talking about Sweden, which has only recently started to import immigrants on a large scale. The UK and some other countries had immigrants already in the 19th century, and immigrants were welcomed, and they relatively easily adapted to a new society, which is not the case with Sweden. Here I am trying to describe two societies who live parallel but do not meet in the ordinary way. It is more neutral to write "A group of immigrant cleaner went into the City Hall to get rid of rubbish," than to write,
"A group of Somalis, Ethiopians, Afghans, and Pakistanis..."
But if I wrote a short story or a novel about a specific individual, I would of course be specific about everything and I would write about his nationality and his other characteristics.