The matter of El Hadji Diouf being accused of racially abusing an Everton ballboy was noted in this space a few days ago, and perhaps mindful of the difficulty in oppressing a cultural/economic majority, the Guardian’s Dara O’Brien writes, “bananas are pretty traceable. They tend to leave a trail of bananas. And there seem to have been precious few bananas lying round. But this doesn’t mean calling somebody “white boy” is a racist slur.”

For too long the fact that we’re roughly 90% of the population (2001 census) has disguised just how oppressed we whites really are. When he allegedly said “white boy”, well it just reminded me of all those other times people called me “white boy” just to put me down, just to make me, and the other 55 million white people in the UK, feel small.

No, of course not. If you’re white, you just don’t get a go at being the victim of racism. Did that ballboy go home and cry when he was called “white boy”? He didn’t. The phrase carries no power at all. What’s the insult? He might as well have said “Tall boy!”, or “You with the blue eyes!” for all the pain it was going to cause.

For people who complain that it’s unfair that white people can’t be slurred the way black people can, well, life’s just tough isn’t it?