So I have spent some time wor­king with the latest trackinfo_mod beta panel that is avai­la­ble for the latest ver­sion of foobar2000 (0.9.3.1). It has the great abi­lity to sup­port PNGs which can be abso­lu­tely posi­tio­ned. I deci­ded to opt for a clear and non-invasive design that can be read at a dis­tance (I hate having to get up from bed to see what song is pla­ying). So I made the artist and title large, the album name a little big­ger and then of course a huge album art cover. Of course this makes brow­sing for songs to play a little dif­fi­cult so under the browse tab at the bot­tom there is an auto-hide columns UI play­list and album list panel, as shown in the handy (yet minia­tu­ri­sed for this blog) GIF. To see a full ver­sion of my setup click this link: Screenshot

Last Wed­nes­day a fiery and pas­sio­nate race row took place on BBC Radio 4’s Mid­week radio broad­cast pre­sen­ted by Libby Pur­ves. Joan Rivers became furiously enra­ged when Dar­cus Howe announ­ced that the term “black” offen­ded her; Rivers let loose, fren­ziedly exc­lai­ming, “How dare you call me a racist! How dare you!”

In less dra­ma­tic cir­cums­tan­ces, my hou­se­mate explai­ned to us in a car jour­ney this mor­ning that she found a par­ti­cu­lar lec­ture pro­ble­ma­tic. Not because the con­tent was unin­te­res­ting but because she found it dif­fi­cult to unders­tand the deeply-accented words of her world-renowned Spa­nish lec­tu­rer. As she elu­ci­da­ted her rea­so­ning she pro­fu­sely and repea­tedly said, “I don’t want to sound racist but?” My level-headed friend was afraid to express her fee­lings and thoughts about com­mu­ni­ca­tion dif­fi­cul­ties in lec­ture thea­tres for fear of being bran­ded a racist.

We live in a world where we are inc­rea­singly told that racism is evil, and that we should con­ti­nue to fight the cau­ses of and stamp out racism within our society. Each of us is han­ded a civil res­pon­si­bi­lity to pre­vent racially-motivated oppres­sion at all costs. Yet as this res­pon­si­bi­lity is inc­rea­singly for­ced upon us, we are fin­ding it ever more dif­fi­cult to speak our minds. We keep our thoughts to our­sel­ves, for hea­ven for­bid we should say something poli­ti­cally inco­rrect. Desc­ri­bing someone as ‘black’ has become a poli­ti­cal mine­field. When poin­ting out a friend to another we pause to con­si­der our desc­rip­tion; should he be iden­ti­fied as Black, Afri­can, African-Caribbean, African-American? Who are we to make assump­tions about his origins?

This kind of anxiety is all too com­mon in our politically-paranoid society, and is often counter-productive. How can we ever escape racism if we fear the reper­cus­sions of calling a black per­son black?

The situa­tion is not hel­ped by over­bea­ring black anti-racism esta­blish­ments, which report every poten­tially racial mis­de­mea­nour and spe­cia­lise in exactly the kind of anta­go­nism that fuels such inse­cu­ri­ties. Publi­ca­tions such as weekly news­pa­per The Voice, billed as ‘Britain’s Best Black News­pa­per’ pro­vide an out­let for black com­mu­ni­ties to express their con­cerns. Yet in a world of glo­ba­li­sa­tion where cul­tu­res have become intert­wi­ned, and a society which con­ti­nually stri­ves to pre­vent its own segre­ga­tion, the con­cept of publi­ca­tions aimed at a sin­gu­lar race appear enti­rely hypoc­ri­ti­cal, and fun­da­men­tally at odds with such social aspi­ra­tions. Com­mu­ni­ties facing racial oppres­sion should have a public out­let to voice their con­cerns, yet is a news­pa­per, read solely by a black ‘par­ti­tion’, the best medium for this? Ima­gine the outrage if a ser­vice or publi­ca­tion were aimed exc­lu­si­vely at white peo­ple. “White News” would be a natio­nal scan­dal, assu­redly denoun­ced by the govern­ment as racial slur.

It is my belief that dif­fe­rent cul­tu­ral back­grounds pro­vide for mul­ti­va­riate skills and talents. Afri­cans are dif­fe­rent to Indians in the same way that East Asians are dif­fe­rent to Wes­tern Euro­peans. It is enti­rely pos­si­ble that these races of peo­ple have dis­pro­por­tio­nate abi­li­ties in an assort­ment of acti­vi­ties. To ignore such fun­da­men­tal dif­fe­ren­ces bet­ween peo­ple is sheer igno­rance, for we are each indi­vi­duals and we are all very dif­fe­rent. To use these dif­fe­ren­ces against each other is real racism. Con­trary to the com­mon mis­con­cep­tion; the prac­tice of racism lies not in ack­now­led­ging these dif­fe­ren­ces, but in using them in a demea­ning and inhu­mane man­ner. To announce that some­body is black is not insul­ting and it is not racist. Simi­larly, fin­ding an accen­ted Spaniard’s English dif­fi­cult to inter­pret is also understandable.

Should you now dis­co­ver that the author of this piece is indeed black, con­si­der how it would effect your opi­nion of it. It is the white fear of and the black obses­sion with the recog­ni­tion of dif­fe­rence that will fore­ver allow racism to haunt us, even when those who are truly racist are long gone. As Joan Rivers argued, “It is not about black or white, it is about people.”

Today I found myself in the most obs­cure of situa­tions. I was wal­king down the local high street, peru­sing in the shop win­dows – admi­ring the steel kitchen free­zers and the 2 for 1 offers at Ice­land. I wal­ked onwards past groups of chil­dren coming home from school, stu­dents back from uni­ver­sity and old ladies with their karts rushing as quickly as they could carry them­sel­ves. All were wrap­ped warm in their scar­ves and coats, for at the moment it is Novem­ber and bit­terly cold.

I found myself ever for­tu­nate, being pre­sent in a futu­ris­tic and tech­no­lo­gi­cally advan­ced envi­ron­ment. My mind wan­de­red onto strange thoughts as I saw the latest gad­gets boun­cing around the hall­ways of the gad­get shop. I thought of flying cars and five sto­rey buses that could swim under­wa­ter. Life was grand and I was genui­nely happy to be there. In follo­wing the daily tra­di­tion of wal­king down the high street towards the bus stop, my mind wan­ders to all sorts of realms I never knew exis­ted. It was today, in a futu­ris­tic day­dream that I didn’t look where I was going and fell down an unco­ve­red manhole.

I fell and I fell, twis­ting and twir­ling down a hel­ter skel­ter slide. I tum­bled all over the place and kept falling. As I fell I had time to won­der why I was falling. I thought about how far I was going, where I was going and I had a sneaky sus­pi­cion that I was not going down the usual hole into the sewers. This slide was pain­ted with murals, art­ful mas­ter­pie­ces along­side school children’s dood­les. Music pla­yed, a ran­dom play­list it seems, country blues spli­ced with tele­vi­sion theme tunes. It was most eclec­tic and I knew that at the end of my fall I would be safe.

I lan­ded with a soft bounce. It seems I was tra­ve­ling at a slow speed, akin to a moving sloth. It is here that I found my pecu­liar situa­tion. I was in a sandy town surroun­ded by short small flat top hou­ses with open win­dows and door­ways. Peo­ple were wea­ring strange robes and head bands. I felt quite silly in my scarf and Welling­ton boots. As I wan­de­red onwards, trying not to bring myself too much atten­tion, I noti­ced a crowd had gathe­red around a tall hill with three trees atop of it. It was a while away but I gallo­ped across and made the ground in good speed. My heart was all aflut­ter, I hadn’t ran that fast or far for a very long while.

The large crowds were all angry, tan­ned men were jee­ring and grin­ning evilly towards the three trees on the hill. I, like a wai­ling police car, pas­sed easily through the crowd, peo­ple kindly moving aside and let­ting me pass. I wan­ted to see what was wrong with these three trees, so I follo­wed the windy road up to the top of the hill. I took this trip slowly and made sure I was com­po­sed and ready to duel with wha­te­ver evil lay ahead. My mind con­ju­red three hea­ded dra­gons, two hea­ded sna­kes and an odd bald man who liked plaid shoes. At the very top I found a small gathe­ring of impor­tant loo­king peo­ple, they wore what loo­ked like an ancient ver­sion of black tie dress. I poli­tely intro­du­ced myself to them all, yet none of them spoke back. Some were crying and I fea­red the dra­gon or snake or bald man had already des­tro­yed the world. An old man poin­ted towards the middle tree.

Squin­ting without my glas­ses, I made out a poor star­ved man han­ging on the tree. He loo­ked ever so hel­pless and no one was let­ting him down. I felt very sorry for him and I deci­ded I would speak to him to find out why he was han­ging on the dead tree. I was stop­ped sud­denly though, there were vibra­tions in my poc­ket and the air ran thick with the jaunty tune of a polypho­nic pop­corn tone. I reached into my side and with­drew my mobile; I had a new text message:

“HELP! I think my work is corrupt, should I save it as an untit­led docu­ment or leave it. My com­pu­ter is dying and I don’t know what to do.”

I replied telling her to use my com­pu­ter and to start again. Behind me, the gathe­rings had fallen to their knees and were proc­lai­ming me as a great prophet, musi­cian and angel from God. I gave a sti­fled smile and bac­ked away into the poor man in the tree, knoc­king off his hand made leafy crown. I apo­lo­gi­zed and he said no worries. The crowds were now chan­ting like a hoo­li­gan would at a soc­cer match, they wept and cried and asked what God wan­ted them to do. They asked if I was going to save their king. I thought to myself, “maybe I should have told her to save it”.