cabby john wrote:
Is it actually racist?
The guy is "black", which in itself is descriptive.
Whatever he called him is not necessarily (in my eyes) racist.............. however the rest may be libel.
E.g Some might call me a white tw4t - I am white and I would disagree about the tw4t bit - having said that there are some who would say it was all the truth

I've always seen it that way as well John, seems you can rip it out of an Irishman, Pole or many others without no recourse, but mention that shade or certain shortened versions of country and hell freezes over, I actually believe if the fuss stopped so would the calling as well, it comes down to the old provoke to get reaction in my eyes, I find in the few instances of hassle I've had with this type of person actually not using the offensive words seems to phase them completely and puts a pin in their balloon as they are expecting to get called something they can then use against you and when it doesn't arrive they don't know what to do.
Why didn't he call me a BB?
Why didn't he call me an f'in community gardener?
What am I going to go to the police with now?