A little bit brown.

The other night in a taxi, I was trying to explain to a friend of mine who I was talking about.

You know, I said and used the woman’s name. That did not mean much, as there were at least three of those names in our village.

OK, the red-haired girl. No, she did not get it.

You know, the one with two little children... No, still no clue.

So, I resorted to the last explanation- The one with an Indian husband.

My friend giggled nervously and quickly glanced at the back of the (Indian looking) mini cab driver’s head.

She clearly was not sure I could say Indian husband. My question is: Why the hell not?

The husband is Indian. She knows it. I know it. He, hopefully, knows it, too. It is like saying my husband has an Azeri wife. Is that racist? No, because I am Azeri. Whether I would prefer to have been born French is a different story altogether.

I am just getting too fed up with this hyperbolized sensitivity and the political correctness in this world. Western world, I have to add as the rest of it is still incredibly rude.

You must have seen in the news about Mrs Obama’s champagne coloured gown. We must say champagne, because, guess what, we should not say nude. Because it is not quite her shade of nude. Oh, I say pleaaaaase. Give me a break!

This brings us to an interesting (to Azeries and our neighbours) dilemma.

My English niece thinks I am a little brown, as she once pointed out.

I don’t consider myself a little brown, unless very tanned. But I took no offence. So what? To her, I look browner than her.

In fact, I suspect a lot of people do not consider Azeries a white race.

I personally am confused. I never know, to be honest, which box to tick in various forms. They have Asian, they have Mixed race, they have African, Latin and Caucasian white...but there is just no box for Azeries. Because, Azeries are sort of in between. Not quite brown, not quite white, but a little bit brown.

But what, I guess, I am trying to say is so what? Mrs Obama is black. When Mr Obama was campaigning to become the president, I saw an ad that asked us not to make that issue an issue. So what, they said, it should not matter. But it does matter. Because, once he won, they said isn’t it great?! The first black president? So it did matter! What I am saying is pretending we are all the same is ignorant and stupid. Not mentioning something does not make it right, or more acceptable. It just makes it worse. If I were Indian around here, in a 99% white suburb...I would much rather my friends did not pretend they did not notice. Because that, my friends, would just piss me off.