Seems there’s a lot of those Chinaman’s beaches around. And they always seemed to find good beaches too 🙂

It’s tricky because we tend to generalise. One black woman may be offended another may not. I know an older black woman who thinks all the cancel culture stuff is rubbish and people should suck it up. Doesn’t mean she’s right. Doesn’t mean she’s wrong.

Personally, I’m not particularly bothered about the pub name. I don’t have much skin in the game as a white middle class man who isn’t from Linlithgow.
Though I do think changing it is preferable to leaving it as it is. The Grey Hound would be nice. Everyone likes greyhounds and the pictures and statues of the Black Bitch dog all look like greyhounds.

I will admit, I’m not hugely keen on living here. It reminds me of growing up in rural Fife – a dull monoculture. Noone has taken a shit on my doorstep yet though.

What I do think is ridiculous is:
a) The strident proclamations about this being heritage/culture/tradition and therefore is not racist by people from a town that is essentially 100% white.
b) The lack of anyone involved even showing any semblance of awareness that they might not be the best arbitrators of what is racist, never having been subjected to racism themselves.
c) The possibility that calling folk Black Bitches and having a pub called The Black Bitch might lead to the lack of racial diversity in town.
D) (my main point in posting) How hugely tone deaf for the modern world the local magazine cover is:

As a slight aside, it would be very easy to crop/edit/manipulate that picture for it to look very bad.
I also think, if that image was cropped, a picture like that could follow that wee lassie around as she gets older, long after any context has gone/been deliberately removed.

Noone has taken a shit on my doorstep yet though.

A high bar indeed!

I suspect that the people pictured above know it’s racist/offensive/controversial, but delight in the fact that they have (in their eyes) licence to use the term to refer to themselves/others.

Flip your question around though. Its only a name, lots of people have got good reason to not like it, why on earth wouldn’t you do the simple thing and change the name?

I am neither black nor a bitch and I really don’t like that pub name. Furthermore, if its patrons are those people getting frothy about defending its name then I wouldn’t want to drink there either.

This. The history of the name is irrelevant, most passers-by will find it offensive. Just sounds like a bunch of dumbasses sniggering to themselves that they get to say naughty words because of some bogus local legend. They think they’re being really clever when pretty much everyone else just sees ignorant arseholes.

I suspect that the people pictured above know it’s racist/offensive/controversial, but delight in the fact that they have (in their eyes) licence to use the term to refer to themselves/others.

This. It’s a whole village of edgelords.

This. It’s a whole village of edgelords.

That right there and the post you quote are prime examples of bigotry. You presume to know, and judge in the process, something about a whole group of people based on nothing more than conjecture.

That right there and the post you quote are prime examples of bigotry.

😂

Won’t someone think of the discriminated against black bitches of Linlithgow?

I wish my life was so easy that the name of my local pub was something I could find the energy to care about.

Why are people getting upset that the owners of a pub want to change its name? Snowflakes.

OK, so to provide a little context. The people of Linlithgow are very proud to have an association with the story of the Black Bitch loyally feeding its master. The Black Bitch appears on the town coat of arms, its in the school logo, and in the last decade a sculpture of the dug was erected on the town’s high street and as the OP posted the “town magazine” (a 21st century innovation) bears the name. The locals proudly label themselves black bitches, with vocal discussion about the qualifying criteria. Neighbouring towns will also use the terminology – and despite local town rivalry the term Black Bitch is never said with hatred towards the people of Linlithgow (as the OP note not many of them are people of colour – although I suspect its probably no worse than other central Scotland small towns). Now it is certainly unfortunate that other people have appropriated the same two words as racist and misogynistic language.

It is of course Greene King’s pub and they can rename it however they wish. The pub has not been called the Black Bitch all its life (although it was when Greene King bought it and had been for a long time before that). There are lots of people upset about the planned name change and when you have lots of people upset invariably there are people upset for different reasons – certainly most of the signatures on the petition (of course there’s a petition – you don’t have a proper cause in 2022 unless you have a pointless petition!) are not regular customers in that pub.

I think the bulk of the objection is not actually about the pub name change – its the implied issue with the label that the towns folk proudly associate with. A pub chain from out of town decided to change the name of a pub they thought was perceived as racist either without being aware of its origins or considering how their dismissal of that heritage might be perceived. But of course, the campaign has the usual headbangers on it and I’m sure will have the right-wing culture wars people joining in too.

As for the name of the pub why not just call it Loyal Black Dog?

I’m not sure if this avoids the issue

The proposed name is “The Black Hound”, now on the face of it the Loyal Black Dog is better – although I wouldn’t call any pub in central Scotland “loyal” anything or you have a whole other divide! However, if I was at Greene King I’d look for another local historical story to use to rename my pub, and it just so happens that directly across the road from the pub is a tree that has another legend attached to it.

Greene King claimed to have consulted on the new name – but seemingly with nobody in the town. Of course pub chains are not democracies and have no obligation to keep anyone happy or consult anyone.

Why shouldn’t it? If you’ve grown up being called a black bitch and spat at etc, don’t you think it might be a little unsettling to see it on a building every time you walk past? Even if it’s not aimed at you? I can appreciate that it might.

I can’t put myself directly in those shoes – but there’s a certain irony that the one town where this is happening is the one place it the UK where that term would 99.9% of the time be a positive label. Now as far as I am aware no person of colour in the town has ever actually raised a concern or complaint before this proposed rebrand emerged. Of course silence doesn’t mean they were absolutely fine with it, or people considering moving to the town weren’t put off but it, but like most things in the 2020s its blown out of all proportion on all sides.

I’m surprised the Black Boy Inn at Caernarfon hasn’t come under any pressure to change its name

If its a Greene King pub – they will get to it – I believe they’ve already rebranded a handful of Black Boy pubs.

If he is the pub owner thats his right. Pubs get names changed all the time.

100%. Although any change of signage will need planning approval and I wouldn’t put it past the councillors to go for the populist approach and reject it in the run-up to May’s local elections!

Obviously, it’s also the prerogative of the townsfolk not to go to the pub – they have plenty of others to choose from, including at least a couple of other Greene King pubs. Ironically one of those underwent a far less controversial name change a few years back and recently changed back having failed to really rebrand!

I wish my life was so easy that the name of my local pub was something I could find the energy to care about.

This really.

Loads of my local pubs have changed their names.

The locals proudly label themselves black bitches, with vocal discussion about the qualifying criteria.

I have several friends who live / have lived there and have never heard this before

If its a Greene King pub – they will get to it – I believe they’ve already rebranded a handful of Black Boy pubs.

The absolutly will, they have an award winining anti racism initiative that states eacatly that:

By 2022 we will .. ..Rename our pubs with names which have racist connotations or an association with Transatlantic Slavery to ensure our venues are warm and welcoming to all

Given that they have pledged to double the number of Black, Asian and minority ethnic team members from 5% to 10% by 2030, it is entirely correct that they should take action to rename pubs where the name is likely to cause offence.

For those struggling to understand this I suggest you read Green Kings policy, they have clearly invested a lot of time, thought and money and represent the issue very well indeed
https://www.greeneking.co.uk/our-company/calling-time-on-racism/

Our company’s heritage, with our founder’s links to Transatlantic Slavery in the 1800s, means we are uniquely placed to drive this change and make a significant difference across the hospitality sector. After handing over the Greene King business to his family, Benjamin Greene went on to profit from slavery and argued against its abolition in the 1800s. This is inexcusable. While we can’t change our past, we can determine the present and the future; racism and discrimination have no place within our company or broader society.

@tjagain most likely need to be at least a 3rd generation native of Linlithgow to be considered a Black Bitch.
Either that or been baptised in the Loch, not sure which is the worse option!

Well put poly

most likely need to be at least a 3rd generation native of Linlithgow to be considered a Black Bitch.

Ah so it’s not just a silly name it’s part of long-standing culture of insular parochialism and inbreeding. 😃

Well put poly

I disagree. If this is really about honouring the memory of the story, then it still works if referred to as the Black Hound. It also works with The Loyal Dog, The Black Dog, The Loyal Hound….

The story is the same even without reference to Black Bitch.

Times move on. Just because a thing has been that way for a long time, it doesn’t mean it can’t and shouldn’t be changed.

I have several friends who live / have lived there and have never heard this before

I’d suggest that if someone has lived in Linlithgow and not been aware of an association with the story they’ve not really been part of the community. Its entirely possible to have a house in Linlithgow where you never actually interact with anyone else in the town, but anyone who was part of the community (and despite ygh’s opening post there is no doubt there is a strong local community in Linlithgow) would have been aware of it. Certainly any child who has passed through linlithgow’s primary schools will at some point have discussed the story. But to be completely oblivious to it your would need to:
– not have noticed the town’s coat of arms (shown on the main roads in/out)
– not have noticed the secondary school’s crest – worn on the blazer of school pupils etc
– not have noticed the town magazine
– not have noticed the sculpture of the dug on the high st
– not have noticed the pub in question
– never have bought the local newspaper which not-infrequently refers to someone from the town as a Black Bitch. [this may be less so in recent years as the paper with mergers of other papers but certainly was still doing it this century]

@tjagain most likely need to be at least a 3rd generation native of Linlithgow to be considered a Black Bitch.
Either that or been baptised in the Loch, not sure which is the worse option!

Nothing quite so complex.

Well put poly

I disagree. If this is really about honouring the memory of the story, then it still works if referred to as the Black Hound. It also works with The Loyal Dog, The Black Dog, The Loyal Hound….

Not sure what you disagree with frank? I was trying to carefully avoid presenting a strong opinion on the matter, but I thought it might be useful for people to hear why people were frothing about it rather than simply presume that this was the “political correctness gone mad” crowd. To some extent you are right the memory of the story could be reflected with a different synonym but that’s not how the local people are known, its not how the story is told etc. I don’t have a strong opinion on renaming the pub – but I do think if you are going to rename it don’t tinker with it, rename it completely. There’s something ridiculous about renaming a folk story so that its no longer recognisable. Imagine there was some reason that folk decided Greyfriars Bobby should no longer be called that (there are after all controversies around the accuracy of that story) would you expect the pub beside the statue to change its name to John Gray’s Dog – or would it then be better to just give it some other name completely? Or perhaps the misdeeds of Burn’s Tamoshanter mean a pub of the same name decided to be less mysoginist and rebrand – would it be more sensible to rename it “the scotch hat” or something totally different.

In my admittedly limited experience folk from Linlithgow are not going around calling themselves black bitches every day. People can use their judgement on when use of such terms might cause offence. I think the use of the term would slowly wither away because of its racist connotations.
It does appear that Green King have an admirable policy on the “company heritage” but haven’t realised the local usage as a nickname for everyone from Linlithgow. Imo Green King should have handled the issue better.

reading through these posts i get the feeling there is definitely a generational divide creeping in when it comes to what side of the fence you sit on.
personally i struggle with all the woke stuff which this appears to be about. renaming anything that could be construed as offensive when the story behind it is clearly not racist, and/or re-writing history in general is a slippery slope. how are future generations supposed to learn from history when its all been cancelled?
i guess with everyone being so woke and careful around each other nobody will actually get upset by anything and the world will be one giant globe of happiness, erm… or flat earth of happiness – dont want to offend.

Clearly the only correct new name for the pub is ‘The Very Good Boy’ (or ‘Girl’ I guess).

Or something that keeps floating round my head based on an Elton John song, but I don’t think that suggestion would be very helpful in the current debate.

If Greene King want to actually apply their very laudable corporate intent, then fair play to them. Doesn’t stop any of the locals continuing to refer to themselves by whatever term they want does it? the pub isn’t the local culture and the local culture isn’t the pub.

how are future generations supposed to learn from history when its all been cancelled?

How is keeping everything the same forever learning about history? How do traditions become traditions in the first place?

What most people seem to think of as learning about history is just knowing lists of dates, names of stuff, and statues. It’s a very limited take on history.

How is keeping everything the same forever learning about history?

i was generalising around the whole concept of cancelling things because some people take offence. im sorry that wasnt obvious enough

like most things in the 2020s its blown out of all proportion on all sides

Well if no-one has complained about it then the anti-racism side haven’t blown it out of proprtion have they? Pubs change the names all the time – my example of the Canal Boat is now the Blackweir Tavern because presumably they got fed up of ordering replacement Cs for their sign in bulk. It’s not a big deal on that side.

I’m a white male married to a black female social worker so I’ll discuss this when she gets home. It’ll be an interesting conversation. Despite her profession she doesn’t tend to get over excited about politically correct interpretations (and nor do I) but we will become strident if there are any directed overtones of racism or abuse of power. She mightily took the pee out of some blue rinse who suggested she wanted coffee without milk rather than black at some conference and my Mum when she asked about her ancestry at their first meeting. (Born in Nottingham by the way) However whenever it’s a brave person who mistakes it as a “coconut” position or fails to understand the hurt behind these sensitivities.

We had a discussion about Colston and the Dam Busters’ dog. Her attitude was put the statue in a museum and place some educational context around it. Acknowledge the dog and his part in the story put balance it with another plaque about “time and place” as well as acknowledging the positive contributions of servicemen from other parts of the “Empire”.

I’ll report back if we aren’t on the road to sort them out!

Clearly the only correct new name for the pub is ‘The Very Good Boy’ (or ‘Girl’ I guess).

Boy or girl? What sort of horrendous argument are you trying to start?

Or something that keeps floating round my head based on an Elton John song

Daniel?

Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting? On that, I’m sure we can all agree.

very good post Mr Wingnuts

3 of my local pubs have changed names.  all 3 were in trainspotting. So thats a bit of local culture and history gone.  The Drawbridge – now the malt and Hops, the Jungle, Now Hemingways and The black Swan ( AKA the dirty duck) Now the Roseleaf

And even worse the dole office from Trainspotting is now Mimis bakehouse!

how are future generations supposed to learn from history when its all been cancelled?

Like what? What I’m seeing recently is history being told where previously it was airbrushed.

This is about folklore, not “history”. And it would be sad for the story to be lost. Do the pub owners carry the responsibility for keeping the story alive? Isn’t it already referenced, noted and told in other ways?

very good post Mr Wingnuts

+1 we do seem to get our knickers in a twist about what are in the end just words sometimes, when context is far more important and real racism often gets ignored because it’s either too tough or too ingrained to actually deal with.

In a debateable bit of role reversal the most famous pub in Ayr, The Tam O’Shanter was converted from a museum about 15 or 20 years ago. Never been in it as a pub as I had left Ayr long before that.

I’d suggest that if someone has lived in Linlithgow and not been aware of an association with the story they’ve not really been part of the community.

*sigh* That sounds like the sort of crap folk on the local Facebook page spout about folk who are Largs People and people who live in Largs. Real welcoming.

Can you not see how from the outside looking in it looks really bad? Especially if some rando takes a cursory look on google for a local pub and finds the Black Bitch staring back at them. Not a good look IMO, regardless of local legends.

I wouldn’t call any pub in central Scotland “loyal” anything or you have a whole other divide!

To be fair those same fuds would avoid/jump on anything with Green/Greene in the name.

Also not sure how the Saracens Head is immediately racist/offensive in the same way. I mean, if someone renamed it the Muslims Head then yeah, I could take issue with that but it’s a different context IMO.

I can see both sides TBH, and if I were to stick my oar in, I’d suggest that it’d not be beyond the whit (or shouldn’t be at least) for the regional manager/buyer/whatever at Greene King to have made enquires about the history of the name of the pub before they bought the place, and certainly to have made enquires before announcing their intent to go ahead and change it.

Given the very obvious conflict their very worthy statement regarding their founder and the hoo-hah that should’ve been easily seen coming over the hill once they’d set their sights on this pub.

@squirrelking

Also not sure how the Saracens Head is immediately racist/offensive in the same way. I mean, if someone renamed it the Muslims Head then yeah, I could take issue with that but it’s a different context IMO.

The Saracens Head Inns

takes its name from an inn, so named because it was the ambition of anyone returning from the Crusades to bring home the head of an ‘infidel’ or Saracen.

One who was ‘fortunate’ enough to possess such a gruesome relic was looked on as a hero. People came for miles to see the skull of one who was not a ‘Christian.’

Even if that explanation is apocryphal it’s doing the rounds and is pretty grim.

As for the name of the pub why not just call it Loyal Black Dog?

I’m not sure if this avoids the issue

Ahh I see what you mean. Didn’t even come across my mind at all.

In that case just call it Loyal Dog (if they know the dog breed then use that like Loyal Bulldog etc).

p/s: I call all my dogs “pig dog” (in local dialect in the far east) and normally everyone laughs once they heard me calling my dogs that way. It has many meanings depending the interpretation but normally it is referred to as well fed dog or well looked after. Thin or skinny dogs are considered under nourished.

Yes – we went to “Chinaman’s beach” here over Christmas (very nice BTW), and we discussed whether the name was/wasn’t racist.

Not at all racist. We used to call our grandpa Chinaman. We also called some of our friends Chinaman.

Well if no-one has complained about it then the anti-racism side haven’t blown it out of proprtion have they?

I think describing it as an “anti-racism side” is exactly the sort of language which upsets people though. The implication is, if you aren’t with them you must be racist. By implication, if it is racist to call a pub the Black Bitch based on a local legend, its therefore racist to refer to the people of the town as Black Bitches, the magazine should rename etc. Now it might actually be that the terminology has such bad connotations in other contexts that it pollutes it for this context too – but you I’m not sure its the place of a pub chain to make that change for people its never met.

The pub chain has taken an entrenched position which is rarely a good way to resolve conflict. As I understand it they refuse to discuss it with their customers. That strikes me not just as blowing it out of proportion, but as bad business sense.

Pubs change the names all the time – my example of the Canal Boat is now the Blackweir Tavern because presumably they got fed up of ordering replacement Cs for their sign in bulk. It’s not a big deal on that side.

Indeed and the building has been there for several hundred years but the Black Bitch name has probably only been in use for less than 150. I’m sure if Greene King had used their brain and gone for a completely different name they’d have had far less furore. How would the owners of the Blackweir Tavern have got on if they had decided to embrace the students suggested name change and rebranded Anal Boat? You see, not every name change is actually better!

Even if that explanation is apocryphal it’s doing the rounds and is pretty grim.

Yes, but it’s not immediately obvious which was my point.

Interesting tale of the name though, even if it’s different pub, that’s probably the most civilised part of the Sarry Heid. Interestingly the lane behind the pub gave name to the foundry which was later relocated to Possil Estate and in turn gave it’s name to the main street and cross taht were later built.

Now it might actually be that the terminology has such bad connotations in other contexts

Sorry whit? There is no question about it!

We also called some of our friends Chinaman.

You could try calling them by their names?

I used to teach there – the school magazine was called The Black Bitch, and of course she was on the school badge. When you know the context, there is no offence.

I expect letters on the building may be rearranged but the name will remain the same as far as the local population is concerned.

On my last bikepacking trip before Youknowwhat, there was an interesting discussion about the pub and Linlithgow’s female melanistic canine tradition beside a bothy fire.

You could try calling them by their names?

It is a form of greeting amongst friends as calling name can be for stranger. We don’t call each other personal name as that is reserved for formal occasion.

I think we’ve all put our foot in it at some point, thought its probably a matter for the recipient whether or not it was meant as some sort of racial or bigoted slur.

Just after my Nephew was born I visited my sisters house to see him, and remarked. ‘Well at least he isn’t a ginger’.

Then turned around to find my sister pal sitting there, with her long red hair.

Oops 😆

She said no problem, but I learned a lesson that day, and not one I’ll need to make again.