Whatever happened to.. good old black & white?

OK, so I never suggested for a moment that this blog might cover things like boxing. Or politics. But what the heck, I'm interested in both - though they couldn't pay me enough to actually DO either. But anyway, it's my prattle and I'll preach if I want to.

Being a late night person (as you have to be to get any time to yourself with children!) I find myself watching Channel Five - not something to boast about maybe, but every Thursday they run 'Fight of the Week', and despite my reservations about its essential barbarism, I love to watch boxing.

Last night though my blood boiled, and it was not about unfair judges or blatant fouls. Both boxers happened to be wearing black shorts with white trim, so, explained the commentator, for purposes of clarity, we will point out that Allan is the fellow in the white gloves, and Bonsante in the black gloves. Um, maybe I'm taking the 'too-obvious' route here, but wouldn't it have been so much simpler to say "Allan is the black boxer, Bonsante is white"?

I know we all have to be careful what we say these days, and I daresay the US is more precious about this kind of thing than we are here in the UK (apart from the few remaining Spartist boroughs, of course). But honestly, isn't this kind of pussy-footing around the fact of someone's skin colour actually worse and more insulting than just saying it? Surely it's not racist to say that someone is black or white (or whatever)?

At the risk of sounding like the Daily Mail (or my late great mum), some people don't have the common sense they were born with.