Sooty number plate owner speaks out in race row
Not many people could have avoided the row brewing over Prince Charles use of the term “Sooty” but for a black chauffeur based in Cambridge, his cars have S00TYX, 500TYX, and S00TY0 as their numbers plates, so what all the bovver about?
Mike Edwards aged 47, has even met Prince Charles and Princess Diana so the connections just keep coming, where this is concerned.
The chauffeur gave himself the nickname of Sooty around fifteen years ago when he was working as a DJ, so because of the number plates and his use of the nickname, this has become a bit of an image for him, with a string of celebrity clients using his limo business it has not done him any harm.
Mike, of Cambridge, said: ''There's nothing racist about Prince Charles calling his polo chum Sooty.
''If someone is happy to be called that by friends, that's their choice. It has nothing to do with people looking in from the outside.
''It's the people who immediately assume it's a racist comment that often tend to be deep seated racists themselves.
''To me the word Sooty generates visions of a cuddly cute furry bear not a derogatory reference to a black person.
''It is in the mind of the beholder. You can't say 'You Sooty' and mean it horribly.''
Mike said: ''Prince Charles has met two Sooty's in his life and I'm one of them. I was first introduced to him as Sooty and he remembered me as that when we met again.''
It just goes to show that things can get completely out of hand when it comes to the royals and what they say.
A spokesperson for Clarence House said they were unable to comment on Mike's relationship with Prince Charles as he meets "thousands of people in an official capacity every year".
Source [Cambridge News]
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