The ‘ungrateful nigger’ trope claims that Blacks in the US should show proper gratitude for their history. The slave trade brought them to the land of opportunity. Slavery taught them the virtues of hard work and obedience. And with emancipation, the superior race graciously bestowed on them the unbounded joys of citizenship – at least as much as they were allowed under the Jim Crow laws.

But to expect the full panoply of rights and privileges that Whites enjoyed was another matter. Uppity Blacks who asked, campaigned, or, even worse, expected to be treated as full and equal citizens, were simply ungrateful niggers, intent on shredding the harmonious fabric of the accepted social order.

The same thing happens in this country. 25 years or so ago, 20,000 lychee trees were cut down in Nan. The trees belonged to Hmong villagers and neighbouring orchards owned by lowland Thais were untouched; local officials blocked the road to prevent the Hmong from going to defend their property; the then head of the Royal Forest Department Plodprasop Suraswadi, who thought forest protection warranted carrying a sidearm, threatened more destruction; and the police said they could take no action unless the Hmong themselves identified the perpetrators. Well, it was a clear case of racial discrimination.

A group of well-meaning human rights defenders came to show support for the cause. As they drove into the Hmong village, they made some telling comments. They expressed surprise that some Hmong houses were made of brick and concrete rather than bamboo and thatch, and that some Hmong even ran shops, and OMG the number of Hmong pickup trucks and Hmong motorcycles!

The Hmong obviously should have been grateful to have sympathetic defenders among the dominant ethnic group, but where did they get off showing the same trappings of material wealth that would pass unremarked in a village of lowland Thais? How can the deserving poor deserve anything if they refuse to be poor?

People’s Party MP Rukchanok Srinork seems to be on the sharp end of similar prejudice. Young, female, opinionated and no respecter of reputations, she clearly needs putting in her place.

The first reputation she savaged was that of the Yubamrung family (though some members now spell it Ubumrung in an apparent attempt to protect the guilty). They had a lock on a couple of constituencies in Thonburi which regularly returned candidates from the political wing of the family optimistically called the Muanchon (Mass) Party. Despite the party’s laughably small electoral successes, Godfather Chalerm wangled a series of important cabinet posts, mainly on the strength of threatening to expose the villainy of coalition partners – he had been a police captain so he may actually have had blackmail material.

Muanchon eventually expired and Chalerm led his sons into the Chat Thai Party, then New Aspiration, then Thai Rak Thai and the successor Thaksin parties, then Palang Pracharath (he’d started with the Democrats so maybe he was going for a full house). Obviously a politician of principle.

But at least he was not known to be a criminal. Son Duangchalerm achieved notoriety by shooting dead a police officer in a nightclub, evading arrest and eventually getting the case thrown out because witnesses gave ‘confusing’ evidence, without explanation of who had been confusing them. He and his brothers had a telling catchphrase they used in clubs and bars when they accidentally stood on people’s toes or spilled their drinks – ‘Do you know who my father is?’

With a cramped shophouse as campaign headquarters and a fleet of bikes fitted with loudspeakers and campaign signs, Rukchanok went up against number 2 son Wan Ubumrung aka Wanchalerm Yubamrung. And she didn’t just beat him, she humiliated him, by over 20,000 votes.

She was sued for defamation by two right-wing TV news anchors because she said that they had been telling porkies from the stage in their former jobs as leaders of the yellow shirt People's Democratic Reform Committee protests that led to the 2014 military coup. The court didn’t go as far as saying that PDRC speeches were bound to be full of lies, but found her not guilty, just expressing an honest opinion.

She also faced two counts royal defamation (brought by the government rather than one of the litigious royalist vigilantes). She had questioned the decision to give a licence to produce the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine to only one company, the royally-owned Siam Bioscience. This time she was convicted and given 6 years but allowed bail to appeal. A challenge by an anti-socialist social media busybody failed, so she is still free pro tem to make trouble.

She took on Gun Jompalang over his ties with Deputy PM Thammanat (‘it was only flour’) Prompao and alleged scammer Benjamin Mauerberger, aka ‘Ben Smith’. And she scrutinized the accounts of the Social Security Office and came up with a series of questionable expenditures, from 450 million spent on calendars to an office building that cost more than twice the appraised value.

She now faces a new challenge from serial petitioner, former Senator and former MP Ruangkrai Leekitwattana who has asked the NACC to check whether Rukchanok’s assets declaration included the bicycle she campaigned on. Bought brand new, it would cost all of 5,700 baht.

Allegations about assets declarations have been a steady source of scandal among Thai politicians, from former Deputy PM Prawit Wongsuwan’s luxury watches worth 41 million to former PM Paetongtarn Shinawatra’s 4.4 billion in promissory notes. But 5,700 baht? Minus depreciation.

And look who’s petitioning. Ruangkrai in 2021 brazenly displayed a Mercedes Benz S 560 and a 25 million baht cashier's cheque, which he said he was given by a ‘kind adult’ when he abandoned Pheu Thai for Palang Pracharath. He later claimed that it was his wife who was ‘kind’ to him.

So that’s alright then. But thank goodness she didn’t give him a bike.