I just got up from conversation with a couple of older black men, that I said “well I got to go back to work and start cracking the whip.” And it occurred to me then that it was probably a really insensitive stupid thing to say.
Sadly, it hadn’t occurred to me until it’s already said.
You do realize you’re asking for a racist-o-pedia, right?
Me and the boys going to work on the Big Book of Slurs
So, basically twitter…
Unfortunately there isn’t really a full list because that shit changes so often. Previously accepted phrases become slurs and yesterday’s slurs get reclaimed.
And it is locational. Something insensitive in the US might be insensitive here in Oz or over in Europe… Or might not.
That is how idiom works.
Yep. Can be things you wouldn’t even think about too. For example the word ‘spastic’ isn’t offensive in the US, but is deeply offensive in the UK, similar to the word ‘retard’
Both of those terms are offensive in the US, too. People that use it just choose to not value the input from those that they offend.
TIL, and I’m sorry to hear that :(
My grandfather, who passed away in the 90s, used to say “cotton pickers” for people that he meant as “jerks”. It took me until the 2010s that he was taking about black people. 🤦♂️
A lot of people post online that they love the phrase “cotton-headed ninny-muggins”.
But once you look at it thought this lens…boys I think this one’s not ok.
Isn’t that a line from “Elf”?
Speaking of stupid and insensitive, I was in my 20s before someone explained to me that to reference “jewing someone down” on price was not a great thing to say. It seems absurd. I’d just never seen it in writing or thought about it–it was an idiom, that’s it. You want to get a better price, so you jew them down. I guess I thought it was a homonym, if anything, but I didn’t really think about it, at all. Big-time facepalm moment when it clicked for me. Likewise for, “I got gypped.”
Those are the exact two examples for me as well! I thought I was alone in my idiocy!
Hell, “jewing someone down” was always a positive and admirable thing for me. Guess as a little kid I thought it was complementary to Jews and never thought about it again.
Not even going to say how long ago it was that I realized the reference to Gypsies. But it was a recent event, and I’m old.
How about “shyster”? I’m scared to ask…
How about “shyster”? I’m scared to ask…
It does have that certain feel about it.
My family always pronounced it “chewing them down,” so I was surprised to see it written the first time. I was probably in college.
I thought it was “chewing” too. It’s not a common religion here, and the two words are not homophones with our accent.
the folks in the linux subs talking about ‘ricing’ their desktops need to see it when you find it!
I’m a Linux user and love some good rices. But I’ve no idea what “ricing” comes from. Why is it offensive?
Rice rocket was a term used for modified Japanese cars, and ricing your car meant turning it into a rice rocket.
I thought “ricing” meant submerging your stuff in rice to get the moisture out to stop water damage.
Slang can mean different things, depending on context
What! No one’s ever told me that before!
I’m a Linux user and love some good rices. But I’ve no idea what “ricing” comes from. Why is it offensive?
I believe it is racist slang that emerged in the 90s with the advent of cheap japanese and korean cars that were easily customizable (civics, accuras, etc…). Throw a turbo and a loud exhaust, and bam, now its a rice burner. These were prevalent in Asian immigrant communities, but also other places.
It basically meant like, cheap, but also very fast car, of Asian origin.
There’s an older form that goes back to at least the 1970s when fuel efficient Japanese cars started to become popular in the US: “Rice burners.”
There was some made-in-America angst at the time because of the oil crisis, coupled with some quality issues that made these cars more appealing. The phrase was definitely used pejoratively. I can remember my dad muttering about it well into the '80s.
Why is it offensive?
It would probably be like calling Beemers and Mercedes bratwvrst-mobiles.
I mean, that does sound tasty.
You completely missed an opporitunity for kraut-cars.
I know some people that refer to Japanese motorcycles, mostly “crotch-rockets,” as ricers.
The only people I know who say that are in fact Japanese, but I agree it is a racist term.
Racist slang against Asians, think “beaners” for Hispanics.
Sort of an insult to beans and rice, two of the greatest categories of food, to make slurs of them, too.
That’s offensive. All food is great. And so are non-bigot non-nazipedogore people.
I think one of the Lemmy comms for it changed their sidebar and posts to remove that a few months ago
I remember in my 20s the phrase “indian giver” coming out of my mouth. I hadn’t used that phrase since I was a kid of 10 years old or so.
I immediately realized that I should never say that shit again. Adult me realized it is a horrible thing to say but as a kid I just thought it meant you gave and asked for it back. I had much more context as an adult.
Most of the time I think before I speak, but not always.
Yeah, that’s called Welshing.
Oh god I went to a public school rear a native reserve, it was always insane to me to see how many times the faculty referred to things as ‘Indian’
Ex. we had an Indian meal day that i don’t think was either east India nor native american inspired
American Indians prefer to be called Indian, not Native American.
Kinda broad statement considering some do but some are offended by it.
Of course its entirely incorrect given they aren’t in India, so it seems obvious not to call them indian (shit even some actual east Indians are offended by it, especially cause now they need to be called east indians)
and more anecdotally all indigenous people I’ve met couldn’t careless what theyre called down to calling themselves ‘indjiuns’
@Sethayy the existence of people not offended by something prejudiced always seems to be dragged out as a justification for that prejudice.
If some people being offended isn’t reason enough not to say something, then it stands to reason that some people not being offended isn’t a reason why it’s okay.
If it is, then there are definitely people who are offended.
Okay, but what if they like being called indian as opposed to native american? Now you’re being offensive to those people. It’s kind of like that ridiculous latinx term that some PC people have being pushing for a few years now, I’m yet to meet anyone thay likes being called that as opposed to just latino/latina.
If you’re in doubt what to call someone, just ask, don’t assume.
Excellent! So let’s just call them what country they live in, which isn’t India (nor even close to India)
My wife works on reservations. I haven’t heard of any of the tribes she works with being fine with being called Native American. They have their own government organization called the Bureau of Indian Affairs, it seems pretty clear that they prefer that term.
Yes great! But they don’t live in India :( So it’s pretty hard to call them indians
Not really. If you’re struggling with it it’s a you problem (and probably partially racism to boot). This isn’t a hard concept. Mexicans are Americans, Canadians are Americans, Peruvians are Americans, even though none of them live in the USA. Just because we (white people) decided to call two locations India doesn’t mean that only one group gets that name. That’s idiotic.
This is halarious, youre definitely american aren’t you?
Canadians aren’t in america eh? Absolutely no classification we can think of, perhaps a continent or 2 that could describe let’s say a north and south “america” of some sort?
Id encourage you to try and find another true analogy though, and you’ll see it doesnt exist - cause everywhere else’s name is based on where it is
also I gotta edit to add this, I’d love to see where you perceive racism in my comment, just as a readers exercise
You’re referring to Americans with heritage in the Indian subcontinent, right?
No I’m not. My wife works on reservations. American Indians prefer to be called Indians, not Native Americans.
And Indian cuts. I realized it was racist when I heard the next generation calling them Chinese cuts.
Or Indian sunburns. Or sitting Indian style.
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jumping off point
Woah there, corporate informs me this is insensitive to Lemmings
Lemmy HR will be in touch
The two that really make me wince are “Indian giver” and the related “Indian summer” and of course calling hooch “firewater” isn’t great either.
I always thought “Indian summer” sounded very poetic, maybe related to the climate of the Indian subcontinent.
But it’s just garden variety American racism?
That’s so disappointing!Does anyone know more about the etymology?
Indian summer (n.)
“spell of warm, dry, hazy weather after the first frost” (happening anywhere from mid-September to nearly December, according to location), 1774, North American English (also used in eastern Canada), perhaps so called because it was first noted in regions then still inhabited by Indians, in the upper Mississippi valley west of the Appalachians, or because the Indians first described it to the Europeans. No evidence connects it with the color of fall leaves, or to a season of renewed Indian attacks on settlements due to renewed warm weather (a widespread explanation dating at least to the 1820s).
Source: Etymonline
That’s not so bad!
I followed up the etymology of “zipper head” above so I was prepared for waaaaaaaaay worse.
That’s so interesting. Like @vzq I had the wrong sense of the word “Indian” - I thought it was something the British came up with after they colonized India.
Well, and specifically, it’s related to the concept of an Indian giver: The warm weather is “taken back” and impermanent.
Not so much an etymology, but how it was used in pop culture:
Our local paper used to publish a cartoon and poem every fall. The piece was called Injun Summer, and it was printed every October from 1907-1992.
It’s very much a relic of its era, which is to say “it was weird; really fucking weird.” The image is lovely. The text is an old man telling a young boy a totally made up story. It’s folksy, wistful and nostalgic. It talks about the past and how native spirits (literally ghosts) return to the land each fall. It’s also written in the vernacular of what an old man in 1907 might sound like.
Personally, I don’t think the complaints about racism were what caused them to stop printing it. I think it was the weirdness that just didn’t appeal to anyone under the age of 50 (in 1992!).
The fist link shows the image with text. The second shows how it would have looked in print.
http://www.sewwug.org/images/injun_summer_2.pdf
https://drloihjournal.blogspot.com/2017/10/the-history-of-john-t-mccutcheons-1907.html
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Idk about that. I’ve met “Native Americans” who prefer the term Indian over Native American.
That’s pretty much all American Indians. Their governmental orgs literally have Indian in their name. My wife does most of her work on a reservation and they all want to be called Indian, not Native American
And it creates a problem for us people from India, because we cannot start saying “south east Asians” or such terms because there are many countries in SE Asia. They should be called indigenous Americans or Native Americans, not Indians. And considering we are 1.5B people and everywhere in the world, we need to have a suitable identifier, where India is suffixed with -n.
You can still be called Indian, there’s no reason they get a monopoly on the name… Just like people call people from USA “Americans” even though that literally applies to 35 countries, you can still call canadians “americans” or peruvians “americans”. Context clues give people a lot of information, you don’t need to always be explicit. You can also do exactly what I did above and specify “American Indian”, which clearly gave you enough information to proceed to make the comment you did…
This is a very dumb argument. Using proper identifiers for citizens of different countries is not a matter of monopoly. Nobody calls the indigenous people of other countries “Indians”, so why should Native Americans be called “Indians”? Ever heard of Australian Aboriginals or Canadian Wet’suwet’en or other people being called “Indians”? This argument is so dumb, should Pakistanis start calling themselves Germans and Russians should start calling themselves Africans, because no monopoly?
America spans 2 whole fucking continents and islands surrounding them. India is not a continent.
so why should Native Americans be called “Indians”
Because that is what they were primarily called for hundreds of years, and what many still prefer to be called today.
Note that the American Indian Movement, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Indian reservations, etc all still use the term.
See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_name_controversy
Ever heard of […] Canadian Wet’suwet’en or other people being called “Indians”?
It’s been changing there much quicker than in the US, but, yes. And Canada’s Indian Act is still in force (and still called that) today.
Indian burn
Is that the same as a “Chinese Burn” where you twist someones arm-skin?
Yup it’s the same
Could you explain the firewater one?
It’s sort-of an antique trope whose main thrust is implying Native cultures are backward and unworldly because they don’t have distilleries (though, point in fact, some of them did ferment alcohol).
Firewater and other drinking stereotypes were about the myth of Native Americans all being raging alcoholics, which are as racist as saying black people are inherently violent or Jewish people inherently coveting money.
The alcohol abuse rates of Native Americans aligns with poverty issues, just like everyone else.
I honestly had no idea until now that firewater had anything to do with Native Americans. I just thought it was a term for alcohol, and don’t use it myself anyway.
Indian* here, and I don’t know anyone offended by Indian summer.
*It says Indian on my ID.
Ok I’ve thought about it a bit and I need to know. What’s wrong with Indian summer?
It’s related to the concept of an “Indian giver”: the warm weather seems like a gift, but is taken back.
I’ve never heard of it used with that connotation. Even the most PC people I know use the phrase. Just because it uses the word “Indian” doesn’t automatically make it a pejorative. Some native Americans/first people call themselves Indian.
Most Natives call themself “Indian”. You’ve misunderstood my objection if you think that’s the problem.
The misunderstanding of your objection comes from the fact that I’ve just never heard of it in the context of “giving good weather and taking it away” as in “Indian giver”. The fact that they both have the word Indian the only connection I can make to what you’re saying. The only references I can find to a pejorative origin is in articles from years ago saying that the phrase possibly needs to be changed because of possible negative origins. Obviously culture hasn’t decided it’s necessary to change the phrase (yet). The fact that it’s used as a positive metaphor for non-weather things should be considered too.
Yes, but it still reeks of colonial insensitivity when a white person says it. Non-indigenous Americans should have replaced that word with Native by now.
Oof. At work we currently have a project for words deemed insensitive. For the most part I think it’s worthy, but some things are overboard. The project group cast a very wide net, ignoring context and etymology. My biggest disagreement is over “black” and “white”.
Take “black box” and “white box” for types of testing. These are based merely on the properties of light. I have serious doubts about anyone ever having felt excluded by their use. And yet, we’re wasting time coming up with non-standard nomenclature to satisfy this supposed slight. There’s a whole laundry list of words like this.
I’m still mad about git master
Master as in “the master copy”
And they went and broke a bunch of tools and workflows to change it
Yeah, master has a few uses like this. Master bedrooms came about in the 20th century and had nothing to do with slavery. Then there is master in a pupil setting, though that is fairly uncommon in the US anyway. It’s more of a European/UK thing I think.
Again, I have nothing against changing things that are genuinely problematic. I just have a problem with busy work that is being demanded for items that aren’t actually offensive.
phrases that are stupid
We haven’t invented a storage big enough for that yet
About the others, there are some obvious ones but other than that it mostly depends on context and culture. Some pointed the ricing thing for Linux, but I don’t think anyone in the community, myself included, thought about Asian ppl when calling themselves a ricer; nor I think it’s racist, so again: aside for obvious insults or widely known slurs, it basically falls back to context
Odds are that such a list won’t ever exist. Insensitivity and bias depend on meaning, and meaning depends on context. As such, we [people in general] need to pay attention to what we’re saying, and to whom, in to avoid both things. No easy way.
My mother-in-law used to call everyone “zipper-heads” until someone pointed out that it’s a slur against Koreans (and a particularly graphic one at that).
In school there was a group of mostly white friends that had a Asian kid in their friends group. His nickname was Nip. I honestly didn’t know his real name as another was never used. It was a few years before I realized the connotation that was there once I started studying history. Not sure if it was a parent or where it came from but most of us at the time had no idea how bad it was. It was just his name and he used it too.
Then I think of my church going father. One of the kindest men I knew. Never had a bad thing to say about anyone unless it was personal thing based on a issue first hand.
Race wasn’t on his mind at all. Being from the westcoast in a remote wilderness area most of the demographic was white and native with very few in those days what were called east Indians and Asians mixed in. More the exception if at all.
He worked for a logging outfit and towards the end of his career he was a logging road grader operator. I recall going down a road that he maintained in a Jeep with him. As I was navigating this rough road the logging trucks pounded constantly he told me to watch out for this large rock that was below the surface. Just the head of the rock was sticking up. He called them " the N word- heads" I was shocked. I knew he wasn’t racist and was friends with the only black church member in town but the word just came out of this mouth as easily as any other word.
I asked him why he called it that, he said that’s just what they were called. He didn’t continue after that day with me as I don’t think he thought about it until our conversation.
In some ways I did equate this to the numerous white kids I knew singing the NWA lyrics in school despite not even seeing a black kid before but this was in the 90s. I can still hear those lyrics as I type this.
Now this isn’t to say kids were not nasty, as they were. There were several unkind things used when talking about the native kids that made up to half the school population and more of that where my family lived.
Back to my grandfather’s time bonds were formed with the local native bands and friends were made but I’m sure the languaged used at times like “Indian giver” wasn’t connected to the real reality.
I do fear as I get older I’m falling into one of these traps with gender and identity words. I think as we get older and comfortable with our understanding of the world we have figured out, some aren’t really willing to figure out more.
Despite interacting and having friends from the older local gay community I’ve not been exposed to anyone that introduces themselves with their name and then their pronouns.
I’m not sure if we can just call everyone “them” or “they” without offending people? Feels like a good starting place but I’ve not learned yet it this is as bad as the N-word?
It would certainly be more convenient if they/them became a generic pronoun for everyone regardless of gender. But at the moment it’s not nessararily polite to use it that way in all circumstances. There are people that only use gendered pronouns to refer to themselves, to the exclusion of neutral pronouns like they/them. Generally if there’s any uncertainty about someone else’s preferred pronouns you can just ask. If you wanna skirt around it you can introduce yourself including your pronouns which will give others a safe opportunity to do the same. Messing up someones pronouns can be embarrassing but it’s not the same as dropping a slur. (Though it can still be very hurtful to those involved.)
Here in Australia I am surrounded by people of many different genders, and so far have not caused complaint by using they/them for everyone, regardless of gender, whether cis or trans. Plenty of others do the same, and they tend to be people wearing the rainbow flag, rather than the insensitive.
It is always best to ask and try to remember the pronouns, but often it is not possible at the time, and it is better to err on the side of caution when you don’t know yet what they use. Eg: As a female, I do prefer she/her, but if someone didn’t know that, then I would still prefer they/them to being persistently referred to as he/him. Males likely have a similar dislike of being referred to with the wrong pronouns, but they/them encompasses everyone in common Australian English (eg “whoever left their jumper behind, they need to go pick it up from the office”) so seems the best compromise till a conversation can happen.
Great tips. I’ve for years referred to most people at work as hey guys (males and female) and then ladies when it was a older group of them in a department. Orientation was never really apart of the discussion for any of us. If taking about people at home it was my husband, wife, gf, bf, partner. Didn’t really get much deeper than that.
How?
How is it a slur, you mean?
“Used by soldiers during the Korean and Vietnam Wars; multiple hypotheses exist as to the specific origin. One is that if an East Asian person were shot in the middle of the forehead with a machine gun, the head would split as if being unzipped; another, that the appearance of tire tracks on a body having been run over by a military Jeep or that of tank tracks resembled a zipper.”
https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/zipperheadJesus fucking Christ, I assumed it was a “hurr durr narrow eyes” racist thing, what you’ve said/linked is way worse
Koreans all have zippers on their heads. They used to have buttons, but that changed in the early 1950s.
“Seek offence and you shall find it” - The secret mantra of Tumblr users
It’s a tricky one because if someone wants to be offended, they definitely will be. I once knew a guy who, for some reason, found the use of the word “slug” (in any context) intensely offensive. To this day, no-one ever learned why.
I actually looked into this two days ago. I came across a PDF that was maybe six years old but already outdated. It’s a problem when it’s this difficult to keep up. I know it’s a problem to not try to keep up too though. The human condition sucks.
Hey I just want to say i think this is a really good question and I’m glad you asked it. So many things get recycled into the language and we don’t know/ever get taught their original meanings. I think it’s good to look into, not just to avoid social slip ups, but because language and idioms have an impact on how we think about things. I’m glad to have these links on my radar
