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[theinevitable]

I don't know if he was being unthinkingly racist, or if he was telling her to use her secret birthright powers.

one guy I know, his dad always makes sure his big gold Star of David necklace is showing before he makes a purchase. You know, to let them know who they're dealing with.

[side_show]

My ladyfriend has a pretty obviously Jewish last name.   When she purchased her last car, the mechanic told her that the "brakes are at 35% so you can probably Jew them down on that."

I don't know if he was being unthinkingly racist, or if he was telling her to use her secret birthright powers.

As a kid, I thought the term was "chew them down" and used this all the time.  As in "she chewed him down to trading three Garbage Pail stickers for her one sparkly Pretty Pony sticker."  It made a lot of sense to me at the time - I thought it was in line with "chewing someone out." I thought it meant working hard/aggressively to get someone to comply to your wishes.  After a while I noticed other people were saying "Jew" not "chew" in this expression and self-corrected never realizing the racist connotations of what I was saying.  I went to a small private Catholic school, and didn't even know that there were other religions until I was about 12.  I originally thought there were Christians and heathens/pagans, but also that only Catholics were Christians.  I knew there were Jews in the bible, but didn't know this referred to a religious group - I thought the term described some geographic location.  I'm glad I didn't stay at that school.

[CortJstr]

I'd actually never even heard that expression until a few years ago when a semi-retired lady said it at work. Then it showed up on Family Guy right after that when Peter was pretending to be Jewish.

I do remember learning horribly bigoted expressions totally by accident when I was little because I had no idea what they meant. We used to play a game called "smear the queer" a lot growing up, so as far as I knew the primary definition of queer was "kid holding the football."

I was also well into elementary school before I heard anybody say "catch a tiger by the toe."

[Nabubrush]

Man, that is the one reason I hate thinking about when I was a kid. We grew up in a pretty un-integrated neighborhood, and we said all kinds of horrible fuck*ng things. Of course, the people who were the objects of the slurs were never represented, but it was pretty fucked up.

[smick]

I went to a small private Catholic school, and didn't even know that there were other religions until I was about 12.  I originally thought there were Christians and heathens/pagans, but also that only Catholics were Christians.  I knew there were Jews in the bible, but didn't know this referred to a religious group - I thought the term described some geographic location.  I'm glad I didn't stay at that school.

I had a similar upbringing, in that I was raised by my folks with no mention of religion at all, but went to a catholic school for Kindergarden.

These new ideas that were thrust upon me, were very strange indeed.

[CortJstr]

Man, that is the one reason I hate thinking about when I was a kid. We grew up in a pretty un-integrated neighborhood, and we said all kinds of horrible fuck*ng things. Of course, the people who were the objects of the slurs were never represented, but it was pretty fucked up.

My parents would try to correct this stuff, but it mainly came from other kids who didn't know what the words meant, either. I remember my dad overhearing a discussion of smear the queer and telling me to stop but not explaining why. I couldn't figure out why somebody would be offended by being called "the kid with the football."

[wombat]

As a kid, I thought the term was "chew them down" and used this all the time.  As in "she chewed him down to trading three Garbage Pail stickers for her one sparkly Pretty Pony sticker."  It made a lot of sense to me at the time - I thought it was in line with "chewing someone out." I thought it meant working hard/aggressively to get someone to comply to your wishes.  After a while I noticed other people were saying "Jew" not "chew" in this expression and self-corrected never realizing the racist connotations of what I was saying. 

See, I think this is pretty typical and why you should not immediately get hysterical when you hear someone use terms like this. There really are people who don't realize they are slurs - because we only hear them spoken, not written, and because there are enough homophones in English that for all anyone knows it could be 'joo them down.'

A similar case is that that 'gyp' in the sense of 'cheat' supposedly derives from 'gypsy.' Once in a while someone will still write an indignant letter for the editor saying that that word shouldn't be used because it's a slur. But if no one knows the history and the association any more, come on, give it up. Any offensive aspect of that word is really gone, lost in the mists of time at this point.

[Nabubrush]

See, I think this is pretty typical and why you should not immediately get hysterical when you hear someone use terms like this. There really are people who don't realize they are slurs - because we only hear them spoken, not written, and because there are enough homophones in English that for all anyone knows it could be 'joo them down.'

A similar case is that that 'gyp' in the sense of 'cheat' supposedly derives from 'gypsy.' Once in a while someone will still write an indignant letter for the editor saying that that word shouldn't be used because it's a slur. But if no one knows the history and the association any more, come on, give it up. Any offensive aspect of that word is really gone, lost in the mists of time at this point.

However, if the only people who remember are the folks being slurred, it gets a bit more tricky.

[wombat]

However, if the only people who remember are the folks being slurred, it gets a bit more tricky.

Yeah, but it seems to me you should pick your battles, you know? God knows there are enough deliberately offensive people in the world to worry about without also looking for offense where none was intended. Remember the story about the DC government official who got in trouble for using the word 'niggardly' because it contained the same syllables as a racial slur?  It's really possible to take this sort of thing way too far.

[smick]

They're still out there though... It's not as though they were wiped out.   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roma_people states that there are 80,000 in Canada, and 1 Million in the U.S.

Not significantly large populations, but certainly not nonexistent.

[littlefallsmets]

I learned the full concept of male homosexuality relatively late, actually. I heard all the gay slurs, of course, living in the semi-rural Adirondacks but... I don't know... I never put them together with the idea of men doing each other until probably eleven.

I just thought these slurs were about, y'know, girly boys. Sissy boys. It never actually struck me that a man would be attracted to another man because men always came off as such crude-looking animalish functional things.

Still do, really. I really only know what is supposed to be attractive about the male form after years and years of asking straight ladies and gay men questions about what the hell could be attractive about a dude.

Interestingly, though, our next-door-neighbor was a lesbian with a revolving door of partners in serial monogamy so... I understood the idea of FEMALE homosexuality by, like, five or six.

But it made sense. Ladies are so pretty that ladies should probably like them too.

I understood... and really still understand... as little about what a lady would see in a man as what a gay fellow would, really.

Maybe it's some kind of sublimated self-hate about my appearance projected onto all dudes or something. I'm open to the idea that I'm screwed up about it.

But yeah. I thought that "gays" or "queers" were just sissy dudes who liked painting and dressing too well and stuff and... I didn't put together the total idea until very late in childhood.

[Nabubrush]

Yeah, but it seems to me you should pick your battles, you know? God knows there are enough deliberately offensive people in the world to worry about without also looking for offense where none was intended. Remember the story about the DC government official who got in trouble for using the word 'niggardly' because it contained the same syllables as a racial slur?  It's really possible to take this sort of thing way too far.

Sure, but you can agree that niggardly!=back of the bus. Back of the bus is (in reality) directly referencing treating blacks as second-class citizens (at best). Niggardly is a word that sounds like it contains a slur. Like Egyptian. Or adjudicate.

It's like Ash's experience. He was getting that in what appears to me a direct response to how blacks were treated. And he rejected it - to my mind rightly so. But if the only people who remember what back of the bus really means are blacks, and whites use it more and more, well I guess I don't think that I would call their rejection of it as an acceptable cliche an example of taking PC way too far.


Interesting, lfm. I just read something somewhere that made the case that these folks (Larry Craig) don't consider themselves gay. They consider sissy-boys gay, and they consider themselves straight guys who like sucking cock. I can't remember where that was.

[wombat]

They're still out there though... It's not as though they were wiped out.   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roma_people states that there are 80,000 in Canada, and 1 Million in the U.S.

Not significantly large populations, but certainly not nonexistent.

Sure, but no one means anything towards them when they say 'gyp'. The vast majority probably wouldn't even know to spell it the same as the first syllable in 'gypsy.'  It's purely etymology, not racism. 

I think the 'back of the bus' thing is different in that it's not a common part of the language in the way that guy uses it, and someone ought to take pity on him and explain that the phrase has an offensive connotation that he may not be aware of. 

[smick]

Sure, but no one means anything towards them when they say 'gyp'. The vast majority probably wouldn't even know to spell it the same as the first syllable in 'gypsy.'  It's purely etymology, not racism. 

I think it's a problem of differing backgrounds.   Here's the city I was raised in.

[Arachno-capitalist]

Sure, but no one means anything towards them when they say 'gyp'. The vast majority probably wouldn't even know to spell it the same as the first syllable in 'gypsy.'  It's purely etymology, not racism. 

I think the 'back of the bus' thing is different in that it's not a common part of the language in the way that guy uses it, and someone ought to take pity on him and explain that the phrase has an offensive connotation that he may not be aware of. 

Gyp is not racist, but I know at least one other board member who would be offended by the term "welched". Also, I am always caught off guard when a tv personality or professor says "reneged".