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Racist / Homophobic / Offensive Things Your Family Has Said


Devon Malcolm

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My mum has on occasion used "half caste" which makes me wince.

 

I hear older relatives say this sometimes as well, and tend to find that a "you can't say that anymore" will often be met with "...but they are!"

 

Then I start reciting John Agard, then it all goes downhill from there.

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Haha! Much like other people, the thread finally broke me and I laughed out loud..

 

Handlers!

 

Brilliant.

 

I've been guilty of using that word, specifically for the purpose of offending people.

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Speaking of words you can't use anymore, a friend of mine shook his head when I remarked I was doing really well on International Cricket on the XBox 360 due to my brilliant chinaman who is unstoppable from around the wicket. I didn't even realise what I'd said until a while after I said it but I don't think the word had such a negative influence as it does in the US. I recall an American I know taking exception to my usage of the words Orient and Oriental, though in the former case I was ranting about the football club from Leyton. Is that now a racist word?

Edited by mikey
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When visiting my grandparents once I was wearing a t-shirt with Richard Pryors face on it. My nan asked 'Which one's that then? Daley Thompson?'

 

That's a harking back to a time when the only black faces on television were Lenny Henry (honorary white), Daley Thompson and Paul Danquah from Jackanory.

How dare you forget about Floella Benjeman and Derek Griffiths.

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Speaking of words you can't use anymore, a friend of mine shook his head when I remarked I was doing really well on International Cricket on the XBox 360 due to my brilliant chinaman who is unstoppable from around the wicket. I didn't even realise what I'd said until a while after I said it but I don't think the word had such a negative influence as it does in the US. I recall an American I know taking exception to my usage of the words Orient and Oriental, though in the former case I was ranting about the football club from Leyton. Is that now a racist word?

 

"Oriental" is racist in the US, as they tend to use it more to describe items like rugs and whatnot, but I've never heard of it being referred to as racist here.

 

Keep in mind that the word "black" is "officially" racist in the US as well, though.

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My mum has on occasion used "half caste" which makes me wince.

People do use it in total innocence, though.

 

One of my uncles got himself vexed during the World Cup when the Daily Mail decided to give people the idea that police were banning fans from wearing football shirts, joining thousands of others in playing prolier than thou on Facebook. He made the doubly idiotic comment "are they gonna ban muslims from wearing their turbans?" and was rightly picked up on it by several people. He emerged online later in the day a very angry man:

 

"HOW DARE YOU CALL ME RACIST I'VE GOT HALF CASTE SON!"

 

And it's true. He and his missus broke up for a couple of months, during which time she became pregnant by a black fellow and my uncle's raised the child as his own and equal to their other kids. The name's tattooed on his hand and everything.

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Keep in mind that the word "black" is "officially" racist in the US as well, though.

Yeah, that's a strange attitude, considering "white" is still in free use and that "person of color" is considered an improvement.

 

I can't recall where it took place but I facepalmed at some American over here once referring to a black British athlete/comedian/celebrity/whatever as an "African-American".

Edited by Ronnie
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"Oriental" is racist in the US, as they tend to use it more to describe items like rugs and whatnot, but I've never heard of it being referred to as racist here.

 

Keep in mind that the word "black" is "officially" racist in the US as well, though.

 

I find the term Caucasian to be greatly offensive.

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My mum has on occasion used "half caste" which makes me wince. She also used to refer to the two blokes who owned a local pub as "Darren the queer" and "Ray the gay". Lovely. She doesn't do it malisciously though (not that that's an excuse) but coming from Wales most people have a "the something" after their names.

 

My mum's friend is still known as "Linda the cafe" despite her not owning a cafe since 1986. There's a family known as "the coals" because the father used to deliver coal so he's "Lyn the coal", his wife is "Sandra the coal" and the kids are Ross and Ryan the coal respectively. There's also "Betty the shop", "Wilf the shop" and "Brenda the shop" although it gets confusing as they all relate to different shops... I digress.

 

I've never heard of this before. I gotta say it's pretty odd.

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Keep in mind that the word "black" is "officially" racist in the US as well, though.

 

[citation needed]

 

Can't provide one, sorry. I've drawn this conclusion largely from lots of American broadcasts where formality seems to require the phrase "African-American" rather than "black". It's almost like there's an "official" informality where "black" is allowed, but completely prohibited in such things as political speeches and news broadcasts.

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Speaking of dogs - and this is one that's come from the elderly work colleagues - apparently it used to be quite common for black labradors to be called Nigger. Said colleagues didn't quite grasp why this would now be considered unthinkable.

 

My family moved to rural Ireland in 1991. We got a small black dog, and were trying to decide what to call it. Three separate neighbours suggested calling it 'nigger', and were completely serious. It was the same kind of automatic suggestion as calling a dog with a patch 'Patch'. They didn't get why we wouldn't do it.

 

We had a Great-Uncle from Manchester visit once, who spent a week there and loved it. Before he left, the last thing he said to my Dad was 'It's great over here. For God's sake, don't let the blacks move into the area and ruin it'.

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My mother-in-law once made the point that she didn't understand why a woman would want to be with another woman because they wouldn't have a man around to help them open any particularly tight jar lids.

Speaking of that kind of attitude, it reminded me of an old TV advert that I saw on youtube the other day, where they'd designed a double thick car tire, for the highly unlikely event that a woman would be driving alone and would be completely fucked, should she get a flat. You can see it at 1:00 of

. The whole compilation there is pretty crazy, actually. It seems completely bizarre by today's standards to hear Barbara Streisand say
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That's not what happened.

 

There was an article online on a website where the editor had clearly done a find/replace on "black" for "African American", and accidentally applied it to an instance where the article was referring to the colour black and not the race.

 

To intentionally refer to the colour as "African American" at all, let alone mandate it, would be completely fucking idiotic.

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