I also got taught that 'Jap' was bad to say even though it was short for Japanese. With WWII still fairly fresh in my mother's head after I was born, she didn't like the way people in her day called people "japs" or worse, 'dirty jap'. It wasn't until high school that I learned what "gerry" was when the word was used in Bye Bye Birdie, t…
I also got taught that 'Jap' was bad to say even though it was short for Japanese. With WWII still fairly fresh in my mother's head after I was born, she didn't like the way people in her day called people "japs" or worse, 'dirty jap'. It wasn't until high school that I learned what "gerry" was when the word was used in Bye Bye Birdie, the musical I was in. (Once again Mom the WWII Expert helped here). I knew about 'gook' (I think that was common in the Korean War too). I'll use the 'B' word but I avoid the 'C' word. Although I used it in the article I wrote for a feminist website (still not published yet) because I was quoting transwomen who loved to call women transphobic c's on Twitter. Hmmmm....then there's the word 'deplorables'...
I could give a very long list of slang words used for people from different countries, including the European ones. They were common when I was young but not so much now. The stuff I prefer to not normalize in my own head pertains to making it OK to kill or beat the crap out of someone.
The big one came out of making it OK to enslave people. I find it hard to believe that people in their heart of hearts were not aware of the evil of slavery, but they eased their conscience via the dehumanization of the people they enslaved. Yet they knew they were human.
Runaway slave ads gave descriptions that included the talents of the slave to help identify them because they wanted their slave back. Interestingly, those ads that have been preserved give a history counter to that dehumanization. ~He is an accomplished carpenter and black smith. Known to play the fiddle at barn dances. Speaks English and French~ In a society where teaching a slave to read was a crime the description is of an accomplished and talented man. So, he was called a "N". Catch my property and return him to me for a reward.
Shortenings usually end up being slurs but they're inevitable. Japanese —>Jap, Nipponese—>Nip, these are as inevitable as refrigerator—>fridge. But they end up being slurs.
But not Brit--British. Then again, one can turn *anything* into a slur. Haters will pick up on anything and do it because changing the labels doesn't change the minds. Several years ago in a bar, some friends and I tested it out by being bigoted toward each other for totally non-political things. We called each other Pink Shirt and Baseball Cap and and hurled those labels as though they were the n-word. We were in hysterics. It's why I'm not in favour of constantly rendering new neutral words 'offensive'. It's just silly that you can say 'people of colour' now rather than 'coloured people'. I asked my black roommate in college why you can't say 'coloured people' anymore (which was acceptable ten years prior) and she said she wasn't sure, maybe making reference to skin colour at all? Then there's Negro, which is merely the Spanish word for black; yeah, that's where the verboten n-word comes from, but pronounced properly there's nothing offensive about it. The only thing that ever confused me as a kid was calling folks 'black people', since none of them were black. Until I saw some Original Africans who truly were black-skinned.
"I asked my black roommate in college why you can't say 'coloured people' anymore (which was acceptable ten years prior) and she said she wasn't sure"
The "logic"behind this is that it was considered dehumanising to put anything in front of the "people" part. It's why it became "people of colour." Somehow, black people remained acceptable though. Maybe "people of blackness" was too ridiculous even for the language police.
Others objected to "coloured" because it separated humanity into white people and everybody else. Which is exactly what "BIPOC" does now. Basically, what I'm saying is, you will find no internal logical consistency. It's just people for whom taking offence is a hobby.
I also got taught that 'Jap' was bad to say even though it was short for Japanese. With WWII still fairly fresh in my mother's head after I was born, she didn't like the way people in her day called people "japs" or worse, 'dirty jap'. It wasn't until high school that I learned what "gerry" was when the word was used in Bye Bye Birdie, the musical I was in. (Once again Mom the WWII Expert helped here). I knew about 'gook' (I think that was common in the Korean War too). I'll use the 'B' word but I avoid the 'C' word. Although I used it in the article I wrote for a feminist website (still not published yet) because I was quoting transwomen who loved to call women transphobic c's on Twitter. Hmmmm....then there's the word 'deplorables'...
I could give a very long list of slang words used for people from different countries, including the European ones. They were common when I was young but not so much now. The stuff I prefer to not normalize in my own head pertains to making it OK to kill or beat the crap out of someone.
The big one came out of making it OK to enslave people. I find it hard to believe that people in their heart of hearts were not aware of the evil of slavery, but they eased their conscience via the dehumanization of the people they enslaved. Yet they knew they were human.
Runaway slave ads gave descriptions that included the talents of the slave to help identify them because they wanted their slave back. Interestingly, those ads that have been preserved give a history counter to that dehumanization. ~He is an accomplished carpenter and black smith. Known to play the fiddle at barn dances. Speaks English and French~ In a society where teaching a slave to read was a crime the description is of an accomplished and talented man. So, he was called a "N". Catch my property and return him to me for a reward.
Shortenings usually end up being slurs but they're inevitable. Japanese —>Jap, Nipponese—>Nip, these are as inevitable as refrigerator—>fridge. But they end up being slurs.
But not Brit--British. Then again, one can turn *anything* into a slur. Haters will pick up on anything and do it because changing the labels doesn't change the minds. Several years ago in a bar, some friends and I tested it out by being bigoted toward each other for totally non-political things. We called each other Pink Shirt and Baseball Cap and and hurled those labels as though they were the n-word. We were in hysterics. It's why I'm not in favour of constantly rendering new neutral words 'offensive'. It's just silly that you can say 'people of colour' now rather than 'coloured people'. I asked my black roommate in college why you can't say 'coloured people' anymore (which was acceptable ten years prior) and she said she wasn't sure, maybe making reference to skin colour at all? Then there's Negro, which is merely the Spanish word for black; yeah, that's where the verboten n-word comes from, but pronounced properly there's nothing offensive about it. The only thing that ever confused me as a kid was calling folks 'black people', since none of them were black. Until I saw some Original Africans who truly were black-skinned.
"I asked my black roommate in college why you can't say 'coloured people' anymore (which was acceptable ten years prior) and she said she wasn't sure"
The "logic"behind this is that it was considered dehumanising to put anything in front of the "people" part. It's why it became "people of colour." Somehow, black people remained acceptable though. Maybe "people of blackness" was too ridiculous even for the language police.
Others objected to "coloured" because it separated humanity into white people and everybody else. Which is exactly what "BIPOC" does now. Basically, what I'm saying is, you will find no internal logical consistency. It's just people for whom taking offence is a hobby.