the term fence jumper, despite the knee jerk reactionism of some here who would limit free speech, is not a racist term. it merely refers to someone who illegally summits a fence. could be palestinians, could be east germans, could be hungry dutch boys after pie.
there are a host of racist terms that could be applied to illegal immigrants. some are specific to their country of origin and many are non race specific and merely refer to their illegality. is a reference to illegality by its very nature racist merely because a large segment of undocumented immigrants hail from one country?
the fact that a term may be used in a racist manner doesn't make the term itself racist. unless that term might be niggardly, which predated n*, but just sounds a little too similar to pass muster. just as my referring to ritz as crackers is not me using a racist term.
Broadway Legend Joined: 12/31/69
So can we share our favorite moments of PC frenzy? How about a couple years back where "picnic" was critized as a racist term.
c'mon, joe, everyone knows that "picnic" is gop code for piccaninny. that word needs to be stricken from the english language as fast as possible. in fact, i demand that joe's usage of it and mine be deleted before they cause mass rioting among the coloreds.
I have a very funny story about a friend of mine who wouldn't speak to me for days because of a coincidental and unintentional connection I made between Booker T. Washington and fried chicken (which, of course, is the food synonymous with racism against African-Americans in the U.S., I did not know) but it's too long for me to tell here.
yeah, a stereotype, but then again ya haven't lived until you've heard leslie uggams refusing to go onstage until she's got her popeye's fried chicken. i sh*t you not.
Well, I was unaware of such a close stereotype whenever we were going aover a matching portion of a study guide in U.S. History. Letter F just happened to be the letter corresponding with Booker T. Washington (I wasn't looking at the names, just the letters) and as we were checking we would assign the answers with food items (for example, "number 4 is C, as in cheeseburger") and we came upon whatever number F was the answer to and I blurted "F, for fried chicken." There was a gasp all around the room and I couldn't figure out why. Later on, my best friend (who happens to be African-American) came up to me and said, "I don't think it's funny, Booker T. Washington and fried chicken." I just stood there with my mouth open. I was completely embarrassed and I don't know why.
But anyway, that's the story and I guess it's not as long as I thought it would be. Then again, there's really no reason for me to have been embarrasssed. It was unintentional and a stretch at that.
you are so going to racist hell with bull connor and james earl ray, geek. no amount of repentence can save you now. we've seen the black hole that is your racist soul!
You're sarcastic now, but with the looks I got from my classmates for the rest of the day I would have believed that was true, Papa.
It's just a display of how America has become far far far too PC to the point at which something as harmless and ambiguous as what I (unintentionally, mind you) said. We all just need to relax a little.
actually, it's more along the lines of the old adage, "a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing." many people now recognize racism which is a good thing. that they allow that knowledge to overrule their common sense at times is a bad thing.
That's very true. I'm definitely not sayiing that people shouldn't be politically correct at times--obviously, as we've all seen, it's very common and very easy to become racist/sexist/hommophobic/etc. an cross a line that shouldn't be crossed. But we live in a society that so contradicts itself in its norms on so many levels that common sense barelly seems to be a factor anymore.
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