I guess it’s like an apology without all of the burden of responsibility.
Yeah, you can go guzzle a bag o’dicks too–don’t forget to gargle.
I was ten when I got a job delivering newspapers. I lived in a small town and we deliverers collected the money from the subscribers ourselves, deposited into our bank accounts, then wrote a check for how much had to go to the newspaper company. My parents did help me manage the account, though.
I am in Virginia and god knows we have some dumbass mothafuckas. Ken Cuccinelli is one of “ours.” I don’t think I’d like to be lumped in with that asshole.
You joined only a couple years after I did - the SDMB has, for more than a decade, been a place where racists and misogynists love to take advantage of “a rational conversation” or “just asking questions” - yes, there are a lot of good folks here on the Dope that push back, but it hasn’t really ever been “better” in the twenty years I’ve been here
You were way ahead of me then. What I remember in the early 60’s is being told by my mom, “don’t call them nigrews (my grandmother’s favorite term) or (the N word), that’s not nice. They’re colored people”. That phrase did seem to be acceptable where I lived at the time, in Flint and later Detroit, MI.
Now by the mid 70’s I got the message that we’d moved away from that term, and I worked to adapt. But then I found that “people of color” was a new acceptable phrase, and I noted this led a lot of folks, including younger ones, to conclude that must mean “colored people” was ok too. It was tough to keep up, for some folks.
But it’s, true, anyone who uses the phrase like “the coloreds”, or “colored people” is pretty out of it.
Even so, I completely missed certain memos. Until about a decade ago, I still thought ‘abo’ and ‘paki’ were nonderogatory shorthand terms for native australians and native pakistanis. And that ‘oriental’ was ok to apply to a person. Fortunately I didn’t embarrass myself badly with those before I learned otherwise.
Really, I just want to call a person what they want to be called, like Elan, or Mrs. Benai.
^^ One of the books in this old 1950’s series of Betsy and her little sister Star books used the term and I had to ask what it meant. I lived in a very sheltered suburb of Chicago.
It’s possible to live in a stupid state without being a stupid person–my condolences about sharing the world with The Cooch though, that’s not fun. I’m in the PNW, we mostly have white supremacist dumbasses and serial killers. Those tend to be mostly under the radar–right up until they aren’t, of course. 
My grandmother used the term colored people until the day she died. But she was born in 1900 and it was an acceptable term when she grew up. Should she have adapted at some point? Probably.
Personally, I have trouble with the word queer. I am aware that plenty of people now use it to describe themselves and there’s no negative intent. But I grew up in a time when it was considered a derogatory term and I don’t like using it.
I might be mistaken, but queer is still probably not a word that should be used about a person by a non-queer, and maybe not even then (however I’m an old fella who is not au courant with current mores in this regard). There are plenty of phrases where it legitimately occurs, like queer cultural studies or queer arts gallery, but not used directly about a person.
Regarding the subject of this thread, I long ago abandoned any belief in the “aw shucks, I didn’t know that, just asking questions” responses every single time he is called on something he says. I don’t know if it’s trolling exactly, or just some game to see what he can get away with. I have no interest in finding out.
It seems ‘Brown’ is okay. I’ve heard it alot with the recent protests and political talk.
Often lumped in with ‘Latina’
I’ll not use it. But, it seems it’s the latest term for ‘People of Color’.
It’s not the same thing as PoC, only a subset. It’s not the same as Latinx, it’s a broader group. And some people don’t like it at all, as they think it’s a step backwards from PoC.
I’m not well versed in the writings of poster Ynnad, but aceplace is not the dumbest fuck in that thread. I’d link, but there’s a whole bunch of instances. Just in that thread.
“hard” ware hands
You’re responding to a 5-year-old post.
That’s not quite the same as not knowing “colored” is now offensive, though. Neither of those terms is common in the U.S.; the first probably because there isn’t a large Aboriginal Australian community here, and the second because that’s more a Briticism.
Any American, especially one who lives in the South, is aware that “colored person” is a racist slur, nevermind what it was back in the 1940s. “Durr, I jest dint know” is nothing more than disingenuous horsefeces.
Yeah, I never even heard the term “abo” until it was banned by Scrabble.
You must be referring to this thread: News Anchor is fired for referring to Kamala Harris as colored in news promo because I was not even around when the OP in this Pit thread was started. I will accept being the “dumbest fuck in that thread” and will strive to be the “dumbest fuck” in this post as well. I will also make future posts to confirm my stupidity.
I am somewhat confused that there have been several responses to my posts in that thread that strongly imply that I am a racist bigot. To avoid accusations of cherry picking, I have reproduced all of my posts in that thread below. Note that I did not post until well after “person of color” was introduced in the thread.
I am not trying to defend anybody or any word. I am just curious. Does anyone know exactly when, why, and how this word [colored] became offensive. I am just guessing, but I bet at one time using this word was a way of being polite before it got put on the euphemism treadmill. Is it because it was a term commonly used in the Jim Crow era to label waiting rooms, water fountains, rest rooms, etc.?
Can you imagine trying to explain to a hypothetical person from another planet who knew nothing about Earth why “colored” is offensive but “person of color” is not? Typing this made me think of something. In twenty or thirty years “person of color” will probably be highly offensive.
I guess we will just have to wait twenty or thirty years to find out who was correct. The way that things like this evolve does not always follow a logical process.
I am not the one who is mystified. I was talking about a hypothetical person from another planet.
Well it wouldn’t be exactly obvious to someone who didn’t know the history behind the two terms.
The phrase “person of color” was first used in its present connotation since about the 1970s. But about two hundred years ago the term was used to distinguish mixed-race persons of African and European ancestry from darker-skinned persons of mostly African ancestry. Also, many years ago, the use of the term Negro was encouraged because Black was considered offensive.So what does this mean? Things are constantly changing. If you want to sound like a nice person then keep yourself educated and choose your words carefully.
The news anchor said, “first colored vice presidential candidate.” I suppose he could have said “first African-American vice presidential candidate” or “first Black vice presidential candidate” and that would be OK. But suppose for whatever reason the TV station preferred the term “person of color.” How would you say that using the same short, simple sequence of “first [racial descriptor] vice presidential candidate.”? Remember this was a quick promo teaser. “First person of color vice presidential candidate” just doesn’t sound natural, does it? “Person of color” doesn’t seem to work as both a noun and an adjective like African-American does. Come to think of it, Black doesn’t really work as both a noun and an adjective either. You wouldn’t say, “Look at that Black standing over there across the street.” would you? The English language is funny like that sometimes.
[response to needscoffee ’s They reword it. It’s their job. It’s what they do.] That’s the point I was trying to make.
But “first vice presidential candidate of color” doesn’t really sound right either. It’s a good thing I’m not a news editor.
What do you want to bet there are at least a few people in the United States that would be offended by the term “person of color”? Myself, I would be leery of using that term in public speaking unless I knew my audience well.
I am not claiming that the announcer would have been fired if he had referred to Harris as a person of color. The point of my post was that “[s]ome people are easily offended.”
There are probably also a significant number of older, less-educated African-Americans who would perceive the term as a back-handed way of referring to them as colored persons. And I would not want to offend them.
[In reponse to Czarcasm ’s… as many people as belong to The Flat Earth Society … .] Which, surprisingly, is not an insignificant number.
[In reponse to Acsenray ’s This point [“[s]ome people are easily offended.”] is brought up about a million times more often than is necessary or useful. I’d advise you to stop offering it, as it adds nothing to the discussion.] I thought the whole point of this discussion was to learn how to avoid offending people. Therefore, I posit that it is very relevant to this discussion.
[In response to Reimann’s … It’s quite obvious that there are good reasons why the historical use of the word “colored” gives it significant semantic baggage.]
You are absolutely right about that. One quick example: [link to photograph of segregated water fountains omitted.] Why do you think I am trying to attempt some sort of “gotcha”?
Please state with specificity and particularity which word or words in the above posts indicate that I am a racist bigot.
I called you a dumbfuck.
Specifically and particularly, you are a disingenuous* dumbfuck.
*by the New Oxford definition