If you didn’t display it as a reference to lynching then it wasn’t a reference to lynching. And vast numbers of people of all colors across history have been hanged, either legally or by mob. People claiming that the noose represents one and only one thing are profoundly myopic.
Yeah, but no noose is good noose.
No. At some point politically correct becomes politically batshit crazy.
Oh, crap, I just offended PETA
Oh, boy. Time to go and burn all the old Looney Tunes reels… Yosemite Sam should be charged with a hate crime!
Never heard anyone use cotton-picker.
Only in old movies and cartoons. I don’t recall the exact context. Wait a cotton-pickin minute seems familiar. Never heard it in a real conversation.
It was probably a bad attempt to sound southern.
I didn’t find it offensive or racist, but I might be out of my chicken-plucking mind.
Dadgummit,
Shodan
If "cotton-pipkin’ " is so inoffensive, why do so many people use "ever-lovin’ " instead?
I don’t agree with you, but that was legitimately funny.
This is funny. I was just going to post that he wouldn’t have gotten into trouble if he had used the correct phrase - “out of his ever lovin’ mind” and then I saw your post at the end of the stream!
Posted without reading any other responses:
I voted “Neither offensive nor racist,” but I can see there might be some occasions - if said by a Southern white politician about a black critic, for instance - in which it could certainly be seen as such.
And wouldn’t it be “cotton-pickin’”?
I find your remarks offensive.
And I’m offended that you’re offended.
Offensensitivity
That’s… well, you know.
You see what happens? This is what happens when you find a stranger in the Alps!
Not offensive or racist. Shrug. This kerfuffle reminds me a little of a situation where I was informed that the word “hysterical” is misogynist and I shouldn’t use it. (As in, “That story is hysterical”.) The reasons were due to the origins of the word; which are largely lost on 99% of the population.
Now, I have no idea if the original intent of "cotton-pickin’ " , way back when, was racist or not. My take is, even if it was racist, most people don’t have those associations any more. I could be wrong, I have no way to poll the nation. But based purely on my own monkey-sphere, I suspect I’m right.
I’m in the not racist/not offensive crowd. As was mentioned earlier, Foghorn Leghorn was known to say it. While way back when cartoons used what would now be offensive caricatures, I don’t think they ever used questionable language. Innuendo, for sure, but no pejoratives.
You might feel differently if you’d had valid complaints dismissed as “some chick thing” while your males co-workers were considered tough and hard-driving for losing their shit over every little thing. Well, if you are a man and you were a woman. (Finally, a perfect example for the subjective in English.)
This is one of those phrases that had little real meaning (Is a “cotton pickin’ minute” different than a minute?)and eventually slipped from the popular vernacular. If you hadn’t heard it before, I could see how it might logically be construed as racist, despite its origins. If I hadn’t heard adults say it when I was a kid, I’d probably assume it was racist.
I confess I’m not sure why people get upset that others construe it that way. It’s not like it’s in popular usage now.
It’s as racist as wearing cotton socks.
I picked ‘other’ for reasons I’ll explain:
Do I think it’s racist? Well first let me preface it by saying that I’m a white guy of Jewish heritage from New York so what I think about it is irrelevant. I will say that I’ve traveled a bit, and I’ve seen a lot of anti-semitism, from the casual non-intentionally racist remarks that come out of ignorance, to outright bile and hatred, and everything in between. And hence I’ve become more sensitive than most people. I’ve gotten into arguments about things that I felt were anti-semitic, but a very good non-Jewish friend disagreed. In that case, as being the one offended, I’m, by definition correct, at least to the extent that it is offensive.
And that’s just it – if you are offended, then it’s offensive to you. Personally, I don’t see ‘cotton-picken’ as being racist, but I’m just one white guy from New York, so I hardly count.
In other words, it’s offensive to the person or persons who are offended. I don’t think it’s INTENTIONAL racism, for sure. But if you are hurt by those words, that’s your reality, and you have every right to let people know that you are being hurt. I personally am not sure that anyone SHOULD be hurt, but it doesn’t matter what I’m sure of or not.
That said, if you are someone who merely objects to it because you THINK that someone else might be hurt, well that’s like holding someone as guilty for a thought crime. Show me the person who actually feels hurt by it, and I’ll believe you. But with something so non-antagonistic, and ambiguous, people ought not to jump to any conclusions.