Kinsey, No, no, you didn’t offend at all! Don’t worry about it, please.
I read Baker’s post and even with my limited Korean, that makes a lot of sense to me. I did some research on the net and found another message board (doing a yahoo search on “gook origin”) where someone said ‘gook’ was used in the early 1900’s. So who really knows.
I am 1/2 French-German and 1/2 Korean. Most caucasian people think I look Asian and most Asian people think I look caucasian. When I was a child, little kids used to pull their eyes slanted and sing-song about Chinese people. To this day, I DETEST being asked if I am Chinese! I know that people are generally curious but it always makes me feel a little as if people don’t even know that there are other Asian countries out there and if they do, hell, China’s population is so big, the stats are on their side of the guess. Plus, I am ashamed to admit, stereotypes among Asian people about other Asian groups is so damn strong and I hate being mistaken for anything but Korean. Geeze, I feel like a jerk just typing that. Anyway…
Dave, I’m sorry we’re hi-jacking this - but you’ve brought up interesting topics with your post!
Whenever I go home to visit my family, I know I can count on being horribly pissed off at some racist comment from someone. The worst offenders are my grandfather and my uncle. Hispanic people are their favorite target, though they’ll branch out as needed. At this point, I know I’ll never change their minds, so I settle for rolling my eyes and mentally mocking them.
My grandfather was always considered the really smart one in the family. He is good at math and some science and local history, but it’s really hard not to think of someone as stupid when they’ll say things like:
“I don’t see why they come over here. It’s so much cheaper there.”
(Yeah, Gramps, for Americans.)
“They don’t want to be citizens. They just want to come over here and take jobs from Americans and get on welfare.”
(What kind of moron would sit and suffer in poverty if he could get a job elsewhere? I don’t think my other grandfather’s father left Rome to live in a country where he couldn’t speak the language and faced discrimination because he just felt like taking a boat ride.)
Well, no, of course it’s not all, and it’s probably not even most. But a very loud group of very francophobic people seem to set the tone for all debates over language in Montreal. They tend to dominate the opinions expressed in The Gazette and on CFCF news.
I work in a store just outside Westmount, and every day I get to hear the lastest Quebec-government-conspiracy theory, the latest outrageous comparison – comparisons to apartheid, to the Nazis, to third-world countries.
Francophones buy English magazines all the time at my store.
It’s rare for an anglophone to buy one in French, and a couple of times anglophones have tried to return magazines they didn’t realize were in French as “defective.”
I have been called a traitor on two occasions because I have mentioned I do not vote for the Quebec Liberal Party. Many anglophones (including the guy I’m seeing now, who’s 31) live their whole lives here without learning French.
And it’s possible to do that here. The government is very accomodating. I can get service in English here easily, though I’d never get service in French in BC. I’ve worked with quite a few people who couldn’t speak French with customers, but never with one who couldn’t speak English.
I’ve experienced actual discrimination for being gay. So whenever one of these people shoots off his or her mouth about the evil French, I ask them for examples of discrimination. These people – again, likely a very loud minority – are often shocked that I wouldn’t agree with them, as I, as an English-speaker, am apparently expected to.
hmm… I came very close to dateing a vietnamese girl, but hid it from my parents as I knew they would be totally bothered by that. then the girl’s parents totally forbid her from dateing me… because I was white. just for the sake of irony I guess. ah well, shes a really good freind now, and would have been bad if we dated. but man… it really isn’t fun to be descriminated by race… at all…
My best memory was hanging out in New Orleans with a couple of friends. We were at a super market late one night in a prodominantly black area, and while one friend was off, the other one and I were just hanging out in line. My friend started acting all huffy. When I asked him what’s wrong, his only response was “Stupid fucking ns." I just looked at him and told him he needed to calm the fuck down and relax. We were surrounded by people, so getting into it with him at that moment wasn’t the best place to do it, but there was a nice discussion in the car afterwards. Unfortunately, I was outnumbered, but at least he started to see my point.
The thing that gets me are the people that say "Well, there’s a difference between blacks and ns.” What’s the fucking difference? They both have the same skin color and the only thing you’re judging them on is that. Sure, economical status may come into it, but you assume culture and skin color mean the same thing, and when you judge one person on it, you can’t just let another slide by. It’s ridiculous. Luckily, I manage to find myslef surrounded by open minded, non-prejudice people, but I have no problems telling others to watch thier language if the racial slurs start to fly.
Of course, I took pride in having all my Chinese friends in the dorms refer to me as Cracker, so maybe I’m a little hypocritical.
I deal with this kind of crap every day. There’s a group of people here who take joy in flying their rebel flags and badmouthing black people. I can’t hang around these people any longer.
My SO sometimes gives me the “There’s a difference between blacks and niggers” line. Only in your eyes, buddy. But then he will go off on how “People think all mexicans are gross and lazy and no one likes them here and some of my best friends are mexican and they look out for each other”, right after he gets done telling my how fucking lazy and stupid black people are. So, according to him, racism is OK, but only if it’s directed toward black people. I swear, sometimes I just can’t deal with people like this.
Then he’ll go off by saying how everyone in Texas has SO MUCH state pride, and its Texas this, Texas that, and people think that the south is full of redneck hillbillies. Even though he was born and raised in Kansas he thinks that people from Texas or from southern states are better than other people. Sheesh!
I don’t see skin color. I don’t discriminate. I truly believe we all were created equal, and if everyone would just close their eyes and open their minds, maybe this world would be a better place.
While I agree with the other sentiments, I disagree with this. I don’t think that well-intentioned white folks are really accomplishing much by saying this. If you tell a black person, “I don’t see color” or “I’m colorblind,” it’s as if you’re saying that you are disregarding or overlooking part of who they are.
I see skin color. I see the beauty of black people, white people, Hispanic people, and Asian people. We ought not to ignore the qualitities that make us who we are; who wants to live in a world of boring sameness? We should embrace our racial and cultural diversity.
I see you, you’re black, and. baby, you’re beautiful.
A few weeks ago my husband and I were hanging out at the counter of a barbeque place in a diverse neighborhood, waiting for our order. Pat’s reading the left side of the paper, I’m reading the right. The place has about 10 other people in it, of various ethnicities.
An older man comes in a sits next to me, on my right. He leans across me, puts his hand on the paper to make it lay flat on the counter, and by way of introduction, says to Pat, “What do you tell a woman with two black eyes?”
Pat: “I’ve heard this one before.” (On Angel, it so happens)
Man: “Nothing you haven’t already told her twice! Haw haw haw!”
I look at Pat and point out something on my half of the paper, and we talk about it quietly for a while. Man leans across me again and says, “What do they call abortion in the ghetto?”
I read the paper studiously. The man repeats it, touching Pat’s arm.
Pat: “I don’t know.”
Man: “Crime control! Haw haw haw!”
I was furious and embarrassed and had no idea how to handle it. I wasn’t sure who else could hear him (there was music playing), and I didn’t want to start anything between him and my (much smaller) husband. We wound up taking our food to go and practically running out the door. What a miserable ass. And he made me feel like one, too, for not standing up to him.
I used to live in the Shadyside section of Pittsburgh, not too far (about 2 blocks) from East Liberty. Closest supermarket was a Giant Eagle in East Liberty (or Easliberdy in Pittsburghese) that was about five blocks away from my apartment building.
Every single time I walked the three blocks through East Liberty, I was informed in a not so polite manner that my ‘Cracka bitch ass’ did not belong in that ‘hood.’
Couldn’t walk three blocks without someone pointing out that I was ‘whitey’ and didn’t deserve to walk down those sidewalks.
So it bothers me if a person assumes that people of European ancestry don’t have to deal with racist comments, because it’s not true. There’s a minority alright, and that minority has the title ‘racist assholes’.
Skin tone doesn’t seem to have anything to do with whether or not one can be a racist asshole. Or as was once said by John Henson:
‘Racism is an equal opportunity form of ignorance.’
I have to deal with it from my brothers and sisters all the time.
I really put it on one of by brothers (who is older than me by several years - while I’m much bigger and stronger) this past weekend. We’re sitting in a Golden Corral buffet place and he makes some disparaging remarks about “niggers” with a black family sitting very close by.
Me- “Shut up dude. You’re gonna wind up getting us all in trouble.”
Brother- “Awww, you know it’s true! Besides, I’ve got you to protect me!”
Me- “Protect you? Maybe not.”
He got quiet quick.
Unfortunately, it didn’t change his attitudes.
Some people won’t even ask, they’ll just assume that you’re Chinese. So I actually don’t mind it when they ask. When I was younger, I actually had some kid tell me that I was lying when I said I was Korean, that I’m actually Chinese :rolleyes:
I guess he was too young to realize how ridiculous he sounded
Both Kimchi-crunchers and Seoul Brothers would be too long, don’t you think? I must say I’ve never heard the term “gook” as slur before. As Baker already mentioned, in Korean it may mean “nation”, but also “soup/broth”
And just as a point of interest, in the late '80s, there was a singing group (consisting of 3 rather unattractive women) called the “Seoul Sisters” (Seoul pronounced “suh-ul”, rather than “soul”) - not very popular at all, actually sort of ridiculed, for their lame name as much as for anything…
Reminds me of one of the early episodes of King of the Hill, when Kanh and family move in next door.
“So, are you Chinese or Japanese?”
“I am from Laos!”
(silence)
“So, are you Chinese or Japanese?”
“I am from Laos, you stupid redneck! LAOS! You know, east of Vietnam, north of Cambodia, west of Thailand?”
“OK! Jeez! …So are you Chinese or Japanese?”
As for me, I’m going to have a tough time with my own family in years to come. I was raised in a family that, while not overtly racist in that they never used the word “nigger” or anything, was still racist and would continually make jokes about how when we were on vacation we got lost in “the black part of town”, or whatever. When I was a kid, I just put up with it, but I’m not willing to let them make those kinds of jokes in front of my own son. I love my family, but I’m going to have to stand up to them before long, I guess.
Sorry and a little surprised to hear this, catsix. I used to live in Shadyside too, and go to that same Giant Eagle, albeit on my bike usually, and never had any trouble.
But that was about 10 years ago. Maybe things have changes - not for the better, obviously.
catsix, wireless… Huh! Small world. An extremely good friend lives in that area too, and uses that same “Jant Iggle”. Of course, she’s a retired Chief Petty Officer, and looks every bit as tough as she actually is, so that may cut some slack for her.
I’ve been in there myself, and while no one fussed with me, I got a distinct feeling of not being ‘on home turf’.
I didn’t really mean that as I don’t physically see the color with my eyes, but its not my immediate reaction when I first meet someone to place them in a category. I see skin color, I just don’t think about it.
catsix[, I also know the Giant Eagle you’re talking about. When I first moved back to Pittsburgh, I worked for a non-profit organization in 'SLiberty and had to take the bus to get to it, so I spent a lot of time walking through that neighborhood. I never had any problems with being called anything and, FTR, I’m not just white, I’m pale! Of course, at the time, I had just moved back to Hawaii, so it was strange to be back in a world where people appeared to be just one race.
Getting back to the OP, I also used to work in a small manufacturing plant where predjudice was assumed. My co-workers saw nothing wrong with making remarks about the black people who worked in one section of the plant, and tried to make remarks about my friendship with them. Needless to say, it wasn’t very successful, and the one time I have outright lost my temper full bore at work was when a woman I once respected made an unabashedly racist comment. She never did forgive me for my response; I only regret how extreme it was, not the response itself.
“There are no bad words just bad thoughts” - Chris Rock
I think the issue here is being sterotypical. The individuals that use temrs of that nature are sterotyping a group of people. It could be from personal experience or otherwise.
I try not judge anyone for any reason. I am neither African American or Caucasian. But living in america I grew up around both and not many people of my own race.
Unfortunately I noticed some differences among the two races, Yet I still try no to be prejudice.
One thing I remember is that everytime I loaned money to an Afraican American I never got paid back. Cacausian for the most part always returned the borrowed money. I am not talking about just one or two of each race but at least a dozen with the same results. I have a legitimetly reason for being sterotypical but I can not and will not be because I know that one time when I am desperate for help I might need it and will not refuse just because of their race.
The key to me seems to be the motavtion of using this language. Some people may have legitamiate reason while others do not.
