circumstances and how did you respond?
In private school I was told that students who didn’t learn study skills would have to biy study guides from “kikes”.
The only Jew in the class, I saw the professor later that day and confronted him. He said that by “kikes” he didn’t mean Jews, per se, just a “certian kind of person.”
I didn’t complain to the principal. He was plenty afraid of a reprimand or sanction, and I liked him and thought he was an excellent history teacher.
Well, shortly after we adopted my son (he is of a different race than The Lovely and Talented Mrs. Shodan and I), we got a ten page letter from a certain local person.
Said person has 1) a lot of money, 2) a lot of time on his hands, and 3) some unpleasant ideas about race-mixing. So he combs thru public records looking for cross-racial adoptions and marriages, and sends the parties involved his thoughts. It is basically warmed-over neo-Nazi excrement.
How did I respond? Bank shot into the garbage can for his letter, with a condescending snicker at how stupid some people are.
Opinions are like assholes. Everybody’s got one, and some of them stink. There aren’t enough hours in the day to deal with my own mistakes, let alone someone else’s.
Face to face would have been different. It wasn’t, so he can go sodomize himself by remote control.
Regards,
Shodan
Once, when I was in high school. A few of the rowdy elements sneeringly called out “Jew” as they sat behind me.
I turned, smiled sweetly, and said, “Jealous?”
They laughed and never bothered me again.
When I was twelve I walked down the street with a bandana on my head. Several of the local teenagers followed closley behind me calling me “Aunt Jemima”. Another time a friend and I were walking and some teenagers started throwing a football at us. Not to hit, but just barely passing over our heads. They were singing “Go back to Jamaica”. The ball hit me in one pass. I picked it up and roofed it.
I was walking home from the train station. A man was sitting on his stoop. As I walked by he yelled, “Fucking niggers!” and stormed into his house, slamming the door behind him. It took about 2 minutes or so before what he said sunk in. I wanted to go back and bang on his door, but didn’t.
When I worked customer service for Medicare, people said a whole mess of things to me. These people were older (it was Medicare), it was a call center so they couldn’t see me so apparently had no idea I was black and hispanic. So I heard a lot about the “spics” and the “niggers”. Alot.
One phone call that stayed with me:
Customer: Does Medicare pay for taxis?
Me: No.
Customer: Medicare must pay for taxis. I see the niggers taking taxis to the doctor’s office all the time.
I can go on and on. But I won’t.
As a kid I was called everything from ‘Paki’ to ‘Gyppo’ to ‘Black bastard’.
At college a tutor took great delight in expressing the opinion that Hitler had the right idea as far as Gypsies were concerned and that he had a friend who worked for the local council who told him how dirty Gypsy campsites were. I dealt with that by transferring courses.
Nowdays, the Gyppo label is the main one - and my normal reaction is one of extreme hostility which normally gets them to say something along the lines of, “Oh, I didn’t mean true Romany Gypsies - I meant the dirty, thieving, beggers” :rolleyes:
My wife - who is American (and gets the whole fat, stupid yank thing)- was amazed that at work people who wouldn’t dream of using the N word or any slur aimed at Asians don’t think twice about using Gyppo.
Like Biggirl, I could go on and on. But I won’t.
I don’t think it is common in the US of A.
Living in a variety of countries has allowed me to enjoy a variety of racial slurs.
I’ll choose my favorites from each respective country.
Canada: gook, chink
Guatemala: Chino. Chino cerote
Trinidad: Chiney, chiney boy
Oman: I was too young to remember. I’m sure there must’ve been something though.
Korea: Now that would be really silly.
Kal: I used to have this facination with the romani culture. Do you look distinctively romani? I would’ve thought most people would just assume you’re white or latin.
And may I assume you’ve sort of left the romani culture because, from what i’ve read, traditionally you’re not allowed to marry someone who’s not romani.
Tell me if my questions offend you. It’s because I don’t think I’ve ever met someone who was romani even though I think they have one of the most fascinating cultures in the world.
Being called “Faggot” was pretty much a daily occurence in high school. I tried to ignore it, and pretty much kept to myself.
Once I got really pissed off and stabbed a guy in the arm with a pencil after a lot of harassment. I got in a hell of a lot of trouble and had to go through “counseling” while the ignorant jackass got nothing.
I realise that violence is not a proper response, but a lot of the harassment I got, including from the guy I attacked was violent and it was ignored. “boys will be boys” “don’t act like that and they won’t bother you” etc…
I was visting my then girlfriend who was babysitting for a friend of hers in the projects(if thats offensive, I’m sorry but I dont know what they are called these days). It was a Summer Saturday afternoon and I was pretty quickly semi-surrounded by guys in their mid 20’s as I got out of my car. One of them said something along the lines of, “whats a <sneer>white boy (or cracker or something)</sneer> doing here?” I responded with, “just visiting a friend” and they slowly wandered off as I walked to the door. When I got inside the people inside reminded me that not only am I the whitest person in the world but that my very very short hair probably didnt help either. Overall I’ve had it pretty easy. People often point out the fact that I cant dance or sing. I should probably stop doing those things. 
At least in front of people.
dead0man
berdollos, no it’s not common in the USA (I’m in the UK) - the closest you have is ‘Gypped’. However, the term Gypsy itself isn’t very popular.
From the Patrin web journal
non-native, not offended by your questions at all but, to avoid both hijacking the thread and my turning into a one trick pony, you’re welcome to email me.
And just to note, while “gyp/gip/jip” is a fairly common slang term in the US, the original association with “Gypsies” has been long forgotten by most everyone (hence the differing spellings).
One of my cats is named Gypsy. And we do call her Gippy-because my dad makes up nicknames for all of our cats, and started calling her Gippy-Sippy. Of course, she’s also Gips, Gippers, Gipper Sippers, Gip-Gip, Gippersy, etc.
If it helps, she’s named after the 'bot on MST3K.
I hope that doesn’t offend anyone.
Yeah, I’ve gotten a fair amount of flak for being Jewish. Some of it came from teachers (who at least had the good sense to be subtle), but some of it came from classmates and others. At first, I was insulted, but as time went on, I started ascribing it to ignorance and stupidity on the part of the person delivering the slur.
Screw 'em. I’m not converting just to please a bunch of idiot rednecks.
Robin
I had a helluva time renting an apartment in Tokyo when I had a very reputable job, was making 6 figures, looked completely respectable, and spoke enough Japanese not to be a pain for other people. I had real estate agents tell me that didn’t rent to foreigners (gaijin). It was really a pain in the ass. I also got to where I just wanted to beat up total strangers. Eventually, the head of my company in Japan offered a personal guarantee, and I finally was able to rent a place. These few weeks gave me just a small taste to what some minorities go through in the US. Sometimes you would be called “henna gaijin”, which is something like strange foreigner. That didn’t seem racist to me, and usually was a more-or-less accurate descriptor from a Japanese cultural point of view. Also “gaijin” or foreign person, was a neutral term rather than one with only a negative bias.
In Hong Kong, it’s pretty standard to be referred to as a “foreign devil” (gweiloh). It is not a complementary term. In Chinese, “devil” always has a negative connotation. Even worse a lot of Hong Kongese (honkies) would use the term thinking that I wouldn’t understand it. I usually tried not to get bent out of shape for it, but you hear that 10-20 times a day it gets old.
When I was little, there really wasn’t much of a Spanish population in my hometown (in a town of 200 000 people, I didn’t meet anyone else who had any kind of latin heritage until I was about 10 or 11). So some of the insults were a bit inaccurate, or just weird.
Once in a playground I was sitting on a swing calling to the other kids “Somebody push me!” The kids in my neighbourhood all got along so it was common to see some kid on a swing asking to be pushed and another kid would always oblige. But one day, some brat said: “Ew! Who would want to push a Chinese girl!” and then I was shunned by all the other kids.
I was outraged! I was just old enough to comprehend the sentiment and I was thoroughly disgusted by it! I was horrified that a kid would be mean to another kid for no other reason than race. I stomped home, mad as hell, burst into the kitchen, and indignantly told my mom: “They wouldn’t push me on the swing because I’m Chinese!” My mom looked at me and wondered for a second how her Spanish daughter had become Chinese, but she figured it out.
One summer I was almost beat up by some kids who were calling me the “N” word and I just ran away. Geez, I’m a “spic” get it right, willya?
A weird insult I once heard in reference to the hue of my skin was “I bet you’re not even Christian!” (??)
I grew up thinking racists were incredibly stupid, so aside from the times where I was physically threatened, I used to just shrug it off. Even when I was fairly young I thought it was sad that some people limited their world so much with their hatred and I felt more sorry for them than I did angry.
Although once I did slap a total stranger who used the “N” word toward another total stranger. It took everyone by surprise (me included). The three of us had a split second where we all looked at each other in the most socially bizarre moment, and then we all just hurried off in separate directions. I’m quite the pacifist, so I was apalled at what I’d done and thoroughly shocked. Has never happened again.
I also could go on and on, but I’ll give you a funny one - at least I thought it was funny at the time. I’m driving along on the highway when a pickup truck full of college students obviously on their way to the beach passed me by. One yelled “towel head” at me.
I went home completely puzzled, not knowing which ethnic group that was supposed to be an insult for. This was years ago. Finally figured it out.
I look totally Indian, but I’m not, BTW. I’ve even had Indians insist - absolutely insist - that I had to be Indian. Actually, I’m Hispanic. Ah well.
Though they aren’t racial, ethnic, or anti-Semitic, I got “faggot” and “queer” a lot in High School. It pretty much stopped when I quit denying it, though. I suppose it took the (supposed) bite out of the insult.
I get “American” a lot…
But to tell the truth, that DOES piss me off. Why assume that ALL WHITE PEOPLE are from America? The biggest compliments I’ve had are when I was asked if I was French, or if I was Welsh, simply because it showed the person was thinking outside the box.
When I visited the Peace Park in Hiroshima, I got a lot of angry looks from older Japanese. I wanted to yell out “I’m Australian for crying out loud! YOU bombed US!”
When Mr and I rented an apartment, the real estate agent actually had me come in so she could tell me that I’m not allowed to paint the walls. Well, DUH. But apparently a lot of foreigners do.
But other than that, I haven’t had any slurs thrown at me. Mr had a lot more during the year he lived in Australia.
I’ve been called “nigger lover” more than a few times in my life. And strangely, I’ve never dated a black person.
In elementary school and junior high, I used to get called “slanteye” and “chink” from time to time. Occasionally, some kid would ask me if one of my parents was Asian. Since I have fairly narrow eyes and my hair was darker and straighter then, people seemed to think I was Eurasian. In seventh grade, a couple of kids told me I should go out with a girl in our class because we both looked “Chinese.”
:rolleyes:
Once, in high school, some of the people at my lunch table were talking about the fighting in the Middle East (late 1980s). I expressed support for the Israelis, saying they had a right to defend themselves if they are attacked. A friend at the table turned toward me and blurted out angrily, in all seriousness, “I didn’t know you were Jewish!” :eek: I’m not, but that sudden pointless hatred was jarring. ;j
FTR, I’m Polish/English/German. I can’t think of a whiter white boy than me. People, their narrow minds, and their damn stereotypes. :mad: