I cannot believe this, but it was in the Toronto Star:
Unbelievable. I have no words.
:eek:
I suppose it’s a sign of progress that there is a seven-year-old black girl who doesn’t know that word, though…
the only thing I can think of in response is this
:eek:
literally. I was looking for the eek smiley when I e-mailed it to my friend. We need an eek smiley for real life (along with a control-Z function).
I am still picking up my jaw from the floor.
I’m with you on the :eek:.
But I also have to say…
… I don’t think “You should feel degraded when you hear this word” is the best way of describing it. That’s what the people who say it mean, of course, but I see no reason why you should teach kids to feel bad when it’s used against them.
Hmmm… Having worked with a lot of Chinese export companies, I can’t say I’m astonished. Seen some pretty weird descriptors on packages.
We got in some fabric described as “milk red,” once. (It was orange.)
You’d think they’d catch that kind of thing before it ended up at the consumer level though. 
I’m guessing a poor Chinese>English translation is to blame. Have you ever seen some of the interesting translations? Not to say the lady doesn’t have a reason to be shocked, and somebody should have caught it before she did.
A related story.
We had a black guy, a painter in the shop, with a very large chip on his shoulder. He needed a can of black spray paint and told the shop foreman. The maintenence man was also standing there and was going to town to get a few things, so the shop foreman told him to get a case of black spray paint. The maintenence guy asked if there was any special kind, and the foreman tells him, "Yeah, get that “Negro Black”.
The painter got bent out of shape. The foreman told him that’s what it said on the can, he thought that’s what it was called, and proceeded to dig an empty can out of the trash.
Sure enough, the can had “Negro Black Noir” written on it.
I guess the foreman didn’t know much French 
Took too long writing my story, I see Larry has already made the point.
I think that was just her feelings about the word, not what she told her daughter.
“Noir” is French for black. I presume “negro” is Spanish?
Nitpick: he didn’t know much Spanish. “Negro” is Spanish for “black”.
I was expecting to read a story like the one you related when I clicked that link- someone doesn’t know that “negro” is Spanish for “black”, and gets offended at seeing it somewhere.
Ok, I agree that the label needs to be changed, but seriously–to get rid of the couch? :dubious:
Couchs are expensive–this one looks like leather. It look really good, too. I can see saying something to the manufacturer etc, but to not want to sit on a piece of furniture you just bought? :dubious: again.
(what was it called in the showroom or in the catalogue? Usually the name of the color is the same throughout)
I’d guess she wants to return it, not just throw it away and eat the cost of it.
Yeah, I guess my joke didn’t come off too good, or maybe I should have used a 
instead. But, no, he didn’t know negro or noir evidently.
I can see her point, though. Can you imagine ever sitting on the couch and NOT thinking about that label, the embarrassment of explaining things to your daughter, the outrage, the unreturned phone calls, the manager’s dismissive attitude and the reporters sitting in your living room taking your story? It would just ruin the whole point of having a couch, for me, which is to relax. I mean, I tend to think people’s negative reactions to the word “nigger” only feed it’s power, a la You-Know-Who in Harry Potter, but my white chick ass sure doesn’t get to have a vote about whether or not it disturbs someone else.
It is a nice couch, though. But I don’t think I could stand it in Nigger Brown. Honky White’s not my favorite color either. Maybe something with a bit more cream or yellow tone? Say, like that of a Ritz?
I agree with WhyNot, there is a whole experience that will be associated in the mind of the woman with that couch.
And, like others, I don’t understand how that got out of the retailer’s warehouse without being removed, then, at least.
More likely a translation from an outdated source, such as a 1940’s-vintage Chinese-English dictionary. As I mentioned previously on this board, I remember reading of a book (Larry Mudd suggested that the author was likely Raymond Chandler) in which the original text referred to someone wearing “nigger brown shoes” and saying “F— you.” In a reprinting several years later, the racial pejorative was removed from the description of the footwear, while the curse was written out as “Fuck you.”
Here’s a page which also mentions “nigger-head”, a term used for a type of cactus. I own two postcards which illustrate and label desert flora of Arizona – the same scene is featured on both cards, but the more recent one identifies this particular species as a “barrel cactus”.
I do as well. I would bet this was not a Chinese person having a joke- I doubt most would even be aware of the term. Probably someone here told them to label it that way as joke, not knowing the Chinese would not get the attempt at humour and took it literally.
I agree with the “outdated dictionary” idea - my aunts call Brazil nuts “niggertoes” although they no longer use the word to refer to people, because when they were growing up that’s what the things were called and they don’t think of it as being offensive, I guess.
I agree the story is (somewhat – I doubt there was actually any *intended *racial slurring going on here) shocking – but I think it is actually quite **heartening **that in this day and age a seven year old black has never heard the N-word. Yes, I tend to be an incurable optimist in between my bouts of cynicism…
I’m not sure if the nigger-brown couch really goes with the family’s Injun-red curtains and chink-yellow wallpaper.