Laurange,
I’m sorry, but the unintentional ethnic slur in your last post was hilariously inappropriate. You did know that"spade" is a very derogatory term for “black,” right? Am I the only one who’s ever heard it?
I’ve heard the word as a racial slur, but I’m certain that “call a spade, a spade” is not referring to ethnicity. I think it has to do with playing cards.
[Young Ones episode]
Neil picks up a shovel. He looks at it earnestly and says, “You’re a spade… I always call it that.”
[/Young Ones episode]
Freaky stuff. Sorry for the double post. My finger brushed the ESCAPE key, and it cleared the fields. I was not aware that the first post had been submitted. My ever-lovin’ bad!
I know, but the occurrence of that particular phrase in that particular post…
Completely unintentional. That’s what made it funny.
It is actually a perfect phrase for this thread.
To “call a spade a spade” actually dates back, in various incarnations, to at least the Romans. It does refer to the digging tool and means simply “to call something by its actual name.”
Since the spade suit in cards is black, and there is also an expression “black as the ace of spades,” the phrase has taken on racial connotations in some contexts (hilariously when Carroll O’Connor’s Archie Bunker used it when speaking to Sammy Davis Jr).
The phrase predates racial problems in the U.S. (as well as a general awarenes of race in Europe), but it can cause problems now. Saying that it “shouldn’t” cause problems is irrelevant, given the fairly large number of people I know who have converted it, in their own speech, to be a comment on race.
So what do you do with it? Used among the farmers and landscape workers with whom I worked (who distinguished between (digging) spades and (scooping) shovels), it clearly had no racial implications. Given the number of people I now know who use it racially, it clearly does have racial implications.
This is not the same situation as the niggardly incident where a word with no racial implications was siezed by the ill-informed and thin-skinned. There are, indeed, people who do use “call a spade a spade” as an insulting code word to dismiss the efforts of black people.
What is the result? Know your audience. Watch your language or expect to inadvertantly insult people. (Claiming that someone is “too PC” if they are insulted is neither fair nor accurate if they are among the many people who have heard that phrased used only in the context of racial slurs: what are they supposed to think if that is their only experience of the phrase?)
OK, but what am I to think if I’ve only ever used the phrase in a non-racial context and all of a sudden someone is taking umbrage for no apparent reason? I’ll think that person is a thin-skinned PC imbecile, especially if that person is not a member of the class I purportedly was attacking.
It would be common courtesy for me not to use that phrase again in the presence of the offended person, and to realize that a person with similar characteristics might take offense if I use it with him or her. It would also be common courtesy for the offended person, upon realizing that there is a non-offending use for the phrase, to develop a bit of a thicker skin and to realize that a person with similar characteristics to the original offender might not be using it offensively.
Most overly-PC people stress the former respose without mentioning the latter. Both should be employed equally. Speech codes and hate-crimes laws are not the way to address this. Legally restricting my speech is not an appropriate option - speech that you don’t agree with should be met by more speech, not by a restriction on the speech of those with whom you disagree.
As for hate crimes legislation, it tends to chill speech, and I am dubious that it has a salutary effect on the crime rate. Let’s say I assault someone. Let’s also say I’m vocal about what I’m doing. Let’s also say I’m doing it because this individual was being a total jerkoff (the individual was telling me I was a freak because of my state of circumcision ;)). Obviously, I’m going to want to insult this individual. If the individual is a woman, I might call her a “cunt” or a “bitch”. If he’s black, I might call him a “nigger”. If he’s Hispanic, a “spic”. And so on. I would use words that I knew would hurt the target of my attack. Would that language reflect my motivation? Not at all. Could it be used to imply a motivation and therefore get me charged with a hate crime in addition to assault? Absolutely. Restrictions on speech, or laws that tend to chill speech, are not the answer.