# Share Me A Clue: Cotton Is Racist??? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [September 19, 2017, 6:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/share-me-a-clue-cotton-is-racist/796697 "2017-09-19T06:04:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2017, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/share-me-a-clue-cotton-is-racist/796697/21 "2017-09-19T13:27:38Z")
The problem is that we live in an age where that minority, no matter how small, can get their way. It really is time to push back, and publicly, not passive aggressively in the ballot box. This culture led directly to Donald Trump. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2017, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/share-me-a-clue-cotton-is-racist/796697/22 "2017-09-19T13:29:14Z")
The only thing wrong with that display is the price–that’s what, a buck worth of cotton stalks, at the very most? I’ve long kind of wanted to grow a few cotton plants (and even bought a few bowls once) just as a connection to my (very white) ancestors. I’m the first member of my family in who knows how many generations who\* isn’t \*connected to cotton. My mother picked it some as a child–my grandmother and all her siblings were heavy child labor for their sharecropper father. Who knows how many generations before that were cotton farmers, too. (If any of them owned any slaves, there is no surviving family lore about it.) Sometimes an apology _is_ owed for an accidental offense. But sometimes the proper response is a roll of the eyes and a very heartfelt “oh, shove it up your ass, you nitwit.” ---
**Author:** ![El\_Kabong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_kabong/32/496_2.png) [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2017, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/share-me-a-clue-cotton-is-racist/796697/23 "2017-09-19T13:42:41Z")
NM ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2017, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/share-me-a-clue-cotton-is-racist/796697/24 "2017-09-19T14:55:46Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > I do think it’s possible to overreact to someone being offended, assuming they speak for far more people than they do. People are individuals. They have their own hangups. They can make mistaken arguments. What matters is on a larger scale than just a single person. It would be foolish to take something down if it’s just a single person flipping out. And you sure shouldn’t give some rabble-rouser power ove reveryone else. You need to take a measured response… Thing is, it is _never_ a single person anymore, social media has ensured that _any_ person out there (tens of millions) can be exposed instantly to _any_ potential source of offence (too numerous to count). You can therefore guarantee that pretty much _any_ subject will be picked up as a source of offence for _someone_…As these harmless twigs prove. A “measured response” in the current toxic social media environment is a rare beast indeed. A “measured response” in this specific case would be to point out to the offended student that they are a fucking idiot. If someone tells me they are offended I’m not obliged to make it so that they aren’t nor to apologise for it. I _might_ if I feel they have a good point, but it shouldn’t be expected. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2017, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/share-me-a-clue-cotton-is-racist/796697/25 "2017-09-19T14:58:59Z")
One person complaining about something and an overwhelming majority of people disagreeing with her constitutes “taking serious heat”? Man, someone is _way_ too oversensitive if they can’t stand the existence of one single crazy person in the whole country. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2017, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/share-me-a-clue-cotton-is-racist/796697/26 "2017-09-19T15:01:33Z")
THat’s how the media works though. One crazy lady saying something racist in a department store was considered worthy of high level CNN coverage not too long ago. ---
**Author:** ![racer72](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/racer72/32/3075_2.png) [@racer72](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/racer72)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2017, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/share-me-a-clue-cotton-is-racist/796697/27 "2017-09-19T15:06:35Z")
While looking at things on Ebay the other day, I found a listing for a book from 1893, Ten Little Ni\*\*ers. I remember seeing a similar book back in my youth titled Ten Little Indians. Yesterday I showed the listing to an African American friend of mine, he is a avid collector of blackiana from the 1800’s. I asked him if he was offended, he said no, the N word is used in the title of a book. He is also very interested in buying it too but he thought $400 was a bit steep. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2017, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/share-me-a-clue-cotton-is-racist/796697/28 "2017-09-19T15:08:40Z")
For a value of “the media” which includes “ **ExTank** starting this thread”. ---
**Author:** ![ivylass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9de053/32.png) [@ivylass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivylass)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2017, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/share-me-a-clue-cotton-is-racist/796697/29 "2017-09-19T15:36:55Z")
I have a Christmas ornament we picked up in Helen, Georgia. It’s an angel made out of a boll of cotton. I guess I’m racist now. ---
**Author:** ![gnoitall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2017, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/share-me-a-clue-cotton-is-racist/796697/30 "2017-09-19T16:30:24Z")
Sometimes I truly doubt the sincerity of the purported offense taken. If the subject of this report were trolling, would we know the difference? Especially if they were trolling for a reason besides the lulz: e.g., keeping awareness of latent racism up and alive in the world, “for the cause”. Especially since the alternative is “yes, they truly were triggered.” In which case the world is even more batshit insane than I want to acknowledge. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2017, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/share-me-a-clue-cotton-is-racist/796697/31 "2017-09-19T16:33:15Z")
> [@pullin](#): > > There’s a silver lining to our “everything you do is racist” society. Since it is now impossible **not** to be racist, we are relieved of any duty to try. What a fucked-up conclusion. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2017, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/share-me-a-clue-cotton-is-racist/796697/32 "2017-09-19T16:48:35Z")
CAN cotton be racist? CAN watermelon and fried chicken be racist? Sure. I’m familiar with racists who’ve made extremely offensive jokes or memes involving those things. It doesn’t follow that cotton, watermelon and fried chicken are inherently racist. So… it depends on the context. You can USUALLY tell whether people are deliberately being provocative or whether they had no idea someone might take offense to what they’re doing. If I see some drunk frat boy in blackface eating watermelon, he’s obviously TRYING to be insulting. If I see a church picnic where EVERYBODY of EVERY race is eating fried chicken and watermelon, I don’t think twice about it. There are oversensitive black people who get offended over nothing, but I can’t and won’t assume that’s the case here. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2017, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/share-me-a-clue-cotton-is-racist/796697/33 "2017-09-19T16:52:08Z")
Some people are too easily offended at the way other people are too easily offended. ---
**Author:** ![peedin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peedin/32/14095_2.png) [@peedin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/peedin)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2017, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/share-me-a-clue-cotton-is-racist/796697/34 "2017-09-19T17:07:34Z")
Cuz only slaves picked cotton??? If the protestor wants to be offended, she needs to be offended that Hobby Lobby’s employee health insurance doesn’t cover female contraception. Get an effin’ life. What an attention whore. ---
**Author:** ![Evan\_Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b487fb/32.png) [@Evan\_Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evan_Drake)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2017, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/share-me-a-clue-cotton-is-racist/796697/35 "2017-09-19T17:16:57Z")
> [@billfish678](#): > > Apparently old times there are not forgotten… _Nice_. ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2017, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/share-me-a-clue-cotton-is-racist/796697/36 "2017-09-19T17:24:40Z")
My wild ass guess is relations between these two groups have not always been sweet. The invite was to help calm the waters. This attendee saw something they thought bordered on a kind of little dig from the mighty to the weak. Based on the quick and frothy apology I’m gonna guess they were right. I’d bet quiet, humorous, remarks upon the cotton blossoms may well have been shared before the others arrived. Those remarks may have bordered on the ragged fringes of racist, though spoken in private. Hence the swift and frothy apology. So sneaky micro aggression, subtle or unintended, caught, named and retracted. As it should be. (Got no evidence just my wild ass guess is all! Have at it!) ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2017, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/share-me-a-clue-cotton-is-racist/796697/37 "2017-09-19T17:47:41Z")
> [@elbows](#): > > So sneaky micro aggression, subtle or unintended, caught, named and retracted. As it should be. And the person who caught it now looks like a complete loser trying to gin up offense over nothing. Perfect tactical move from the University, if that was the intent. The biggest problem with all of this isn’t the racism, real or imagined, it’s the denial of context, accidental or enforced: “Hello” can be a cheery greeting or a pointed insult, and deserved or not, depending entirely on context, which gets shorn quite effectively depending on who’s telling the story. I’m reminded of a high-end dinner I once heard of. It’s apparently fashionable to use ashes as garnish these days, which leads to people being served plates of charred remains. This is utterly innocuous (unless you want to get off on a rant about how horrible culinary fashion and any meal other than meat-and-three is, in which case you can start a thread somewhere else) unless you’re like me, and your mind goes sideways far enough to bust a gut laughing at the semiotics of serving a plateful of ashes to a Jewish couple, in which case that meal is a joke even Don Rickles would have steered clear of. (If you don’t quite get it, imagine finding a few fake teeth in the dish.) Is the dish now a Holocaust joke? Of course not, unless context makes it so. Therefore, depriving the interaction of context is the most dishonest thing possible. It can turn sugar into venom, and make justified outrage into the most idiotic species of whining. ---
**Author:** ![BeeGee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b5a626/32.png) [@BeeGee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BeeGee)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2017, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/share-me-a-clue-cotton-is-racist/796697/38 "2017-09-19T18:03:51Z")
What strikes me is the utter stupidity of trying to sell dried cotton bolls in Lubbock for $30 a stem. The fields surrounding Lubbock (and believe me, I mean right up to the city and inside the limits in some places. Are chock full of cotton (if the hail didn’t get them this weekend). With farmers selling at under $1/lb, I can’t imagine anyone would be parting with $30 or $15 for a single stem. Cotton still grows the same way. Still ginned the same way, though more automated. But no one has picked cotton by hand for well over fifty years. It’s stripped from the fields in an air conditioned tractor. Unless you’re some buyer for hobby lobby and you’re out in the field pruning the stuff by hand. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2017, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/share-me-a-clue-cotton-is-racist/796697/39 "2017-09-19T18:17:08Z")
$.05 cotton + $29.95 glass vase. (Not true that no one has picked it by hand in 50 years though. Convict labor still picked cotton at least into the 1980s.) ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2017, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/share-me-a-clue-cotton-is-racist/796697/40 "2017-09-19T18:37:21Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > Because you are not offended by something, the person who says they are must be lying? > > The language in that post very much looks like someone who is offended, not someone who is annoyed. Sure, it could be someone just trying to be provocative. It could be parody. But I’m 100% sure it’s not someone misusing the word “offended” to mean “annoyed.” > > I do not agree with you in the slightest about apologies. They are the correct thing to do when something you do has an unintended consequence. When someone is hurt, to not apologize communicates that you intended to hurt them. Not offering apologies is the way to seem like an asshole and make people who wouldn’t be upset more upset. > > I do think it’s possible to overreact to someone being offended, assuming they speak for far more people than they do. People are individuals. They have their own hangups. They can make mistaken arguments. What matters is on a larger scale than just a single person. It would be foolish to take something down if it’s just a single person flipping out. And you sure shouldn’t give some rabble-rouser power ove reveryone else. You need to take a measured response. > > But an apology is about the smallest thing you can do. It’s even less than what I would consider the bare minimum, which actually involves trying to understand the other person’s point of view. I don’t agree with this person, but I do get their logic. I won’t ridicule them for it at all, let alone do so in a way that indicates I didn’t get it. > > (The argument is that raw cotton is not decorative, and thus the cotton must’ve been put up for other reasons. Hence anything about cotton used in other situations does not apply. Not underwear or socks or anything.) > > I honestly see this argument you are making as the much bigger problem here. People are feeling more open to sharing when they are offended. This is a good thing. The alternative is that people keep it to themselves, and the resentment can never be dealt with. We can’t have the majority culture deciding what is and is not okay to express offense over, because they will always miss things. > > We just need to embrace the fact that people get offended, and then use that information to guide our actions. And, if it means more apologies showing that we actually care about other people, that’s a huge, huge improvement in this current shithole of a world. It’s counterproductive for society to reward a subset’s insanity with obsequiousness. Shifting power to the professionally offended leads to more and more absurdity. People aren’t owed a damn thing when they are offended when none is meant. Their emotional state is on them. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/share-me-a-clue-cotton-is-racist/796697.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/share-me-a-clue-cotton-is-racist/796697.md?page=3)