# The shifting tides of racist language **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 7, 2023, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-shifting-tides-of-racist-language/977841 "2023-01-07T16:08:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 13
**Author:** ![Dorjan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dorjan/32/12440_2.png) [@Dorjan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dorjan)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2023, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-shifting-tides-of-racist-language/977841/241 "2023-01-13T15:58:44Z")
> [@UDS1](#): > > It’s the dull but necessary gathering of data, contrasted the much more interesting analysis/discussion of what the data means, as I understand it. As an engineer and someone with many close friends in a wide variety of the sciences, I have never, to a single person, ever heard anyone consider the going out and gathering data part to be the dull bit, and analysis the fun bit. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2023, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-shifting-tides-of-racist-language/977841/242 "2023-01-13T15:59:41Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > Would you not use “field hand” for somebody who is a field hand? It’s an entirely respectable job; and deserving of respect. It certainly is, and if that’s the job title routinely used by the people who do that (difficult and crucial) job, I have no problem with that whatsoever. What I guess I was trying to get at is that I wouldn’t use such phrases metaphorically in situations that have nothing to do with their original contexts. If I as a non-farmer say something like “I’ve been working like a field hand today”, I don’t think that comes across as a tribute to the industriousness of agricultural laborers. I think it comes across as a tone-deaf archaism from the days when many white Americans just unthinkingly treated the history of Black hardships and oppression as a sort of curious folklore for spicing up their own colloquial speech with vivid idioms. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2023, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-shifting-tides-of-racist-language/977841/243 "2023-01-13T16:04:26Z")
> [@Dorjan](#): > > I have never, to a single person, ever heard anyone consider the going out and gathering data part to be the dull bit, and analysis the fun bit. Indeed, it’s almost a cliché for a senior researcher/engineer to bemoan the fact that they are stuck in the lab/office these days and never get to do the fun stuff. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2023, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-shifting-tides-of-racist-language/977841/244 "2023-01-13T16:22:54Z")
> [@DPRK](#): > > The introduction to _Nanook of the North_ mentions a “Moose Factory half-breed” [Métis]. Not familiar with the local names, but that sounds super racist to me; not sure what it implied at the time. > [@JRDelirious](#): > > Until very recently that term was often used across the English-speaking countries for “mixed race” people who were part-native and even then it was not exactly kind. (See also the song by Cher. ) In Canada, in the Red River area, there were two different groups: mixed race people with a French/First Nations background, and mixed race with an English/Scots/First Nations background. “Métis” was used in the mid-19th century to refer to the community that had a French background, likely speaking French, and “half-breed” to the community that had a British background, likely speaking English. “Métis” is ultimately derived from the Latin term for “mixed”, which has a similar implication as “half-breed”, but is generally now the accepted term in Canada, as the linguistic distinction has disappeared. (I believe the Spanish equivalent is “mestizo”.) ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2023, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-shifting-tides-of-racist-language/977841/245 "2023-01-13T16:42:41Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > And yet, to follow your analogy, nobody has suggested that we stop talking about fried chicken in _any_ context or invent another word for it or stop eating it. Nobody imagines that fried chicken is inherently racist, even if in some contexts it can be. I used to work in a museum, and one day a foreign visitor asked me, “Why is fried chicken racist?” I did tell him fried chicken wasn’t racist, it’s just delicious, and I followed that up by doing my best to explain the racist associations have with the golden delicious food and African Americans. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2023, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-shifting-tides-of-racist-language/977841/246 "2023-01-13T17:57:17Z")
> [@UDS1](#): > > The problem is with figurative language, where (say) “field” is used as a term to evoke a place where hard and unrewarding but necessary work is done It’s not unrewarding by its nature; it’s only unrewarding if the people doing it are getting otherwise mistreated. Set up properly, it can be very rewarding; and I believe it’s supposed to be in the figurative sense also – I see that posters later in the thread agree with this. A good deal of what bothers me about this is the assumption that of course “field work” is something that nobody really wants to do. I’m doing literal field work and it’s for me the best part of the job. > [@UDS1](#): > > I’m neither American nor Black. If people who are sensitised to, and injured by, the evocation of associations like this find that those associations are evoked by this idiom, then the right thing to do is to find another idiom. I am American but not Black. If this is indeed upsetting Black people, then I agree that something needs to be done. But I’m still bothered by the assumption that field work is something that’s on some level essentially Wrong. > [@Stanislaus](#): > > So in this case its at least plausible that the much heralded change from “field work” to “practicum” is honest to god original brand virtue-signalling. Not as in doing something good in public, but as in making a big deal of a cheap and easy superficial move to cover up for much more egregious institutional problems. But that (and other info in that post) does indeed seem like they’re trying to cover up continuing actual mistreatment by changing the name applied to it. If you’re still expecting people to pick lettuce for 14 hours a day in high temperatures without access to enough shade or water, it’s not going to help a bit if you call them Lactucaceae Harvest Specialists instead. And if you do that as part of your hiring process because you’re trying to conceal the actual nature of the job, then it not only doesn’t help, it makes it worse. > [@Kimstu](#): > > If I as a non-farmer say something like “I’ve been working like a field hand today”, I don’t think that comes across as a tribute to the industriousness of agricultural laborers. I think it comes across as a tone-deaf archaism from the days when many white Americans just unthinkingly treated the history of Black hardships and oppression as a sort of curious folklore for spicing up their own colloquial speech with vivid idioms. I would take it just to mean you’ve been working hard. But then, most of the people I know who are doing literal field work are white. If it were clear that you meant by it not only that you’d been working hard but that you’d been doing something you thought unpleasant and demeaning, I’d be annoyed by it. > [@Odesio](#): > > I used to work in a museum, and one day a foreign visitor asked me, “Why is fried chicken racist?” I did tell him fried chicken wasn’t racist, it’s just delicious, and I followed that up by doing my best to explain the racist associations have with the golden delicious food and African Americans. Yeah. Everybody eats fried chicken (well, not vegetarians.) The problem is when fried chicken is presented as particularly appropriate to be eaten by or with Black people. Same thing with watermelon. “Let’s have fried chicken and watermelon for dinner”? Not racist. “We (not Black) are having X [Black people] over for dinner, so we’d better have fried chicken and watermelon” – yes racist. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2023, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-shifting-tides-of-racist-language/977841/247 "2023-01-13T19:10:54Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > It’s not unrewarding by its nature; it’s only unrewarding if the people doing it are getting otherwise mistreated. Set up properly, it can be very rewarding; and I believe it’s supposed to be in the figurative sense also – I see that posters later in the thread agree with this. Exactly. I’ve spoken with farmers who find it very rewarding to be out in the fields, close to nature, growing food for people to eat. They often say they can’t understand how I can enjoy working at a desk in an office. ---
**Author:** ![Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slow_moving_vehicle/32/291_2.png) [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slow_Moving_Vehicle)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2023, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-shifting-tides-of-racist-language/977841/248 "2023-01-13T19:14:31Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > No, but for the latter I think “work in the community” is fine To my ear, “work in the community” suggests community organizing, serving food at a homeless shelter, volunteering for Meals On Wheels, and such. “Fieldwork” implies work done in the community directly related to the discipline - the field - of social work. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2023, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-shifting-tides-of-racist-language/977841/249 "2023-01-13T19:20:50Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > They often say they can’t understand how I can enjoy working at a desk in an office. Indeed. Different people need different things; including different types of work. The problem isn’t that there are some types of work that are inherently worse than others; the problem is that some are less well respected (and often also less well paid) than others, some are set up so as to turn good work into terrible work because of the working conditions, and also that there are a lot of people in the wrong jobs, sometimes because they’ve been convinced that the work they ought to be doing is terrible work and they should be doing something the society defines as “better.” Not only are people happier if they’re doing the right job for them, but also the work gets done better if the right people are doing it. Everybody benefits, including those using the results of the work (at least, if we’re using any metric other than ‘do this as cheaply as possible’, which often leads to setting up the work so that it is indeed terrible.) ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2023, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-shifting-tides-of-racist-language/977841/250 "2023-01-13T19:32:37Z")
> [@hajario](#): > > As an engineer who traveled extensively during my career, field work meant being outside of the office. It was way more fun and interesting and challenging in general than office work. Exactly. On another note they had to talk with one of my HS teachers as he called all the males in his class “Boy”, such as “You, Boy, answer the question!”. It did not go over well with the Black students. Was he racist? Tone deaf? or Just too old fashioned? ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2023, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-shifting-tides-of-racist-language/977841/251 "2023-01-13T19:54:23Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > It certainly is, and if that’s the job title routinely used by the people who do that (difficult and crucial) job, I have no problem with that whatsoever. AFAIK, the term “field hand” just means, “someone who does agricultural work in a field.” It’s not tied specifically to slavery, nor is it notably archaic. It wouldn’t occur to me to attach a racial subtext to, “I worked like a field hand,” although the phrase isn’t in my personal idiom, so I might be missing nuance. But none of the online dictionaries I looked at mentioned a racial angle except one, which had “a slave who works outdoors,” marked as a secondary, obsolete definition. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2023, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-shifting-tides-of-racist-language/977841/252 "2023-01-13T19:56:58Z")
The teacher was obviously using the word “boy” in a racially insensitive and aggravating manner, whether intentional or just tone dead. That’s another relevant example, since surely nobody would suggest that the problem is intrinsic to the semantics of the word “boy”, which is not **specifically** associated with slavery. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2023, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-shifting-tides-of-racist-language/977841/253 "2023-01-13T20:23:43Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > On another note they had to talk with one of my HS teachers as he called all the males in his class “Boy”, such as “You, Boy, answer the question!”. It did not go over well with the Black students. Was he racist? Tone deaf? or Just too old fashioned? That all depends on how well he responded to correction. Once it was explained to him the racist overtones of referring to any black man as “boy”, if he persisted, then he’s racist. ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2023, 8:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-shifting-tides-of-racist-language/977841/254 "2023-01-18T08:30:42Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > But none of the online dictionaries I looked at mentioned a racial angle except one, which had “a slave who works outdoors,” marked as a secondary, obsolete definition. To put a point on that, the phrase they should be pointing to is “field nigger” as opposed to “house nigger”. If you’re not aware of those phrases and their, both historic and current, connotations you can’t really understand, as one example, the subtext in the scenes between Django and Stephen in _Django Unchained_. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2023, 11:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-shifting-tides-of-racist-language/977841/255 "2023-01-18T11:50:43Z")
> [@crowmanyclouds](#): > > the phrase they should be pointing to Right, and if that were taken to imply that “field” is tarnished and therefore _necessarily_ problematic in other contexts, then we’d have to do away with “house” too. ---
**Author:** ![Unintentionally\_Blank](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/unintentionally_blank/32/5418_2.png) [@Unintentionally\_Blank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unintentionally_Blank)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2023, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-shifting-tides-of-racist-language/977841/256 "2023-01-19T01:39:16Z")
I know I’m trying to change with my sons. I’ve been calling up “BOYS!” for years…they’re 20. That’s not going to fly much longer. ---
**Author:** ![Grestarian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grestarian/32/3227_2.png) [@Grestarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grestarian)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2023, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-shifting-tides-of-racist-language/977841/257 "2023-02-06T03:52:08Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > I would have imagined it [Scotch Tape] being introduced as an entirely positive innovation. Was there an alternative (more expensive) product at the time that served a similar purpose? Other tapes had an adhesive like the old letter envelopes and postage stamps; you had to get the adhesive side wet, then press it to what you wanted it to stick to. My mother had tons of that stuff gathering dust in her garage when we cleaned out the old house. > [@thorny\_locust](#): > > outside this board I don’t all that often hear people talk about software, except occasionally in the sense of complaining that it’s not working right, and they use laymen’s terms to do so; I don’t think I’ve heard anybody say “crippled”. I might be too much of a nerd to weigh in on this one, but the term I still hear end-users[1] use is “buggy” as in containing one or more bugs. The term itself refers to the fact that a problem in the execution of a program was discovered to be caused by a bug squashed behind the reading device on a hard drive which therefore prevented that device from reading the code it needed in order to tell the computer what to do. The bug has been preserved and I’ve seen it in a museum; I think it’s some kind of a tiny moth. > [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > My understanding of “indian giver” was that it dated back to the era where European Americans would trade the Native Americans out of their land and valuables, unfairly, receiving and not giving back or promising to give something and then failing to do so. The dishonest “giver” is not the Native American. This was the interpretation I learned in the 1970’s in elementary school. More specifically, though, the term (as we used it) referred to giving something to someone and then later insisting it be given back – typically when the item was thought to be useless but was later seen as valuable. In this case, the term was historically unflattering to the giver (of European ancestry), not the Indian (who was receiving poor treatment in both transactions). –G! [1] Now there’s a dangerous term. The IT people at my company were asked not to use “End Users” because someone thought it sounded like a reference to something scatological or deviantly sexual and therefore unpleasant (I’ll have to guess ‘unpleasant to the person who was objecting at the time’ here). The IT department was asked to call the people who use the computers and software ‘tech consumers’ and, since technology is all around us from fire to wheels to electricity and everything in between ‘tech’ was assumed and ‘consumers’ was encouraged and that, of course, led to confusion about whether the reference was to consumers of our company’s service or consumers of IT hardware/software/networks/databases or consumers of managers’ time and attention or… I’m telling you, guys, there’s just no way to win… ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2023, 6:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-shifting-tides-of-racist-language/977841/258 "2023-02-06T06:23:45Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > I think the “crippled software” use may be for that field, and not commonly run into outside it. I’ve never heard somebody refer to a crippled car part, or tractor part, or hand tool, or garden hose valve. And outside this board I don’t all that often hear people talk about software, except occasionally in the sense of complaining that it’s not working right, and they use laymen’s terms to do so; I don’t think I’ve heard anybody say “crippled”. > > (I will now wait for multiple people to tell me they hear it all the time in multiple contexts; or used to until recently.) OK, here you go. In high tech hardware we sometimes will have a version with fewer features but it’s basically the same thing with different firmware. Putting in the alternate firmware is referred to as crippling the part. This can be done to have two price points or because it would be illegal to have certain features in certain regions. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2023, 7:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-shifting-tides-of-racist-language/977841/259 "2023-02-06T07:03:13Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > > [@Odesio](#): > > > > Who the hell is triggered by the phrase master bedroom? > > Nobody (I think). I suspect it’s a kind of hypercorrection going on - a desire to avoid use of the word slave, hence avoiding it where it’s used in the master-slave construction, leading to people wondering if _master bedroom_ is problematic. It does seem like rather pathetic window dressing, but nobody wants be _that guy_ who deprecates appropriate changes just because there are _also_ much bigger issues. I agree, except for the bit about “nobody wants be _that guy_ who deprecates appropriate changes just because there are _also_ much bigger issues”. **[I’ve been happy to be _that guy_](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-term-master-bedroom-offensive/940001)** so you don’t have to. You’re welcome. 😉 > [@Grestarian](#): > > Now there’s a dangerous term. The IT people at my company were asked not to use “End Users” because someone thought it sounded like a reference to something scatological or deviantly sexual … The IT department was asked to call the people who use the computers and software ‘tech consumers’ Typically hilarious corporate nonsense. Forbid the use of a descriptive term like “end users” which actually describes what they are, and substitute “tech consumers”, which sounds like creatures that eat technology, or otherwise make it go away (as in “consumed by flames”). I tend to dislike the term “consumers” in many contexts because it’s not only so non-descriptive, but carries this weird connotation that their only purpose is to “consume” things rather than do anything productive with them. How about “users” or “customers”? > [@hajario](#): > > > [@thorny\_locust](#): > > > > I think the “crippled software” use may be for that field, and not commonly run into outside it. I’ve never heard somebody refer to a crippled car part, or tractor part, or hand tool, or garden hose valve. And outside this board I don’t all that often hear people talk about software, except occasionally in the sense of complaining that it’s not working right, and they use laymen’s terms to do so; I don’t think I’ve heard anybody say “crippled”. > > > > (I will now wait for multiple people to tell me they hear it all the time in multiple contexts; or used to until recently.) > > OK, here you go. In high tech hardware we sometimes will have a version with fewer features but it’s basically the same thing with different firmware. Putting in the alternate firmware is referred to as crippling the part. This can be done to have two price points or because it would be illegal to have certain features in certain regions.   Totally agree. The usage goes back a very long way, and is still current AFAIK. It even predates the common use of firmware. Back in the day, for instance, IBM developed a line printer that was designed to print “x” number of lines per minute. Someone in marketing got the brilliant idea that they could expand their customer base by marketing a cheaper model that was 33% slower. The cheapest way to do this was to cripple the existing printer, and in the absence of firmware, the change was made by actually _ **adding** _ (at extra cost to IBM) a special circuit board that disabled every third print cycle. So while the standard model would go “print print print print print”, the cheaper model would go “print print _click_ print print _click_”. They were otherwise exactly the same machine. IBM’s strategy worked fine for most businesses, but when these things were leased to universities, the clever minds of academia figured out the simple fix of pulling out the offending circuit board. And yes, these models, as shipped, were universally referred to as “crippled” printers. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2023, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-shifting-tides-of-racist-language/977841/260 "2023-02-06T14:38:42Z")
Punchline there being that “crippled”, “nerfed”, etc. are standard terms in many flavors of engineering, both hard & soft. But are not terms much used by ordinary citizens going about their daily lives. In terms of corporate-speak they’re terms used internally, _never_ publicly. I wonder about trim and especially engine levels in cars in this context. If a particular model of car is available with e.g. an inline 4, a turbo-ed inline 4, or a larger displacement turbo-ed V-6, do automotive engineers & marketers refer to the small-engine model as “crippled”? Heckifino. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-shifting-tides-of-racist-language/977841.md?page=12) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-shifting-tides-of-racist-language/977841.md?page=14)