[QUOTE=Leaffan]
1967 - Londonderry Northern Ireland - 5 years old.
Hiding in the bushes. Throwing rocks at catholic kids getting on the bus. Really hoping to connect.
Today I’m in Canada, married to a catholic, and raising my kids in a catholic school.
No wonder I’m an atheist and think it’s all a bunch of shite.
[/QUOTE]
“Isn’t it a shame we aren’t all atheists so we could just love each other like Christians?” 
[QUOTE=Sampiro]
I try to use African-American for cultural references (e.g. the Harlem Renaissance and Delta blues and the Civil Rights movements were “African-American” in that they were uniquely American but driven by those of African descent) and black for racially relevant comments (e.g. AIDS has killed millions of black people [for they’re far from all American] or “Alexandre Dumas and Peter Ustinov had black grandmothers” [because Ustinov’s was from Africa and Dumas’ was Haitian so they didn’t share nationality or culture) but I also use them interchangably a good bit. Personally I far prefer “black American” to either “black” or “African-American” as it’s more-to-the-point (if Charlize Theron was nationalized she’d be African American but I don’t think it would increase her chances of getting sickle cell anemia or the lead in a Tyler Perry movie).
[/QUOTE]
What about “dark skinned” instead of “black”?
As for me, my moment came when I was in 6th grade (I’m thinking that’s about 11 years old). We had a substitute teacher in one of my classes. This dark-skinned gentleman, named Mr. Kennedy, was a very theatrical type - I found his manner of speaking to be very entertaining, and was really enjoying his over-the-top presence.
Trying to make light of his appearance, I said to a friend, “I guess he’s the black sheep of the Kennedy clan.” Looking back, it wasn’t funny, and the metaphor was almost certainly misplaced. But I wasn’t intending to make a racially insensitive comment.
The young, dark skinned boy sitting next to me took it a completely different way, however, and I was reprimanded for my speech. To this day, I regret the comment.
[QUOTE=Sampiro]
An Asian-American woman (or Lou-Diamonds-Phillipish-American woman if you prefer) was incensed and asked why I was using that term and didn’t I know it was hateful? Yes, Asians tended to be a bit richer and higher tech, but I wouldn’t say that (her words) “niggers are more likely to buy certain hair care products or CDs” in mixed company because it’s a hate term and so is Dink. I honestly didn’t know what in the hell she was talking about and was stammering a non-pology.
And in an extremely famous story in my family when I was about 2-3 years old and was having dinner with my family ca. 1969 in Montgomery, the cradle of the Civil Rights movement and this before it was weaned and when places were just integrated, I pointed to black diners and repeatedly said “Mama look at those niggers” and as kids will do when ignored repeated louder “MAMA! LOOK AT THOSE NIGGERS!” When she threatened to spank me and turned to apologize to the African American black diners (one of whom was later revealed to be Lou Diamond Phillips) he supposedly answered (I’ve no memory of the incident) “Thank you, but to be honest… I think it was those niggers over there he was wanting you to look at” and pointed to another table of black diners (or maybe that’s where Lou Diamond Phillips was eating).
[/QUOTE]
I might be slow, I haven’t had my coffee yet, but are you referring to Lou Diamond Phillips, the actor? I don’t at all understand this:
and in the second story I still don’t get the reference. LDP is not black and he was 7 years old in 1969. If I’m being whoosed, just ignore this, but I’m really trying to get what you’re talking about and it’s not making any sense.
I missed the edit window, but I went back and re-read the post and now see this part:
I missed it the first time around and the rest made zero sense. Carry on.
When I was a little girl my grandma asked whether I would marry a black man. I said no, then my kids would be brown.
When I was five years old, I asked my mother, “What do you call those black people at school?”
My mom cast about for the most culturally sensitive nomenclature. I don’t think African-American was popular back in 1982. Also, my school only had one black student. She replied, “Well, you could say black, or you could just call him by his name. His name is Jay.”
I was obviously confused by her response, and said, “No, not him. The women that wear the long black dresses.”
“Oh, those are called nuns. You call them ‘sister.’”
Not me but my son. He was three and we had just finished spending the day at the zoo. He loved the monkey house where we saw a gorilla with her newborn baby.
We went out to dinner and while waiting for a table I could see him staring at the African American family in front of us. Their brand new baby was sleeping in a baby carrier on the floor. As he stared at the baby, a horrid thought came into my head that he would say the wrong thing.
Sure enough, he turned to my wife and said, “Mommy, that baby looks like a…” Fortunately, I covered his mouth with my hand and dragged him outside. When I took my hand away he wanted to know why I did that. I told him that I knew he was going to say that the baby looked like a monkey (that’s what he called all apes) and that it was not a nice thing to say. He said, “But, Daddy! The monkey baby was cute!”
I was at a party, meeting my friend’s new Japanese exchange student girlfriend. I guess I’d had a couple drinks, not too many, but I asked her “what’s it like living somewhere where everyone looks the same?”
That’s pretty much the stupidest AND most racially insensitive thing I have ever said, right at once. And I can’t blame it on being 5 years old, either 
I just remembered one I did, but it was regarding sexual orientation, not race.
My wife’s cousin is a lesbian. She had just returned from a trip to Europe and was telling us about all the places she had visited. As she was telling us about The Netherlands I remembered traveling through there while I was stationed overseas. I asked her, “So, did you get to see any of the dikes while you were there?” :o
There was dead silence from her for a few seconds. Then she said, “Yes. As a matter of fact I stuck my finger in one.”
When I was a teaching assistant, I had a class with two Asian girls. For some reason, I had a horrible time telling them apart. I’ve been around plenty of Asian people, so I don’t know why I had this problem, but it got me in trouble twice while handing back papers. They both gave me funny looks when I handed them the wrong paper, and my face turned scarlet when I realized my mistake. :o They never said anything, but I don’t think they liked me very much .
By the end of the semester, oddly enough, they looked completely different…
I once worked as a mailman during my summer vacaton. One week I was working a predominantly Jewish wealthy neighborhood. I had a certified letter addressed to Mrs. Berstein to deliver so I rang the door bell. A middle-aged black woman answered the door and I explained to her that someone had to sign for the letter. She could either call Mrs. Bernstein and she would sign on this line or she could write her own name over here and sign on that same line.
Her response: I am Mrs. Bernstein.
I think we both just laughed about it for a second. No hard feelings as far as I could tell.
[QUOTE=Leaffan]
1967 - Londonderry Northern Ireland - 5 years old.
Hiding in the bushes. Throwing rocks at catholic kids getting on the bus. Really hoping to connect.
Today I’m in Canada, married to a catholic, and raising my kids in a catholic school.
No wonder I’m an atheist and think it’s all a bunch of shite.
[/QUOTE]
It’s Derry, ya protty bastard 
My mom tells me she was at some public event as a child when she saw her first black people. She bellowed “look at all the chocolate people!”
The worst moment I had wasn’t exactly my fault, but none-the-less, I still feel guilty about it.
Once or twice a month, my sorority invited over a fraternity for dinner. On the night we had Alpha Phi Alpha (an African-American fraternity) over, our menu was, I kid you not: fried chicken, corn-on-the-cob, Kool-aid, and watermelon. :eek:
I found out about the menu exactly two hours before the dinner, and tried to convince our chapter president that maybe it wasn’t the best of ideas to serve that. Being a rather naive type, she didn’t get why it might be a problem. Then I tried to convince our cook. After failing on both accounts, I decided I was too mortified to attend and just didn’t show up. I don’t think it was intentional or mean-spirited on anyone’s part, and I still hope that it was an accident of meal planning on our idiot cook’s part, but still…it’s no suprise we didn’t have another social with them for quite a while…
At a black friend’s house, I am looking at a curio and notice some trinkets with hebrew writing on them. I asked her about them and she explained what they were (I forgot) and to what jewish ceremony they pertained. I looked blankly at her. She said “I am jewish”. “Really?!”. “Yes, I am black too” :o
I worked as a substitute teacher for the month before school got out. I often had trouble telling similar-looking kids apart in the classroom, and would sometimes call one towheaded boy by the name of another towheaded boy–but I always got White Liberal Guilt when I made the mistake with black girls, possibly compounded by my mangling of their unfamiliar names (was she named Taniqua or Taquana? that sort of thing). Once I was subbing in a third-grade class and doubly messed up, calling a girl by a mangling of another girl’s name. I immediately apologized, but the girl smiled at me and said, “Don’t worry, our teacher does that all the time.” Given that their teacher was also black, I felt a little better about it :).
As for feeding the fraternity the chicken-and-watermelon meal, I’m really not sure that’s such a big deal. That sounds like a pretty standard cookout meal to me; unless there were other signs that the sorority were mocking the fraternity, I’d be a little surprised if they were offended by it.
Daniel
Ha, that’s a pretty good example right there.
I hadn’t ever met anyone who wasn’t Catholic before, being raised in South America, attending Catholic school, etc. When I came to the U.S. and one of my new girlfriends told me she was a born-again Christian, I laughed and said there was no such thing. I think I was 14.
I once told a fellow faculty member at the college where I was working that I had really enjoyed his piano concert the week before.
There were two male Asian professors at the school–one in the music department and one in the chemistry department. Guess which I was talking to?
In high school, in the mid 80’s or so, the school decides to have “African American Day”. The day arrives, and several students apparently got together and decided to dress up like KKK that day.
Now, I wasn’t one of these people, but I do recall only thinking it was funny when I saw it. I’m not sure it even crossed my mind that it might have been wrong or tasteless in any way.
It curdles my blood thinking about it today,
When I was a kid, my younger cousin would come and live with us for months at a time. During one of those stays my mom started dating the gentleman who is my step-dad now, whose last name is Berry. He’s black. My cousin was about 4 or so and for a long time called him Mr. Black Berry. My step-dad thought it was pretty funny, but my aunt was mortified. 
[QUOTE=Sampiro]
(one of whom was later revealed to be Lou Diamond Phillips) he supposedly answered (I’ve no memory of the incident) “Thank you, but to be honest… I think it was those niggers over there he was wanting you to look at” and pointed to another table of black diners (or maybe that’s where Lou Diamond Phillips was eating).
[/QUOTE]
You want Lou Diamond Phillips bad, don’t you?