Why not pronounce it “Bayner”, like the Speaker of the House does?
Mr. Potter, the evil land baron in It’s A Wonderful Life, called the poor immigrants in town “garlic eaters.” This was filmed in 1946, so it’s been around awhile.
And I can back up Colibri: I’ve heard *Mulignan *many times while growing up in an Italian family in the 60s.
I agree, I just don’t agree that these phrases are outside the realm of racism or at least insult based on race.
Sure it is, it is based on the immutable fact that you’re black and to some that means you should behave in a certain way. But like I said above, no they’re not nearly so bad as kike, nigger, and so forth.
But it isn’t all that important so we don’t need to agree.
That’s an old one. It was used for the Irish back in the 1800’s, during the potato famine. Often just ‘spuds’. Also cabbage or cabbagehead.
I dunno. When people say Boner, he corrects them to Beaner. His name, I comply.
“Frogeaters”, actually, which originally was something the urbanised Parisians called the country yokels of Versailles.
A few years back, someone brought donuts onto our trading floor. One guy grabbed a donut with sprinkles on it, and from then on he has been known as “Sprinkles” (at least on the trading floor, where the corporate rules lighten up a little).
My guess is that the first time this happened was the first time two cultures with different foods intermixed. It could even be pre-agricultural (more than 10K years ago).
People have been xenophobic for a long time, and will continue to have an impulse to be. It’s up to us all to understand, recognize, and control those impulses in ourselves, and discourage them in others.
Three interwebz will be awarded to whomever can post the oldest attributable example. So far, I think that’s Giles. I’m not sure I understand that post, though!
Only, it doesn’t happen in every culture. While I can think of many cases where a name of food is used as an euphemism or a derogatory term for something other than people, and while I’m evidently not a walking dictionary, I’m hitting a blank on foods used in Spain as an ethnic slur. It’s one of the things I’ve had people ask me about: “where does this frijolero thing come from?” “Well, beans are called frijoles in many Latin American countries, and USAnians use beaner or frijolero as an insult on Hispanics, since frijoles are a Hispanic staple.” “Why? That’s silly! Do they call Chinese arroceros*?” “It’s an insult, since when do insults have to make sense?”
- arrocero: person who likes rice (arroz) a lot. No ethnic slur involved.
Funny, related anecdote:
On Mythbusters once, Grant and Tori were going to get into shark-infested waters, wearing protective gear, and see if panicked flailing was more likely to attract sharks vs. remaining calm and still.
Once the boys realized they were going to be tossed into the ocean as shark bait, Tori looked at Grant and said “I hope they like sushi!”
:eek::dubious:
So what?
People who call me an Oreo (which doesn’t actually happen that often, thanks to my size advantage) aren’t holding my race against me. They’re holding my behavior against me. Calling it racist contorts the term out of all meaning. It is almost as silly as Glenn Beck claiming that Barack Obama hates white people.
I see your point here, but I don’t agree with it. I don’t think racism means only “the belief that one ‘race’ is inherently superior or inferior to others,” as you claimed; I think it covers a broader range of meanings, and that it includes the type of attitude characterized by calling people “oreos.” I admit that I don’t have a clear and concise definition that clearly delineates what is and isn’t racism, but that’s the lexicographers’ problem, not mine. I just use words in the way that seems to me best, and the lexicographers can worry about distilling the myriad uses of a word into a short dictionary entry. More apropos to the discussion is the fact that I don’t think my usage of racist to describe the term “oreo” and those who use it is at all idiosyncratic. I think most people (or at least a lot of people) would describe that as racism.
Like I said, we don’t have to agree.
To me expecting someone to behave in a certain way because they are black or white or Asian is racist.
There’s two parts:
- They are criticizing your behavior.
- They are saying that black people should inherently behave a certain way simply because they are black.
#2 is pretty clearly racist to me.
But again, just because I think many different things can be racist, does not mean I think they are all equally offensive. And we don’t have to agree on whether that stretches the words beyond all bounds. That is why the Oxford people have usage panels.
I believe men should behave a certain way simply because they are men. We shoudl support any children we happen to sire; we should refrain from striking our children and our wives; we should be faithful to our brothers. Does that make me sexist?
I don’t know why I am feeling compelled to defend persons who annoy me, but black people who’ve called me an Oreo tend to be people who believe that there is a definite, discernable, systemic tension between the Caucasian power structure in this country and black people (which I agree with) and that certain modes of behavior, stereotypically white, represent at best a capitulation and at a worst a collaboration with that structure (which I disagree with). I find the latter belief vexing, but it’s not racist.
Supporting children, not hitting, and being faithful seem like ways men and women should behave. If you believed that there were different standards for men and women (beyond just applying similar standards to masculine and feminine roles, like specifying children sired for men) then yes, you might well be sexist, though if anyone could come up with a hypothetical situation in which it wouldn’t be sexist, it would be you!
And except for the hypothetical part, that’s sort of what you’ve done here. Yes, you actually make a reasonably convincing case that the use of “oreo” you’ve described isn’t racist. And since you almost certainly have more experience with people using the word than I do, I’m inclined to defer to you here.
Nevertheless, my thinking someone who uses the word “oreo” is racist isn’t stretching the meaning of racism out of sense, it’s just disagreeing (perhaps ignorantly) about the character of the people who use the term. And even if someone who agreed with your understanding decided that it was racist, I don’t think it they’d be using the word unreasonably.
In other words, you’re (mostly right but still partly) wrong!
If you believe that should only be done because someone has a Y chromosome, then yes, it likely is. Personally, I think it should be done because you’re a person.
If you think that someone should regurlarly eat chitlins because they’re black and that a failure to do so is a rejection of being black, then yes, I think that’s racist. Not the most horrible form it can take, but still.
Boehner is an alternative spelling of Böhner, which is a german name:
Last name origins & meanings:
North German (Böhner): occupational name from an agent derivative of Middle Low German bönen ‘to board’, ‘to lay a floor’
North German (Böhner): topographic name for someone who lived in a loft, a variant of Boehne + the suffix -er denoting an inhabitant.
Read more on FamilyEducation: http://genealogy.familyeducation.com/surname-origin/boehner#ixzz24Anenr3F
Caspar Milquetoast:
It’s not that I don’t believe women shouldn’t be held to the same standards as those I hold for men in general; it’s that I’m much more likely to be judgmental about a man misbehaving in those ways than about a woman.
You wouldn’t say that if we were in the same room, but that’s only because I’m a large short-tempered black man inclined by temperament to bully others through physical intimidation. Ghetto, in other words. My cite is the free cup of coffee I’m drinking.