For the record, we used to have those little bastards all over the place at my university. Called them ninja squirrels. They were easily the most aggressive little bastards I’ve ever seen - even of all the other squirrels (grey and red) we had on campus. They were always chasing the other squirrels away and they would come up and try to attack people. Just completely bizarre. I’ve never seen anything like it before or since.
Huh. The ones in New York are mellow and behave just like any other squirrel. It was weird when I moved to Boston and all the squirrels were (yawn) gray.
You know that the black squirrels are a different phase of the gray ones, right?
Yeah, I know. And that’s what makes their behavior so bizarre. I mean, don’t get me wrong they weren’t flipping out 24/7 or something. Most of the time they would be just scampering along trees and stuff, but every once in a while you would see them chasing around a red squirrel or a grey squirrel, and I never saw it happen the other way around. Same with challenging people. It wouldn’t happen often, but it was pretty funny when it did. And again, I only ever saw or heard about the black ones doing it.
It could just be selective memory or something, who knows?
Actually, black kids don’t call each other “nigger.” It’s “nigga” or even “nicca,” never “nigger.”
There was a parody on TV recently about a white kid hanging with black guys and his reluctance to use the N word. The black kids all encouraged him saying, yo, you cool, you can say it, go ahead. So, the white kid happily uses the N word and the black kids immediately whip the crap out of him. The white kid complains about it asking why they said it was okay for him to say it if they were gonna beat him up for it. The black kids replied, "you put a little too much “errr” in there.
Anyway, back to “squigger.” It is indeed a rather cute play on words but. . . there’s just a little too much “errr” in there.
Old threads never die. . … Unless they’re black squirrels. Then you can shoot them and call them squiggers and have everybody laugh on your clever play of words. Shooting niggers, shooting squiggers-- haha, no offense intended.
Black kids having taken to calling each other “my nigga” is no where near the same thing as a drunk white guy in a bar crackng jokes about “shooting squiggers”.
The shooting squiggers comment is racist and offensive. You just don’t make jokes, however obliquely, about shooting something named after a group of humans. I also find the notion that “WE can say that word but YOU can’t” to be racist.
Hmm. Not sure that it’s all about the shooting. What if the guy was looking at the window and commenting on how cute all the little squiggers were, playing on the porch?
I think the offensive thing is that the guy associates black with ‘nigger’, and whatever context he used squigger in, it would make me uncomfortable. (Probably more uncomfortable if he was drunk.)
It really is the shooting part that I find extremely objectional. Black squirrles as “squiggers”-- well, yeah, probably offensive in most situations. But the pun might even have made me laugh in the right context.
However, the OP’ers overheard joke doesn’t just use the racial epithet as the basis of the humor. Its the implied violence that pushed it way over the edge.
Someone looking out the window remarking on cute squiggers would be mildly offensive. Sort of the verbal equivalent of lawn jockeys. Even if no harm was meant, it shows a lack of sensitivity.
Come on, how can the term ‘squiggers’ not be offensive? The ‘igger’ part comes in because they are black squirrels.
Come to think of it, even calling them ‘squafrican squamericans’ would be offensive.
Shooting squirrels, on the other hand, is OK by me. Just call them ‘tree rats’ and blaze away.
Regards,
Shodan
What if it had been a black man at the bar, and he was talking about “shooting squiggas”? Would that be OK?
What if it had been aliens at the bar talking about “shooting sqearthlings”? Would that be OK?
What if it had been an WASP at the bar talking about “shooting squakers”? Would that be OK?
The fact of the matter was that it was a white guy talking about “shooting squiggers”. Not OK.
If any one if the 6,000,000,000 people on this planet is offended, it’s racist.
athelas -
How dare you!
Regards,
Shodan
Superbee, to answer your question, it would be offensive no matter who uses the phrase.
Is the word nigger inherantly racist?
As George Carlin said, its just a word. Words are neutral, its the context that is racist.
Black people call each other niggers. Are they racists? Its just a word.
A drunk making a cute play on the words Squirrel and nigger. All that would illicite from me is an “…uhuh” and that would be the end of it. Not that funny, move on.
That’s too simplistic. Some words are so powerful they carry their own context.
The only context in which they can be used is in a discussion of their meaning and impact, like this one.
Of course it’s offensive. I’d be offended if I heard a guy say that.
In fact, even beyond the “SQ” word, I’m offended whenever I hear the N word in person. When its by a white, I am offended because they seem to think that I am the type of person its okay to use that word around.
When a black person says it around me, it seems to me they are implying that it is a word that all white people use, and are implying that therefore I, as a white person, use it. I know this is not the case every time a black person uses the term in front of a white, but believe me there HAVE been some times where this was definitely the case.
I know that perhaps most of the time the black people are not trying to offend, but the few who do ruin my perception for the rest of them.
Squirrels that don’t live in an urban area and don’t come in contact with people often do not behave like the squirrels in NYC.
The ‘country squirrels’ are vicious little animals that can and do cause a lit of damage by chewing holes in walls to get in attics and they can carry disease.
Out here, we kill squirrels for various reasons. Near a house or in a house, they are like any other rodent, like a rat that needs to be eliminated. There’s also small game hunting season, in which it’s legal to go out in the woods and kill the squirrels. Some people eat them. I have eaten squirrel, and it’s not bad.
They are not cute, cuddly little animals. They’re nasty little rodents.
Though I can’t imagine referring to them as squigger. Around here people refer to them as ‘tree rats’ because they are a rodent (like a rat) and live in trees.