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submitted 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) by Melatonin@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

I just got up from conversation with a couple of older black men, that I said "well I got to go back to work and start cracking the whip." And it occurred to me then that it was probably a really insensitive stupid thing to say.

Sadly, it hadn't occurred to me until it's already said.

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[-] TheRealKuni@lemmy.world 85 points 11 months ago

cracking the whip

I think this is a fantastic example of what you’re talking about.

On its face, “cracking the whip” doesn’t need to be seen as offensive. Humans have collectively spent far more time using whip cracks to motivate animals than fellow humans, I suspect.

However, the determination of offensive speech is not in the hands of the speaker, but rather in the reception by the listener. That is to say, you can have the purest of intentions but if someone is offended by what you say, no amount of explaining takes away the initial offense. And generally you don’t GET to do that explaining. Damage is done, and that person may then avoid you or already have a shifted opinion of you.

I’ve had to learn this lesson the hard way. And fortunately have had friends who were willing to tell me that I had offended them when I thought what I said was completely benign.

[-] NoIWontPickaName@kbin.social 19 points 11 months ago

I hate how everybody else gets to judge whether or not someone’s speech is offensive, regardless of what someone intended

[-] zaph@sh.itjust.works 34 points 11 months ago

That's just how humans are. It's not just about words but actions too. If you get drunk and drive your vehicle and hit and kill someone you go to jail. You didn't intend to kill anyone so why should you be held responsible? Sure intent matters but it's not the only thing that matters.

[-] lolcatnip@reddthat.com 11 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

If you get drunk and drive, you had the intention to do something you knew could result in someone being killed. The intent very much matters in determining responsibility, and it's the reason you'd likely be charged with involuntary manslaughter, but not murder.

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[-] 4am@lemm.ee 16 points 11 months ago

The only thing I hate is the impatience with which some people act when something offends them.

I get that anger or frustration is the motivator but if this person who offended you is not just some random asshole, speak up and explain first. Maybe some people aren’t pieces of shit, they’re just repeating phrases they’ve heard a million times and never thought about.

Not everyone’s had that moment of realization that there is a ton of colloquial slang that is (or has been repurposed to be) a really fucked up dog whistle.

[-] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 11 points 11 months ago

Yeah it sucks but also it’s both gut feelings and self defense against bad actors.

Being a person is hard and that’s one of the ways. But also we get to decide how we respond to it. Some things like OP’s example naturally feel “oh fuck yeah I shouldn’t’ve said that” other things leave a conflict of opinion.

Words can hurt. And intentions matter when we hurt people but they aren’t the only thing that matters. Someone hurt in a car crash caused by you driving poorly may decide that they don’t want to give you another chance to drive with them in the car and that’s their choice.

How we respond to accidentally hurting people though will speak volumes about us. Do we apologize and attempt to change, ever striving to be a more positive force in everyone’s lives? Or do we lash out or respond with apathy, even when third parties say we’re in the wrong? I know who I’m trying to be, and I hope others see the value in that person.

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[-] lvxferre@lemmy.ml 13 points 11 months ago

However, the determination of offensive speech is not in the hands of the speaker, but rather in the reception by the listener.

Descriptively speaking, I think that it's more complex than it looks like - the determination depends on the linguistic community, not just the listener.

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[-] guyrocket@kbin.social 62 points 11 months ago

You do realize you're asking for a racist-o-pedia, right?

[-] Selkie@lemm.ee 36 points 11 months ago

Me and the boys going to work on the Big Book of Slurs

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[-] 520@kbin.social 54 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Unfortunately there isn't really a full list because that shit changes so often. Previously accepted phrases become slurs and yesterday's slurs get reclaimed.

[-] Thisfox@sopuli.xyz 21 points 11 months ago

And it is locational. Something insensitive in the US might be insensitive here in Oz or over in Europe.... Or might not.

That is how idiom works.

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[-] LeftHandedWave@lemm.ee 41 points 11 months ago

My grandfather, who passed away in the 90s, used to say "cotton pickers" for people that he meant as "jerks". It took me until the 2010s that he was taking about black people. 🤦‍♂️

[-] 4am@lemm.ee 17 points 11 months ago

A lot of people post online that they love the phrase “cotton-headed ninny-muggins”.

But once you look at it thought this lens…boys I think this one’s not ok.

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[-] ivanafterall@kbin.social 34 points 11 months ago

Speaking of stupid and insensitive, I was in my 20s before someone explained to me that to reference "jewing someone down" on price was not a great thing to say. It seems absurd. I'd just never seen it in writing or thought about it--it was an idiom, that's it. You want to get a better price, so you jew them down. I guess I thought it was a homonym, if anything, but I didn't really think about it, at all. Big-time facepalm moment when it clicked for me. Likewise for, "I got gypped."

[-] shalafi@lemmy.world 11 points 11 months ago

Those are the exact two examples for me as well! I thought I was alone in my idiocy!

Hell, "jewing someone down" was always a positive and admirable thing for me. Guess as a little kid I thought it was complementary to Jews and never thought about it again.

Not even going to say how long ago it was that I realized the reference to Gypsies. But it was a recent event, and I'm old.

How about "shyster"? I'm scared to ask...

[-] Bitrot 15 points 11 months ago

“Gypsies” itself is also seen as a pejorative for the Romani.

Shyster has a reputation as being anti-semitic due to the assumption it is related to Shakespeare’s character Shylock. Historically it isnt, it refers to lawyers and the “shy” comes from German. It’s literally shitters.

Sort of like the word niggardly.

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[-] ArtieShaw@kbin.social 9 points 11 months ago

My family always pronounced it "chewing them down," so I was surprised to see it written the first time. I was probably in college.

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[-] TheGiantKorean@lemmy.world 34 points 11 months ago

When I was younger, I thought the term "cracker" referred to white people being pale like a cracker that you'd eat. I did not realize until later that it was referring to whipping.

[-] pastabatman@lemmy.world 19 points 11 months ago

I'm 38 and I did not know this.

[-] BellaDonna@mujico.org 16 points 11 months ago

Whip cracker is actually probably false etymology, like a retcon of the origin that is popular, but actually not true.

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[-] ULS@lemmy.ml 14 points 11 months ago

So you're telling me Saltines aren't part of my American heritage?

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[-] guyrocket@kbin.social 26 points 11 months ago

I remember in my 20s the phrase "indian giver" coming out of my mouth. I hadn't used that phrase since I was a kid of 10 years old or so.

I immediately realized that I should never say that shit again. Adult me realized it is a horrible thing to say but as a kid I just thought it meant you gave and asked for it back. I had much more context as an adult.

Most of the time I think before I speak, but not always.

[-] SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 9 points 11 months ago

Yeah, that's called Welshing.

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[-] Nemo@midwest.social 23 points 11 months ago

The two that really make me wince are "Indian giver" and the related "Indian summer" and of course calling hooch "firewater" isn't great either.

[-] vzq@lemmy.blahaj.zone 16 points 11 months ago

I always thought “Indian summer” sounded very poetic, maybe related to the climate of the Indian subcontinent.

But it’s just garden variety American racism?
That’s so disappointing!

Does anyone know more about the etymology?

[-] LeftRedditOnJul1@lemmy.world 17 points 11 months ago

Indian summer (n.)

"spell of warm, dry, hazy weather after the first frost" (happening anywhere from mid-September to nearly December, according to location), 1774, North American English (also used in eastern Canada), perhaps so called because it was first noted in regions then still inhabited by Indians, in the upper Mississippi valley west of the Appalachians, or because the Indians first described it to the Europeans. No evidence connects it with the color of fall leaves, or to a season of renewed Indian attacks on settlements due to renewed warm weather (a widespread explanation dating at least to the 1820s).

Source: Etymonline

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[-] pingveno@lemmy.ml 20 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Oof. At work we currently have a project for words deemed insensitive. For the most part I think it's worthy, but some things are overboard. The project group cast a very wide net, ignoring context and etymology. My biggest disagreement is over "black" and "white".

Take "black box" and "white box" for types of testing. These are based merely on the properties of light. I have serious doubts about anyone ever having felt excluded by their use. And yet, we're wasting time coming up with non-standard nomenclature to satisfy this supposed slight. There's a whole laundry list of words like this.

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[-] nitefox@sh.itjust.works 15 points 11 months ago

phrases that are stupid

We haven’t invented a storage big enough for that yet

About the others, there are some obvious ones but other than that it mostly depends on context and culture. Some pointed the ricing thing for Linux, but I don’t think anyone in the community, myself included, thought about Asian ppl when calling themselves a ricer; nor I think it’s racist, so again: aside for obvious insults or widely known slurs, it basically falls back to context

[-] user224 13 points 11 months ago

It's not quite what you're looking for, but there's this list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_slurs

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[-] lvxferre@lemmy.ml 11 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Odds are that such a list won't ever exist. Insensitivity and bias depend on meaning, and meaning depends on context. As such, we [people in general] need to pay attention to what we're saying, and to whom, in to avoid both things. No easy way.

[-] kakes@sh.itjust.works 10 points 11 months ago

My mother-in-law used to call everyone "zipper-heads" until someone pointed out that it's a slur against Koreans (and a particularly graphic one at that).

[-] WashedOver@lemmy.ca 10 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

In school there was a group of mostly white friends that had a Asian kid in their friends group. His nickname was Nip. I honestly didn't know his real name as another was never used. It was a few years before I realized the connotation that was there once I started studying history. Not sure if it was a parent or where it came from but most of us at the time had no idea how bad it was. It was just his name and he used it too.

Then I think of my church going father. One of the kindest men I knew. Never had a bad thing to say about anyone unless it was personal thing based on a issue first hand.

Race wasn't on his mind at all. Being from the westcoast in a remote wilderness area most of the demographic was white and native with very few in those days what were called east Indians and Asians mixed in. More the exception if at all.

He worked for a logging outfit and towards the end of his career he was a logging road grader operator. I recall going down a road that he maintained in a Jeep with him. As I was navigating this rough road the logging trucks pounded constantly he told me to watch out for this large rock that was below the surface. Just the head of the rock was sticking up. He called them " the N word- heads" I was shocked. I knew he wasn't racist and was friends with the only black church member in town but the word just came out of this mouth as easily as any other word.

I asked him why he called it that, he said that's just what they were called. He didn't continue after that day with me as I don't think he thought about it until our conversation.

In some ways I did equate this to the numerous white kids I knew singing the NWA lyrics in school despite not even seeing a black kid before but this was in the 90s. I can still hear those lyrics as I type this.

Now this isn't to say kids were not nasty, as they were. There were several unkind things used when talking about the native kids that made up to half the school population and more of that where my family lived.

Back to my grandfather's time bonds were formed with the local native bands and friends were made but I'm sure the languaged used at times like "Indian giver" wasn't connected to the real reality.

I do fear as I get older I'm falling into one of these traps with gender and identity words. I think as we get older and comfortable with our understanding of the world we have figured out, some aren't really willing to figure out more.

Despite interacting and having friends from the older local gay community I've not been exposed to anyone that introduces themselves with their name and then their pronouns.

I'm not sure if we can just call everyone "them" or "they" without offending people? Feels like a good starting place but I've not learned yet it this is as bad as the N-word?

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this post was submitted on 29 Nov 2023
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