Racism

[den]

Today I was accused of Racism. I discovered I was a racist when I got into the express checkout line ahead of someone, and she said: "You racist white cunt!"

So there you go. Racist.

Comments

[kuangning]

Gleah. Well, you can tell her you're not racist, 'cause one of your friends, who is black, says so. So there. ;)

hee! thanks.

[dewhitton.livejournal.com]

"I'm not racist! Some of my best friends are Darkies." 8)

Re: hee! thanks.

[kuangning]

*grins.* exactly. ;) I have to say, I haven't been called a darkie since I left the islands. It's a non-offensive term there, almost an affectionate one. Is it the same in Australia? No-one in the US seems to use it at all, and if they did, I bet it wouldn't be affectionate.

Re: hee! thanks.

[dewhitton.livejournal.com]

Not so nice here. It's still used by old farts from WW2 and that era, but it's not PC.

Re: hee! thanks.

[kuangning]

Heh, noted.

Re: hee! thanks.

[jim-lane.livejournal.com]

Trust me: It's NOT a term of "affection" here in the USA, not even from one black to another. }>-p

Re: hee! thanks.

[kuangning]

I gathered that; I do currently live in the US. Like I said, no-one's called me that since I left the islands as a pre-teen. ;)

Re: hee! thanks.

[chezmax]

I've never even heard that term.


(I'm surprisingly sheltered from racist terms...)

Re: hee! thanks.

[kuangning]

This is by no means a bad thing, and I'm going to refrain from un-sheltering you, because I like you. ;)

Re: hee! thanks.

[zibblsnrt.livejournal.com]

It's rare at best in my neck of the woods too, but recognized enough that it'd be a "hey, have a kick in the head" word as far as regards responses.

It's odd at times how place-dependent some terms like that can be; I'd never considered the idea of it not being an insult, or at least derived from one. (Then again, the wackiness around the word "Jew" in my part of Canada can confuse folks not used to it as well.)

Re: hee! thanks.

[kuangning]

Hrm. I don't know about "not derived from one," actually. It probably was derived from one. But somewhere along the line it lost its sting, like "nigger" never did, and it's more likely to be used as a warmer sort of race identification, or even admiringly. "First, second and third place in class this year were all douglas. Those little darkies don't play they have brains, you know!"

... "dougla" means mixed race, East Indian and black, which lots of people are.

Re: hee! thanks.

[jim-lane.livejournal.com]

Never heard that term, and I thought (as an old newsman) I was fairly well "educated" in such things. Oy!

(And I'm not Jewish, either! *hehehe!!!*)

Re: hee! thanks.

[kuangning]

It's a West Indian thing, and maybe (but not probably) even a specifically Trinidad-and-Tobago thing; our relatively brief period (roughly 1783, when the Spanish offered incentives to settle there and bring slave, to 1838, when the last attempts to keep the former slaves in service were formally given up) of slavery was succeeded by a somewhat-less-brief time of (mostly East Indian) indentured labor, from the late 1830s to 1917.

The two groups did a lot of mingling. My mother is a dougla, my father somewhat more mixed than that; I have Chinese cousins and white ones as well. It's a very interesting little country. Racial tension exists, but it's more likely to be black-vs-Indian than white-vs-anything, and it's more because of the way the two groups treated each other in settling the land after the whites had retreated. Indentured servants felt they were superior to the former slaves, while former slaves felt that they, having been there first and under harsher terms, should not have to give way to this new wave of interlopers.

It doesn't hurt, either, that whites had so brief a time of real power. Fifty-some years of slavery and seventy-odd of indentured service -- one average lifetime, and a man who was himself a slave at birth didn't have to watch his grandchildren grow up slaves too -- just doesn't breed generation upon generation of rancor the same way.

< /lecture> ;)

Re: hee! thanks.

[jim-lane.livejournal.com]

Thank you, dear lady, for insight (it was NOT a "lecture") into a piece of history of which I was sadly (and inexcusably) ignorant.