Accidental Racism: an exercise in sticking one's foot in it...

Despite my sparkling personality, my impeccable manners and my 100% score on the latest Code Of Conduct training at work, even I find myself sticking my foot firmly into my mouth from time to time.

I am, as much as I hate to admit it, an accidental racist.

I know, hard to believe isn't it.  I'm such a model of appropriate behavior and political correctness that you'd be forgiven for assuming I never say anything that could possibly offend anyone.  But it's true.

I know I use the word gypped all the time, and I suppose anyone who was actually a Gypsy would be mortally offended by the insinuation.  The same with indian giver.  And I even found out the other day that the term peanut gallery has racist origins, referring to when black people had to sit at the back of the theatre.

I know, intellectually, that these are racist comments, but they're so common today that I just say them without thinking.

Bad Kellie!

I guess the question is when does an expression stop being racist and start being just part of our everyday language?  When I don't remember it's origin?  When no one remembers it's origin?  When there's no one left alive who can recall it being used to demean and insult?

The term hooligan, for example, originally referred to a drunk Irishman, or more specifically to a particular family of drunk Irishmen called the Hoolihans, but no one would consider that a racist expression.  Is it because it's further away historically speaking?  Or perhaps because the people it's referring to aren't still being discriminated against?

I suppose it doesn't matter, if someone finds a comment racist then I suppose that should be enough of a reason to not use it.

But I'm hardly the only one to suffer from this particular problem.  Take this song that I remember hearing some of my older relatives singing when I was a kid.

Source

Go home to your mother

you little black bugger

you don't belong to me...

Awful, right?  Of course, when they sang it they were referring to flies that were buzzing around food on the dining table.  If they'd thought about what it was really referring to, they probably would have been mortified.

So what about you guys?  Any cases of accidental racism to share with the class?

Is anyone else kind of hoping he got Judge Judy, or is it just me...

Okay, here's a little quiz for all you parents out there.

Your children were placed in foster care after it was found that they were being abused and neglected.  You want to visit them, but in order to do that you need the judge's permission.  Do you:  

A).  Sneak a visit in the hope that the judge is none the wiser. 

B).  Attempt to bribe the judge with flattery and a fruit basket. 

C).  Dress in drag as an elderly Scottish woman and get hired by your child's family as the new housekeeper, or; 

D).  Put on your best Nazi uniform, straighten your swastika patch, pencil on your Hitler moustache and front up to court to tell the judge that all you want is the chance to prove you can be a good father to little Adolf.

If you picked option D, then obviously you're the rather eccentric fellow from New Jersey who thought it'd be a good idea to front up to a visitation hearing wearing his Nazi themed best [link].

And by eccentric, of course I mean bat shit crazy.

Dude, why on earth are you idolising a guy who was, not to put too fine a point on it, evil?  The guy was insane, had both Mummy and Daddy issues, and seriously blamed an entire race of people because he wasn't rich to the point that he had millions of them killed!  None of these are things you should be trying to emulate.

And even if we put aside your ideological beliefs, surely you must have realised that turning up looking like an extra from A Springtime For Hitler wasn't going to win you any brownie points with that judge.  

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that you're not going to be allowed to see your kids any time soon. 

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I'd like to thank Smashgirl over at Smash!Mosaics [link] for showing me this article.  She works at the library with me and her blog is awesomesauce, full of great posts about her travels and adventures.  And her mosaics aren't anything to sneeze at either [link].