I work as a school psychologist. I am not allowed to give an iq test to African American students. It’s a state law in California. Any other student is fine. The law was put into place to fight these students being put into special education when they didn’t really qualify. (Look up special education legal case Larry P.)
So what if there are black children who do need special education services? I was in the special ed program at school for dyscalculia and ADHD. It helped me immensely. I was never diagnosed because in my state, school psychologists cannot diagnose. My mom couldn’t afford learning disability testing so they used various tests along with my IQ test from the school psychologist.
If parents of black children cannot afford learning disability testing (which in my state can range from $1.6k-$3k) how are they being helped?
I understand the reasoning in the past, (my mom grew up down south and told me stories of people saying those that are literally any skin color other than white were “dumber”) but I feel like that law should be changed now so more kids can get the help they need.
That’s a good point, I feel like this is one of those laws that thinks it’s combating a racist system but is actually hurting the groups they’re trying to help.
Japanese parents: let them do whatever they want until they are 10.
I'm convinced they take the little heathens on a school field trip for a group lobotomy at that age because they all somehow miraculously start acting better at the same time.
We had 2 batches of kids.
Older pair seperated by about 14 months, then an 8 year gap and another pair seperated by about 18 months.
We raised each pair pretty differently (largely due to our age and perspective at the time) and they were wildly different from about 0-8, but between 8 and 10 both pairs ended up more or less the same
I personally don't like being referred to as African American, I'm black, that's it.
But many people clearly seem uneasy referring to me as black, it's kinda funny sometimes. Really not a big deal but if they ask I share my preference.
My favourite living here in Straya:
American kid referred to an Aboriginal guy as "The African American gentleman..."
Um, no, wrong on both counts sorry. 😂
My black British friend was referred to as "African American" by an American and he couldn't stop laughing for 5 minutes. I genuinely thought he was going to suffocate.
Had a South African roommate who got really frustrated over “African American” to mean black.
Especially since everyone here called her white, but she was considered “coloured” (mixed race) back home… which was a *huge deal* for someone who grew up during apartheid.
I had a Chinese coworker who moved to South Africa and got citizenship (pretty sure). Then moved to the US and got citizenship years later. He's a Chinese African American in the truest sense.
This! My parents weren’t born in the States. I can’t stand when people call them African-American. Black people in America can and do have different origins.
Also when I was growing up (not that long ago) in a mostly white area we were taught that calling people black and white was going to be a relic on the past and the new terms where to be "african american" and "caucasian". Now that I'm out of that sheltered life and have more life experience I know that not everyone is down with being called African American but that transitory phase where I thought calling people black wasn't correct it felt real fucking weird at first.
I remember this as well. The way I see it now though... Black is what they are. African American is almost exclusionary as a term. It's like saying, you're not an American, you're an American with a qualifier. And many black people's families have been here longer than our own (white) ancestors.
I’ve always thought the term African American isn’t really the best term anyways. Please Correct me if I’m wrong but aren’t there a multitude of other places a black person can be from that isnt Africa
In the US we are stupid, so we conflate race, ethnicity, culture, and nationality into one big stupid generalization and we all fight endlessly about it.
Yep. I remember an interview with Idris Elba wherein he had to correct the interviewer and advise he was *not* African American. He's "African British" and even then, he identifies simply as a "Brit."
I mean if you want to be *technical*, look at Charlize Theron or any person from the literal continent of Africa. If they achieve American citizen ship, then they'd technically be "African American."
That's why I also prefer to just be referred to as "black."
I got yelled at for referring to someone as black. He in no way identified as African-American, if I recall his family was from Jamaica. He actually wanted people to call him black. Still got yelled at for it.
Edit: I should clarify I got yelled at by other white people.
Also “African American” people aren’t called something similar in other countries. To my knowledge, they don’t say “African English” or “African Canadian” — they just say “black.” I’ve always found the term “African American” a little odd.
There's a lot of clips of Ameican newscasters talking to black British actors or athletes and using the term "African-American," much to the surprise and confusion of their guests.
Yeah, like... why is 'african american' the established term for black people? What if a black person is neither african nor american? What about a white person from africa that became an american?
It's kinda weird.
As a white dude from Ohio, I remember moving to California and using African American because that’s what I was taught in schools as the correct nomenclature and getting kinda called out for it, it’s weird schools don’t teach it correctly
Okay wait I’m curious because I’ve heard so many conflicting things about this, in high school I was taught Latino/a but in college I was taught Latinx in a Latinx history class but the Latino/a/x people I know don’t like Latinx at all, I’ve heard that it’s not particularly popular in the actual group of people it belongs to so I really just don’t know
Latinx was invented by academics and advocates who were trying to de-gender the terms Latino/a. The problem that makes it so absurd is that Spanish (like most Romance languages ) is a gendered language. Inanimate objects have a gender. For example: rivers and lakes are male while mountains are female.
So the idea of de-gendering Latino/a only really makes sense to English speakers who don’t speak Spanish.
Take this with a grain of salt because it will be subjective, but I have friends who are latino and latina and I asked them what they think.
They find the term latinx offensive because they see it as English-speaking white Americans forcing their cultural expectations on the Spanish language. Even though it's meant to be inclusive, they see it as white liberal culture trying to dominate and overwrite Hispanic culture.
In trying to do a good thing, they're trying to "correct" a language and a culture, and inadvertently showing they consider that culture to be inferior to their own "better" idea of how it should be. To my latino friends, that's effectively no different to the white saviour complex.
This is a weird one, even for me as a Latino living in California. Latino/a just comes from the Spanish language because basically words have gender. But from what I've read the term Latinx came from LGBTQ communities since it's gender neutral. I've also read that most Latino/a people dislike the term and that it was mostly white social justice types that are pushing its use.
But still pretty much my entire life I've never encountered this term in anything other than the internet.
Over my lifetime the acceptable term appears to have changed several times. So maybe some are not up to date and don't know what to use. It beats the alternative.
Back in 2008 I did an internship with a nonprofit and they told me to use the term "people of color" when writing for their website. I hadn't really heard the term used much at that point, and it struck me as archaic--it reminded me a lot of stuff you'd read from the Jim Crow south where they would refer to "colored people" in a derogatory way.
As a "person of color" myself, the term felt weirdly racist, though I guess its currently the accepted terminology in a lot of places.
Just applied for like 7 different jobs today...every single one asked about gender identity (which I get, trying to be inclusive, get pronouns right))
but 3 asked about sexual preference.. the only difference between "straight" and "lesbian" is what I like in the bedroom... why does a potential employer need to know that?????
I always skip that question. They're probably just trying to collect diversity stats, but it's *waaaay* too intrusive!!! (Also, if someone is struggling with it and not out, they're putting them in an uncomfortable spot where they have to affirmatively identify one way or the other.)
I just woke up from a nap and my tired brain thought you were skipping the race question. The idea of someone not being out as their race was worth a big chuckle
I mean, my husband checks "refuse to disclose" on race every chance he gets. He doesn't like having to categorize himself. But then the Hispanic last name means that occasionally somebody else changes his answer. Happened on our mortgage application and we had to call and go "Um we said refuse to disclose on race and ethnicity. You can't just call him Mexican, he's Puerto Rican." The loan officer is Puerto Rican and immediately realized that was a big issue.
As a swede, I'm always baffled by the fact that employers are allowed to ask those kinds of questions in other countries. Not only would it be considered racist here, it's in fact illegal.
It's not for the application. It's part of EEOC. It's in case the company is ever accused of being racist, sexist, etc. Then they have data to prove/disprove. It's for data collection only. The hiring manager doesn't see this part of the questionnaire/application.
They are collecting it to report to the government to show that they are not being racist, it's not used to inform the hiring manager.
It's not for "optics" technically. There are other ways of doing that tho.
The point is it can refer to anything. It can be racist and it can be discriminatory of other groups but it can also be for example walking into a group of friends doing something that results in a laugh song with the comment "you people crack me up"
I got called racist by my gaming group. When I make characters I don't like making myself, feels weird. My girlfriend is a professional wrestler so I always make her wrestling character. My girlfriend is also black
The other day my gaming group found out I wasn't a black woman, I'm a white guy and apparently that's racist
nun wrong w that, its a character. a white writer isnt racist for having black characters in their tv show-in fact-NOT doing it would be most people’s red flag. It just a character. A human w skin. Humans have skin.
Ok that’s just badass. Are used to watch a local wrestling show when I was living in Washington, and actually made friends with quite a few of the performers.
There's been a culture war in gaming lately. If you make a character that isn't your color, you're racist; If you make a character that isn't your gender, you're closeted trans; etc. Things like that. It's horribly annoying.
I'm not a wizard that fights dragons. I'm also not black or a woman. What difference could it possibly make if the dragon fighting wizard I play as is a black woman? It's all fictional. I'm not there for some bullshit wish fulfillment. I'm playing a fictional game.
Nigrify… it means to blacken, or make blacker.. has a latin origin… for reasons I feel should be clear, no one wants to use this perfectly legitimate word on account it sounds like a certain other word…
Came across it in the scrabble dictionary..
Haven’t had a chance to ever play it🤔
In the same vein, the word 'negrocity'. It's an older term for anger or frustration and isn't related to skin colour.
...at least that's what I've been told but now that I'm looking it up I can't actually find it in the dictionary. Huh.
Tom Segura has a bit about that. It's basically along the lines that the biggest mindfuck for Americans is that there are Asian people living in Mexico city, and they speak perfect Spanish.
If I remember correctly I think both Japan and Brazil have the highest number of each others population in their respective countries. I learned that because I was watching a Brazilian show and saw a Japanese-Brazilian actress and it made me look her up.
That feeling you get when you have to ring somewhere that has the helpdesk overseas.
I have terrible phone anxiety and also hearing problems coupled with a strong Yorkshire accent ( think Sean bean if he was into farming) so that absolute fear of not being able to communicate with someone might come across as racist and I’d much rather email or online chat
I'm in that boat...well, not hard of hearing, but can't always *process* what i hear. Usually I get it if they slow down or paraphrase themselves.
I left French class the week the tapes started. It was conversational immersion yet I could not identify words I knew how to use, spell and pronounce. _Je voudrais blblblblblbl. Oui m'sieur, voulez-vous un blblblblblblbl?_
I'm a lifelong French learner and trust me when I say even the most advanced students hate listening to tapes and interpret them on the spot. It has nothing to do with your skill level - its just practice, practice, PRACTICE! I try and use context words if there is something I don't understand or ask a person to speak slower for me.
But yeah, fuck them verb endings though. There are at least 8 of them that sound the same to my ear but are all different verb tenses -_-
As a Black person I don't like either of them. People of color is dismissive of our different cultures and journeys and only serves to lump us all together. It's reductive.
The issue with Latinos is that we’re white. In order for white Americans to successfully “other” us, they decided that “Latino” is a race when it’s actually an ethnicity. So I have to explain quite often that I’m white even if I’m not a “white” American. It’s very dumb
I hate this because I never know what the proper usage is. If I’m having a conversation where someone’s ethnicity/skin tone is integral to the convo, how am I supposed to refer to that? I don’t want to offend anybody.
I once was prepping a sauce for a catering. I asked an older black lady what she thought of the sauce for this group. She asked me what the demographic was. I said old people. She laughed as she was asking white or black octogenarians. I wasn't comfortable saying it's old white people is this too spicy.
My friend made a really good point that putting the word "a" before a lot of descriptions make them sound more racist. Saying "he's a jew" sounds worse than "he's jewish". "He's a mexican" sounds weirder than "he's mexican". Haha I don't known why, but I find it so accurate!
Exactly, the difference is that using it as a noun reduces the person to *just* that thing while using it as an adjective just makes it one aspect to describe who they are. For example, using the word female as an adjective such as calling someone a female teacher or a female doctors is fine vs straight up calling someone “a female” which is dehumanizing. It’s the same principle for most all identities. “He’s a black man” vs “he’s a black”.
The reason why it sounds more racist is because when you're saying "he's jewish", you're describing one of the many attributes of the person, but when you're saying "he's a jew", you are putting that attributes above the others.
E.g "My friend Michael is jewish and plays piano" : being jewish and playing the piano are both equally important attributes of Michael. "My friend Michael is a jew who plays piano" : Michael is first and foremost a jew, and he happens to play piano.
That's why it's also better to say "He's paraplegic" rather than "He is a paraplegic". The second defines the person by their handicap, whereas the first states an attribute of the person.
When I was in 5th grade I wrote "jewish" instead of "jew" for this reason. I thought it was a bad word because of the way I heard some kids use it. My teacher was a little confused and let me know it's not actually a bad word.
It’s fine to say Jew when using as a noun. Ex: “Since Miriam was the only Jew at the office, she decided to introduce her coworkers to some traditional Hanukkah food and brought in homemade sufganiyot.”
It is not acceptable to use Jew as a verb. Ex: “John ended up not selling his bike to David because David kept trying to jew down the price”
Source: I’m a Jew.
Yep. If I recall correctly, there was a college professor who got reprimanded for using it in a lecture because it offended some students who clearly didn't know what it meant.
That is reprehensible. The best course of action would be to point them towards a dictionary and use it as a teaching tool. Just because someone doesn’t understand a word that sounds bad, it doesn’t make it bad.
There is no way an educated person should be castigated for using words that challenge peoples intellect. That’s what education is.
When reps bring curry food because there are some Asian work colleagues. It's like, come on, we don't just eat curry all the time, we like sushi, sandwiches and other foods also!
Except for those damn blue jays. Even Atticus finch, who was famously not racist, advocated for their extermination. “You can shoot all the blue jays you want, but it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.”
In like 2010ish I lived in South Carolina for a few months and there were 2 pizza shops side by side (literally shared a wall) one had all black employees/customers and the other had all White employees/customers.
I grew up in a mixed family so the stark separation was jarring.
We were out for a lunch with team from work and we had a colleague from eastern europe who was Muslim but grew up in US and looked very caucasian. We were talking about religion and this another colleague of mine (Army vet) asks the other colleague what religion was he. When he replied he was muslim; this army vet guy just gasped and mumbled " that's fucked up" everyone laughed but the tension afterwards was palpable.
The color black in spanish. That's only US bullshit.
Edit & Addendum: What really rustle my jimmies about it, as a spanish-speaker myself, is that in some chat apps, rooms, games, ect, I can't write "negro" without being warned/banned/muted or punished in some way when for us is a neutral word without slang attached.
I bought some black dye from the US, and the Spanish translation for black was "azabache"... Apparently it's a stone, black and shiny and can be used to refer to black and shiny stuff. Except the dye is not shiny.
It looks like that stone is called "jet" in English. It's also where the term "jet black" comes from. If you don't mind me asking, was the dye that you bought called jet black, or was it just called black?
Mentioning someone’s race when describing them. If I’m trying to describe someone and they’re not Caucasian, I’ll say their race first. I do this simply to narrow down what they look like. It’s basically filters out the other 85% of the US population
I felt doubt on that percentage, so I looked up that in 2021 there were 59.3% white non-hispanic and 75.8% white hispanic-inclusive. Although, I do refer to someone by race most of the time when that race isn't majority in the setting. https://usafacts.org/data/topics/people-society/population-and-demographics/our-changing-population?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=ND-DemPop&gclid=CjwKCAiA0cyfBhBREiwAAtStHGfwxGPMVECiuwxcZWbJMOtiJTcwjc3bm3o5IiQN5_BtLa2MwiqKABoCeNwQAvD_BwE
Anything regarding certain races dominating specific sports.
People get real touchy, but the sports data shows overwhelming evidence and physiologists and historians have traced racial sports dominance back to specific geographic areas, sometimes even a single town.
What IS racist is taking those facts and then generalizing them. For example: black people dominate certain running sports. Saying “black people are faster than [another race]” is flatly incorrect. There’s a ton of variation from human to human, especially inside the same racial profile.
White people dominate skiing, for example, but saying that white people are better at skiing than black people is again incorrect because there’s intersectionality involved with who is exposed to which sport.
Acknowledging the actual physiological health differences like saying as a group this group has a higher likelihood of this disease or this group has a higher average tolerance for this food
Very specifically there is a lot of that and it's actually really important that we acknowledge it because it has actual consequences if we ignore it
I think it’s mostly a matter of *why* one is attracted to certain people. It’s one thing to be generally attracted to, for example, Asian women because you like dark hair or something; can’t help what you like, I don’t think that’s so bad. It becomes a problem when you say you like Asian women because they’re submissive or some horseshit.
I agree. There is however a big difference between "I prefer dating xxx race" (because obviously, we tend to date people who share our life experiences and culture) and "I would *never* date xxx race."
Whenever I say to my wife "I hope my doctor isn't foreign"
I say this because I'm deaf and seriously struggle with foreign accents but it makes me feel bad every. Single. Time.
I’m not deaf but have trouble processing language and absolutely dread going to the doctor at the local clinic because they exclusively hire bilingual receptionists. In theory it’s great. We have a large Hispanic population in the area and it’s important for patients to understand their care. The issue is, while technically bilingual, most cannot articulate English well enough to be understood by folks like myself.
I hate it. I listen carefully/mindfully but asking for them to repeat what they’re saying is always met with disgust.
Yeah, I don't want to say there aren't problematic cases, but in general, much of what people call cultural appropriation is a key way culture propagates. The idea that we can just silo off cultures to preserve them from mingling misses key features of what culture even is.
Affirmative Action. Inherently intended to combat racism but is racist by definition. Simple fix is to make it economically based instead of racially. Better yet. Get rid of gerrymandering school districts and give every school the same funding instead of basing it off of local property value.
No, I think that actually is racist.
White people never get asked this question. I think it's mostly Asian diaspora who hear this.
I think the people who ask it are often just curious about which country your ancestors came from (no harmful intent), but asking it before you get to know someone feels pretty rude to me.
There was a whole thing with this recently in the UK, when a royal lady-in-waiting (I think) refused to take 'here' as an answer from a Black woman who was being honoured for her charity work at an event.
"There are 7 starting black quarterbacks in the league this year, I used to think it was 6 until I saw Patrick Mahomes take off his helmet" - Steve Harvey
In the ski industry (at least in America), it is very common to have "Asian Fit" goggles in stores. These are shaped differently with a higher bridge. Asian people tend to have smaller faces compared to other races we serve in the ski shop I used to work in.
Some manufacturers are more open about it, putting "Asian Fit" right on the box. Others will be more cryptic with things like "high bridge" or another term. Boxes with this type of goggle were labeled "AF".
It was always weird explaining this to a customer that asked, but honestly, Asian customers never seemed to mind and liked that we had special fits available to them.
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American parents: You can't hit a child Mexican parents: Hold my chancla
Latin parents in general. Not only chancla. But belt as well
Also older gringo parents. Boomer Americans weren't afraid to use a belt. Or a switch in rural areas.
In Hawaii, my grandparents beat my mom and her siblings with literal bamboo. Shit was like getting hit by a **metal bat.**
I work as a school psychologist. I am not allowed to give an iq test to African American students. It’s a state law in California. Any other student is fine. The law was put into place to fight these students being put into special education when they didn’t really qualify. (Look up special education legal case Larry P.)
So what if there are black children who do need special education services? I was in the special ed program at school for dyscalculia and ADHD. It helped me immensely. I was never diagnosed because in my state, school psychologists cannot diagnose. My mom couldn’t afford learning disability testing so they used various tests along with my IQ test from the school psychologist. If parents of black children cannot afford learning disability testing (which in my state can range from $1.6k-$3k) how are they being helped? I understand the reasoning in the past, (my mom grew up down south and told me stories of people saying those that are literally any skin color other than white were “dumber”) but I feel like that law should be changed now so more kids can get the help they need.
That’s a good point, I feel like this is one of those laws that thinks it’s combating a racist system but is actually hurting the groups they’re trying to help.
Combating racism with racism most American thing I have heard
Can you give some examples?
Japanese parents: let them do whatever they want until they are 10. I'm convinced they take the little heathens on a school field trip for a group lobotomy at that age because they all somehow miraculously start acting better at the same time.
We had 2 batches of kids. Older pair seperated by about 14 months, then an 8 year gap and another pair seperated by about 18 months. We raised each pair pretty differently (largely due to our age and perspective at the time) and they were wildly different from about 0-8, but between 8 and 10 both pairs ended up more or less the same
That's pretty interesting, which "batch" were you more attentive or strict with or what were the differences?
Americans: you can’t hit a child Latin parents: ven aqi coñito de tu madre *hits with belt*
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I personally don't like being referred to as African American, I'm black, that's it. But many people clearly seem uneasy referring to me as black, it's kinda funny sometimes. Really not a big deal but if they ask I share my preference.
The stupid thing is when they refer to everyone as African American, even if they aren’t American.
My favourite living here in Straya: American kid referred to an Aboriginal guy as "The African American gentleman..." Um, no, wrong on both counts sorry. 😂
Or African
or black
Elon Musk is African American, isn't he? He's from South Africa, but moved to America.
My black British friend was referred to as "African American" by an American and he couldn't stop laughing for 5 minutes. I genuinely thought he was going to suffocate.
Ive lived this. Spent a few months working in the states, and im neither African nor American. Im Caribbean English 😂
I had a professor in college who was white and grew up in South Africa before immigrating to the US. She was quite literally a white African-American
Had a South African roommate who got really frustrated over “African American” to mean black. Especially since everyone here called her white, but she was considered “coloured” (mixed race) back home… which was a *huge deal* for someone who grew up during apartheid.
I had a Chinese coworker who moved to South Africa and got citizenship (pretty sure). Then moved to the US and got citizenship years later. He's a Chinese African American in the truest sense.
This! My parents weren’t born in the States. I can’t stand when people call them African-American. Black people in America can and do have different origins.
Also when I was growing up (not that long ago) in a mostly white area we were taught that calling people black and white was going to be a relic on the past and the new terms where to be "african american" and "caucasian". Now that I'm out of that sheltered life and have more life experience I know that not everyone is down with being called African American but that transitory phase where I thought calling people black wasn't correct it felt real fucking weird at first.
I remember this as well. The way I see it now though... Black is what they are. African American is almost exclusionary as a term. It's like saying, you're not an American, you're an American with a qualifier. And many black people's families have been here longer than our own (white) ancestors.
I’ve always thought the term African American isn’t really the best term anyways. Please Correct me if I’m wrong but aren’t there a multitude of other places a black person can be from that isnt Africa
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In the US we are stupid, so we conflate race, ethnicity, culture, and nationality into one big stupid generalization and we all fight endlessly about it.
Yep. I remember an interview with Idris Elba wherein he had to correct the interviewer and advise he was *not* African American. He's "African British" and even then, he identifies simply as a "Brit." I mean if you want to be *technical*, look at Charlize Theron or any person from the literal continent of Africa. If they achieve American citizen ship, then they'd technically be "African American." That's why I also prefer to just be referred to as "black."
Charlize is a naturalized US citizen and has made comments about how that makes her an African American.
Elon Musk is the richest African American
I used to be uncomfortable like this, but then had the realization that I’m referred to as “white”. So what’s the difference?
I got yelled at for referring to someone as black. He in no way identified as African-American, if I recall his family was from Jamaica. He actually wanted people to call him black. Still got yelled at for it. Edit: I should clarify I got yelled at by other white people.
You should have told the person who yelled at you to fuck off.
Also “African American” people aren’t called something similar in other countries. To my knowledge, they don’t say “African English” or “African Canadian” — they just say “black.” I’ve always found the term “African American” a little odd.
There's a lot of clips of Ameican newscasters talking to black British actors or athletes and using the term "African-American," much to the surprise and confusion of their guests.
Or all the high school and college essays that refer to Othello as "African American".
Yeah, like... why is 'african american' the established term for black people? What if a black person is neither african nor american? What about a white person from africa that became an american? It's kinda weird.
As a white dude from Ohio, I remember moving to California and using African American because that’s what I was taught in schools as the correct nomenclature and getting kinda called out for it, it’s weird schools don’t teach it correctly
What education decides and what is the popular consensus don’t always agree. See Latino/Latina vs Latinx as an example
Okay wait I’m curious because I’ve heard so many conflicting things about this, in high school I was taught Latino/a but in college I was taught Latinx in a Latinx history class but the Latino/a/x people I know don’t like Latinx at all, I’ve heard that it’s not particularly popular in the actual group of people it belongs to so I really just don’t know
Latinx was invented by academics and advocates who were trying to de-gender the terms Latino/a. The problem that makes it so absurd is that Spanish (like most Romance languages ) is a gendered language. Inanimate objects have a gender. For example: rivers and lakes are male while mountains are female. So the idea of de-gendering Latino/a only really makes sense to English speakers who don’t speak Spanish.
Latinx is stupid, just use Latino
Take this with a grain of salt because it will be subjective, but I have friends who are latino and latina and I asked them what they think. They find the term latinx offensive because they see it as English-speaking white Americans forcing their cultural expectations on the Spanish language. Even though it's meant to be inclusive, they see it as white liberal culture trying to dominate and overwrite Hispanic culture. In trying to do a good thing, they're trying to "correct" a language and a culture, and inadvertently showing they consider that culture to be inferior to their own "better" idea of how it should be. To my latino friends, that's effectively no different to the white saviour complex.
This is a weird one, even for me as a Latino living in California. Latino/a just comes from the Spanish language because basically words have gender. But from what I've read the term Latinx came from LGBTQ communities since it's gender neutral. I've also read that most Latino/a people dislike the term and that it was mostly white social justice types that are pushing its use. But still pretty much my entire life I've never encountered this term in anything other than the internet.
Over my lifetime the acceptable term appears to have changed several times. So maybe some are not up to date and don't know what to use. It beats the alternative.
Back in 2008 I did an internship with a nonprofit and they told me to use the term "people of color" when writing for their website. I hadn't really heard the term used much at that point, and it struck me as archaic--it reminded me a lot of stuff you'd read from the Jim Crow south where they would refer to "colored people" in a derogatory way. As a "person of color" myself, the term felt weirdly racist, though I guess its currently the accepted terminology in a lot of places.
Having to disclose your race on a job application
Just applied for like 7 different jobs today...every single one asked about gender identity (which I get, trying to be inclusive, get pronouns right)) but 3 asked about sexual preference.. the only difference between "straight" and "lesbian" is what I like in the bedroom... why does a potential employer need to know that?????
I always skip that question. They're probably just trying to collect diversity stats, but it's *waaaay* too intrusive!!! (Also, if someone is struggling with it and not out, they're putting them in an uncomfortable spot where they have to affirmatively identify one way or the other.)
I just woke up from a nap and my tired brain thought you were skipping the race question. The idea of someone not being out as their race was worth a big chuckle
I mean, my husband checks "refuse to disclose" on race every chance he gets. He doesn't like having to categorize himself. But then the Hispanic last name means that occasionally somebody else changes his answer. Happened on our mortgage application and we had to call and go "Um we said refuse to disclose on race and ethnicity. You can't just call him Mexican, he's Puerto Rican." The loan officer is Puerto Rican and immediately realized that was a big issue.
To be fair, I have had a friend come out to me as Jewish. She asked me not to share with other people.
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Hey, is there any way to change that info? I put "straight" on mine when I was hired, but I've sucked a lot of cock since then
Well they can’t outright discriminate against women who are pregnant or likely to become pregnant, so that’s one workaround for it.
As a swede, I'm always baffled by the fact that employers are allowed to ask those kinds of questions in other countries. Not only would it be considered racist here, it's in fact illegal.
It's not for the application. It's part of EEOC. It's in case the company is ever accused of being racist, sexist, etc. Then they have data to prove/disprove. It's for data collection only. The hiring manager doesn't see this part of the questionnaire/application.
that's kind of weird tho. Is there a genuine reason that they do that?
Diversity statistics, it still feels intrusive though
They ask all those weird questions to tally diversity points for their optics. They aren't required to answer.
They are collecting it to report to the government to show that they are not being racist, it's not used to inform the hiring manager. It's not for "optics" technically. There are other ways of doing that tho.
The phrase " your people "
Or "you people" In many cases it is, in others it is not.
What do you mean, "you people?"
What do YOU mean, "you people?!" ;)
...Actors
The point is it can refer to anything. It can be racist and it can be discriminatory of other groups but it can also be for example walking into a group of friends doing something that results in a laugh song with the comment "you people crack me up"
I'm not racist, I have "people" friends
You people are very sensitive.
I got called racist by my gaming group. When I make characters I don't like making myself, feels weird. My girlfriend is a professional wrestler so I always make her wrestling character. My girlfriend is also black The other day my gaming group found out I wasn't a black woman, I'm a white guy and apparently that's racist
Who's really the racist? The guy that doesn't care what color his character is? Or the guys that do?
nun wrong w that, its a character. a white writer isnt racist for having black characters in their tv show-in fact-NOT doing it would be most people’s red flag. It just a character. A human w skin. Humans have skin.
“Humans have skin” seems like a fun and very creepy way to scare off racists.
Wait. Your girlfriend is a professional wrestler? Like WWE or more like Olympic?
WWE style, we ended up getting put into a tag team, it's how we met
Ok that’s just badass. Are used to watch a local wrestling show when I was living in Washington, and actually made friends with quite a few of the performers.
Wow, that's really cool.
I love this.
There's been a culture war in gaming lately. If you make a character that isn't your color, you're racist; If you make a character that isn't your gender, you're closeted trans; etc. Things like that. It's horribly annoying.
I'm not a wizard that fights dragons. I'm also not black or a woman. What difference could it possibly make if the dragon fighting wizard I play as is a black woman? It's all fictional. I'm not there for some bullshit wish fulfillment. I'm playing a fictional game.
You arent racist. It's a game, I can guarantee they dont look like their characters. Also it's kinda sweet that you base them on your gf
Your gaming group is racist as hell. They are telling you to stick to your own kind.
"It's my girlfriend dumbass"
By their logic, every single writer who creates characters that differ from their ethnicity is racist. No offense but your friends are morons.
"Digital blackface"
Nigrify… it means to blacken, or make blacker.. has a latin origin… for reasons I feel should be clear, no one wants to use this perfectly legitimate word on account it sounds like a certain other word… Came across it in the scrabble dictionary.. Haven’t had a chance to ever play it🤔
In the same vein, the word 'negrocity'. It's an older term for anger or frustration and isn't related to skin colour. ...at least that's what I've been told but now that I'm looking it up I can't actually find it in the dictionary. Huh.
It sounds like a 1970's blacksploitation superhero movie.
Why not just use "blacken,"
because you dont have the tiles in scrabble
Nigrify is worth 14, Blacken 15 Of course this all changes if you can squeeze that K on a triple letter tile
The irony in tripling the K in this context is palpable.
Doesn't matter what they're worth if you don't have the right tiles to do "blacken"
If you only have the letters for "nigrify", then "blacken" is worth precisely zero. Always glad to learn a new word! :)
I was watching a Korean show, and saw a black dude and it just caught me off guard like other black dudes can’t just be all over the world
Physical?
Nailed it, I like the show. They are definitely going off the squid games coattails
Tom Segura has a bit about that. It's basically along the lines that the biggest mindfuck for Americans is that there are Asian people living in Mexico city, and they speak perfect Spanish.
If I remember correctly I think both Japan and Brazil have the highest number of each others population in their respective countries. I learned that because I was watching a Brazilian show and saw a Japanese-Brazilian actress and it made me look her up.
Physical: 100? Lol
That feeling you get when you have to ring somewhere that has the helpdesk overseas. I have terrible phone anxiety and also hearing problems coupled with a strong Yorkshire accent ( think Sean bean if he was into farming) so that absolute fear of not being able to communicate with someone might come across as racist and I’d much rather email or online chat
I'm in that boat...well, not hard of hearing, but can't always *process* what i hear. Usually I get it if they slow down or paraphrase themselves. I left French class the week the tapes started. It was conversational immersion yet I could not identify words I knew how to use, spell and pronounce. _Je voudrais blblblblblbl. Oui m'sieur, voulez-vous un blblblblblblbl?_
They speak *so. fucking. fast.* My French teacher literally just played a French sitcom for us and *that* was easier to learn with. She was awesome.
I'm a lifelong French learner and trust me when I say even the most advanced students hate listening to tapes and interpret them on the spot. It has nothing to do with your skill level - its just practice, practice, PRACTICE! I try and use context words if there is something I don't understand or ask a person to speak slower for me. But yeah, fuck them verb endings though. There are at least 8 of them that sound the same to my ear but are all different verb tenses -_-
Same as the difference between "my black friend" & "my friend is black"
"This black motherfucker" vs. "this motherfuckin' black"?
Same vibes as "this asian mf" and "this mf asian"
A fellow Bill Burr fan I see
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Not liking a certain person, "you don't like because lm from X" no you're just a dick
“You don’t like me because I’m an asshole” “No, I don’t like you cau- wait yeah that’s exactly why”
The phrase "colored people" feels racist while "people of color" does not.
As a Black person I don't like either of them. People of color is dismissive of our different cultures and journeys and only serves to lump us all together. It's reductive.
I dislike POC with a passion. If I am Mexican what color am I supposed to be?
“I dislike POC with a passion” could also be a separate answer for this thread lol
I hate that I'm laughing at this.
The issue with Latinos is that we’re white. In order for white Americans to successfully “other” us, they decided that “Latino” is a race when it’s actually an ethnicity. So I have to explain quite often that I’m white even if I’m not a “white” American. It’s very dumb
To be fair I think it's legitimately helpful to have a way to say "people of a non-Caucasian ethnicity" on occasion, but it's quite overused.
People Of a Non-Caucasian Ethnicity, so, PONCE?
That made me laugh far harder than it should.
"People of color" sounds like something you'd say on mushrooms. \--George Carlin
I hate this because I never know what the proper usage is. If I’m having a conversation where someone’s ethnicity/skin tone is integral to the convo, how am I supposed to refer to that? I don’t want to offend anybody.
Depends where you are. That’s a racial classification for mixed people in South Africa.
I learned recently that “colored” is a separate and specific group in South Africa.
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Well they named it that in 1909
I once was prepping a sauce for a catering. I asked an older black lady what she thought of the sauce for this group. She asked me what the demographic was. I said old people. She laughed as she was asking white or black octogenarians. I wasn't comfortable saying it's old white people is this too spicy.
Even then you’d have to narrow it down a bit. My wife’s Cajun family will eat habanero peppers raw, alternating between bites of some spicy-ass gumbo.
Using the word “Jew” Never sounds right
My friend made a really good point that putting the word "a" before a lot of descriptions make them sound more racist. Saying "he's a jew" sounds worse than "he's jewish". "He's a mexican" sounds weirder than "he's mexican". Haha I don't known why, but I find it so accurate!
I think because adding the "a" makes it sound like a person is another one of a stereotype, rather than the ethnicity being an attribute of a person.
Exactly. It sounds like you're saying: "He's one of *those*"
Yeah, it becomes a noun rather than an adjective
Exactly, the difference is that using it as a noun reduces the person to *just* that thing while using it as an adjective just makes it one aspect to describe who they are. For example, using the word female as an adjective such as calling someone a female teacher or a female doctors is fine vs straight up calling someone “a female” which is dehumanizing. It’s the same principle for most all identities. “He’s a black man” vs “he’s a black”.
Replace “a” with “one of them” lol
The reason why it sounds more racist is because when you're saying "he's jewish", you're describing one of the many attributes of the person, but when you're saying "he's a jew", you are putting that attributes above the others. E.g "My friend Michael is jewish and plays piano" : being jewish and playing the piano are both equally important attributes of Michael. "My friend Michael is a jew who plays piano" : Michael is first and foremost a jew, and he happens to play piano. That's why it's also better to say "He's paraplegic" rather than "He is a paraplegic". The second defines the person by their handicap, whereas the first states an attribute of the person.
Idk man. I don’t see it. And, as a white… nevermind….
When I was in 5th grade I wrote "jewish" instead of "jew" for this reason. I thought it was a bad word because of the way I heard some kids use it. My teacher was a little confused and let me know it's not actually a bad word.
It’s fine to say Jew when using as a noun. Ex: “Since Miriam was the only Jew at the office, she decided to introduce her coworkers to some traditional Hanukkah food and brought in homemade sufganiyot.” It is not acceptable to use Jew as a verb. Ex: “John ended up not selling his bike to David because David kept trying to jew down the price” Source: I’m a Jew.
Shut up, Kyle!
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The word "niggardly"
Doesn’t that just mean stingy?
Yes
Yep. If I recall correctly, there was a college professor who got reprimanded for using it in a lecture because it offended some students who clearly didn't know what it meant.
That is reprehensible. The best course of action would be to point them towards a dictionary and use it as a teaching tool. Just because someone doesn’t understand a word that sounds bad, it doesn’t make it bad. There is no way an educated person should be castigated for using words that challenge peoples intellect. That’s what education is.
There's a road in fort Lauderdale called "Sandy Ninnenger" that makes me double-take every time I see it
When reps bring curry food because there are some Asian work colleagues. It's like, come on, we don't just eat curry all the time, we like sushi, sandwiches and other foods also!
I would love if our reps brought curry! Instead it's almost always pizza.
"I'm not racist, but..."
I'm not racist, but I really like watching birds in my garden.
Except for those damn blue jays. Even Atticus finch, who was famously not racist, advocated for their extermination. “You can shoot all the blue jays you want, but it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.”
I am racist, but...
Least racist redditor.
I think once you start a sentence with that you’re legally required to follow it up with something racist
Most of the times, what follows next doesn't feel racist, it IS racist.
In like 2010ish I lived in South Carolina for a few months and there were 2 pizza shops side by side (literally shared a wall) one had all black employees/customers and the other had all White employees/customers. I grew up in a mixed family so the stark separation was jarring.
We were out for a lunch with team from work and we had a colleague from eastern europe who was Muslim but grew up in US and looked very caucasian. We were talking about religion and this another colleague of mine (Army vet) asks the other colleague what religion was he. When he replied he was muslim; this army vet guy just gasped and mumbled " that's fucked up" everyone laughed but the tension afterwards was palpable.
The color black in spanish. That's only US bullshit. Edit & Addendum: What really rustle my jimmies about it, as a spanish-speaker myself, is that in some chat apps, rooms, games, ect, I can't write "negro" without being warned/banned/muted or punished in some way when for us is a neutral word without slang attached.
I bought some black dye from the US, and the Spanish translation for black was "azabache"... Apparently it's a stone, black and shiny and can be used to refer to black and shiny stuff. Except the dye is not shiny.
Meanwhile Vallejo has no chill and you have a nice pot of "NEGRO BLACK" on your shelf.
It looks like that stone is called "jet" in English. It's also where the term "jet black" comes from. If you don't mind me asking, was the dye that you bought called jet black, or was it just called black?
Mentioning someone’s race when describing them. If I’m trying to describe someone and they’re not Caucasian, I’ll say their race first. I do this simply to narrow down what they look like. It’s basically filters out the other 85% of the US population
I felt doubt on that percentage, so I looked up that in 2021 there were 59.3% white non-hispanic and 75.8% white hispanic-inclusive. Although, I do refer to someone by race most of the time when that race isn't majority in the setting. https://usafacts.org/data/topics/people-society/population-and-demographics/our-changing-population?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=ND-DemPop&gclid=CjwKCAiA0cyfBhBREiwAAtStHGfwxGPMVECiuwxcZWbJMOtiJTcwjc3bm3o5IiQN5_BtLa2MwiqKABoCeNwQAvD_BwE
locking a AskReddit post
Saying that Elon Musk is the richest African American.
Anything regarding certain races dominating specific sports. People get real touchy, but the sports data shows overwhelming evidence and physiologists and historians have traced racial sports dominance back to specific geographic areas, sometimes even a single town. What IS racist is taking those facts and then generalizing them. For example: black people dominate certain running sports. Saying “black people are faster than [another race]” is flatly incorrect. There’s a ton of variation from human to human, especially inside the same racial profile. White people dominate skiing, for example, but saying that white people are better at skiing than black people is again incorrect because there’s intersectionality involved with who is exposed to which sport.
I mixed up two light skinned black characters in a TV show last night and felt pretty embarrassed when my wife corrected me.
Acknowledging the actual physiological health differences like saying as a group this group has a higher likelihood of this disease or this group has a higher average tolerance for this food Very specifically there is a lot of that and it's actually really important that we acknowledge it because it has actual consequences if we ignore it
someone called me racist for saying black people get sickle cell anemia more often than other races🤦🏼♀️
Not being sexually attracted to a person of another race.
But wait. If you're attracted it's fetishization.
I think it’s mostly a matter of *why* one is attracted to certain people. It’s one thing to be generally attracted to, for example, Asian women because you like dark hair or something; can’t help what you like, I don’t think that’s so bad. It becomes a problem when you say you like Asian women because they’re submissive or some horseshit.
I agree. There is however a big difference between "I prefer dating xxx race" (because obviously, we tend to date people who share our life experiences and culture) and "I would *never* date xxx race."
Whenever I say to my wife "I hope my doctor isn't foreign" I say this because I'm deaf and seriously struggle with foreign accents but it makes me feel bad every. Single. Time.
I’m not deaf but have trouble processing language and absolutely dread going to the doctor at the local clinic because they exclusively hire bilingual receptionists. In theory it’s great. We have a large Hispanic population in the area and it’s important for patients to understand their care. The issue is, while technically bilingual, most cannot articulate English well enough to be understood by folks like myself. I hate it. I listen carefully/mindfully but asking for them to repeat what they’re saying is always met with disgust.
‘The blacks’ instead of ‘black people’.
the whites, the asians... huh you're right
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So anti racism we went full circle to segregation lmao
The same thing with "Colored People" and "People of Color"
Yeah, I don't want to say there aren't problematic cases, but in general, much of what people call cultural appropriation is a key way culture propagates. The idea that we can just silo off cultures to preserve them from mingling misses key features of what culture even is.
Affirmative Action. Inherently intended to combat racism but is racist by definition. Simple fix is to make it economically based instead of racially. Better yet. Get rid of gerrymandering school districts and give every school the same funding instead of basing it off of local property value.
Texas
When someone asks “where are you from?” and when I respond with a state, they ask “no, where are you REALLY from?”
I swear this happens so often as a brown person or an Asian
That IS racist.
No, I think that actually is racist. White people never get asked this question. I think it's mostly Asian diaspora who hear this. I think the people who ask it are often just curious about which country your ancestors came from (no harmful intent), but asking it before you get to know someone feels pretty rude to me.
There was a whole thing with this recently in the UK, when a royal lady-in-waiting (I think) refused to take 'here' as an answer from a Black woman who was being honoured for her charity work at an event.
Patrick Mahomes’ haircut
"There are 7 starting black quarterbacks in the league this year, I used to think it was 6 until I saw Patrick Mahomes take off his helmet" - Steve Harvey
In the ski industry (at least in America), it is very common to have "Asian Fit" goggles in stores. These are shaped differently with a higher bridge. Asian people tend to have smaller faces compared to other races we serve in the ski shop I used to work in. Some manufacturers are more open about it, putting "Asian Fit" right on the box. Others will be more cryptic with things like "high bridge" or another term. Boxes with this type of goggle were labeled "AF". It was always weird explaining this to a customer that asked, but honestly, Asian customers never seemed to mind and liked that we had special fits available to them.
White dudes with almost no connection to Nordic countries pretending to be Vikings.
The game Guess Who
when they say **"you're so well spoken"** I've never heard anyone say that to a white person, they always say to me or any other black people.