Cracker: Of Tweets and Twats
165 Responses
First ←Older Page 1 … 3 4 5 6 7 Newer→ Last
-
Great to come back and catch up on the Great Nigger Debate.
/me gives up reading Conrad.
More seriously, Giovanni & Chis Rock are right.
-
WH,
I think what's sad about the use of the word 'c*nt' is not the thing the word describes, but the kind of relationship it's used to create. It's like when I said to that man on the street yesterday,
give me your wallet, c*nt
I wasn't asking him to be my friend, I was ordering him to comply and suggesting firstly that I my actions formed part of an acceptable type of discourse and secondly that he, qua man-on-street, was my social inferior. I wonder what Foucault would say about all of this.
-
I know words like Eskimo, Jap, Kike, Chink, Nigger don't pack the same punch here as they do in Canada, you would have a serious fight on your hands if you tried to use any of these terms in Canada.
The term "Coconut" is meaningless to most people in Canada, but I think if you sold a candy called "Coconut" in the shape of a Samoan, you would offend many Samoans.
Actually my husband (part Maori NZer) grew up taking crap from classmates who made jokes about his ancestry - a "nigger in the woodpile" and a "touch of the tar-brush".
While he was raised to eat this and pretend not to mind, that he was told he was "as good as anybody else" I was raised to argue about such things. I was also told no matter how much racists annoyed me, I had to be "gracious to my inferiors".
While the majority of academic linguists hold the non-pejorative view of Eskimo, the majority of Inuit people believe the word to be racist, and are similarly supported by Algonkian speakers who see the natural similarity in pronounciation to "he eats raw". While the term's proper etymology continues to be held to be neutral by linguists, Native and Métis groups both inside the Inuit and Cree/Ojibwa peoples insist that the term evolving as presented by linguists does not make sense. All Native North American peoples used snowshoes, and as such would not likely choose to use their word for snowshoe to describe any other native people. Whatever the truth, the resulting political responce to the perception of Eskimo being pejoritive has been significant, with The Inuit Circumpolar Conference meeting in Barrow, Alaska, officially adopting Inuit as a designation for all Eskimos, regardless of their local usages, in 1977.
-
dyan campbell - when I was tobacco-picking in Motueka a *looong* time ago, we (Maori/mongrels) used to sing a wee song
"I'm not a Coconut
I'm a Maori-"(it went on from then, you understand.)
We - the tobacco-pickers- were majorly Maori/Cook Islanders/bitsas - not a lot of NZ Pakeha (althought quite a few travelling-through Ozzies & such.)
The point?
Some things/names belong to a paticular place& time: like Eskimo pies or Eskimo lollies - they belong to here, not to Alaska/Greenland/Canada (because those people/places eschew the word 'eskimo'.)
My mother, who is quarter-Maori - if you want to fraction out blood - which we dont - was greeted by her future English sister-in-laws as
"O, she's got a touch of the tarbrush but isnt her hair lovely!" (It was: a deep auburn.)We were raised to be knowledgable & extremely proud of all our ancestors - Scots, Kai Tahu, English- and to stare down idiot racists
(or smack em down if that failed.)I am proud of my stare to this minute-
-
. . . he majority of Inuit people believe the word to be racist, and are similarly supported by Algonkian speakers who see the natural similarity in pronounciation to "he eats raw".
Fancy that. I once worked with a Canadian who regularly wore a t-shirt with the slogan "Eat it Raw" emblazoned across the front. The meaning was kind of lost on me, but seemed to afford him endless pleasure. He was also given to farting with his armpit, and would regale anyone who'd give him the time with tales of his glory days spent 'hanging a moon' from speeding car windows back in the old country. Naturally I extended him a certain amount of slack, as one does to those who practice unfathomable foreign customs, but his boasting of pumping bullets into a hapless porcupine finally revealed him to be nothing more than a piss-begotten cracker. While he certainly wasn't an inuit, there's no way I'd bring myself to eat his effigy in hi-density marshmallow, raw or toasted.
That said, it'd be beside the point to mention here the perfectly pleasant and genuinely entertaining Canadians (and Canadian porcupines) that it's been my pleasure to know.
-
Great post. Cameron is an "interesting personality" to say the least.
Twitter's OK. I like the short, crisp pointers to diverse sources of information and analysis I would not have found on my own.
-
(Yes, I know Canada != America, but c'mon, it's close enough in this case)
Every Canadian reading this just gritted their teeth.
-
I've never lived in Canada, and it's such a vast country, that there's no way I can make generalisations about the dozen or so visits I've made there -except, I feel way easier there than I do in the USA (or England for that matter.) Still a foreigner, but most of the body language is...understandable. The rising 'eh?' at the end of sentences is - homelike.
Unlike Joe Wylie, I've never had the pleasure of meeting Canadian porcupines, but would be on my best manners if I ever did (i.e not bringing out my infinite recipe book...)
-
Brief encounters only Islander, but very impressive. A bit like an S&M version of a koala. Charming but not to be messed with. Those who come to know them as individuals claim they mind one another's children, remember favours, and can harbour a grudge for years. All admirable qualities in my book.
-
Wow! Anyone with those qualities (whanaukataka, reciprocity, and grudgeholding) is kin as far as I am concerned (hides recipebook.)
Anybody remember the writings of a very strange person called Grey Owl? There were porcupines involved I think...
-
Ironically, while I was gone I was going around town with a camera offering people Eskimo lollies, to see if any would be offended enough not to eat them.
When I share them here I end up introducing them with something along the lines of "these are called Eskimos but I suppose they really shouldn't be". Perhaps there should be a national competition to come up with a new name for the shape in return for a lifetime supply.
How about "trampers"? (All wrapped up in their sleeping bags.)
-
How about "trampers"? (All wrapped up in their sleeping bags.)
Brilliant. Mind you, that might fly in NZ, but try handing them round to your American friends with a straight face, where it means something else altogether.
I have one friend who flatly refuses to believe that we not only go "tramping" but that we also have special boots -- and huts -- for the purpose.
-
Brilliant. Mind you, that might fly in NZ, but try handing them round to your American friends with a straight face
Dahling, that would be part of the fun.
Anyway, why shouldn't we go tramping at weekends? The Canadians get to go cottaging...
-
True. Those workaholic Americans, on the other hand, are always blowing each other off.
-
Normal people don't do that kind of crap and so don't know of the other meanings.
-
Those workaholic Americans, on the other hand, are always blowing each other off.
They have no shame. In the years I spent pushing a pencil in animation factories with sundry Americans and Canadians, I learnt never to refer to an eraser as a rubber, lest they spent the rest of the day falling about laughing.
Anybody remember the writings of a very strange person called Grey Owl?
Right - a Canadian-dwelling Scot who enjoyed a certain success masquerading as a voice-of-the-wilderness Native American before being unmasked late in life. While his writings were certainly a cut above the "Only when the last river has been dammed and the last tree cut down will man realise that mouthing dodgy Native American platitudes makes you sound like a muppet" variety of faux nature-spirituality, in retrospect it all seems rather dodgy.
-
Oh, speaking of New Zealand's anxieties, wtf Emmerson?
Oh, indeed, Jake. Almost matched by today's effort.
-
A bit like an S&M version of a koala.
Gold.
-
I am proud of my stare to this minute-
heh I developed one myself Islander. "She's got the look" generally follows mine :)
-
New Zealand's anxieties
You mean those of the fearful, pallid old Nat sycophants who set the Harold's editorial tone.
-
S&M version of a koala. Charming but not to be messed with.
That was funny Joe.will make my day an enjoyable one I am sure. :))
-
How about "trampers"? (All wrapped up in their sleeping bags.)
that we not only go "tramping" but that we also have special boots
That could work, slim them done a bit (think of the children) remove the boots and you could have a tramp.....or then it would be back to those pretend cigarette lollies. hmmmm
-
The Inuit Circumpolar Conference meeting in Barrow, Alaska, officially adopting Inuit as a designation for all Eskimos, regardless of their local usages, in 1977.
Dyan, I'm intrigued. How did the Inuit get to do that for the Yupik, who are Eskimo but not Inuit and don't want to be called Inuit? Were the Yupik there?
-
It wasn't just a case of "Yupik a name for eskimos..."?
I knew it! -
Normal people don't do that kind of crap and so don't know of the other meanings.
Snerk.
Post your response…
This topic is closed.