Quote:
Originally Posted by HPLovecraft
I grew up in Prince Edward Island, a place with likely even fewer Chinese people living there. I still knew it was a derogatory term, and I'm pretty sure my buddies all knew it was a derogatory term. The guy was born the same year as me, he grew up with the internet, not in a time warp from the 1920s, disconnected from the outside world. It's almost unbelievable that someone in North America growing up in our time period could be ignorant of what that term actually means. It's THE racial slur when it comes to Asians.
Of course, it is possible that he really didn't know it was a bad term to use, but it confounds me to think of how he would have come to that conclusion. He's clearly heard the term before. When is it ever used in a positive context? His Mom used to walk around complimenting the "chinks" on their tasty food and fine teas?
It just seems bizarre, and when I weigh the two options, personally, of whether he a) heard the term, but didn't know it was bad, or b) is trying to back-pedal from a really stupid comment, I gotta say that b just seems more likely.
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To be clear, I'm not defending him nor am I even saying I believe him. I'm just fascinated by the "ignorance is no excuse" thing. Whether he did know or didn't know, the argument that he was [supposed] to know is what interests me.
As an aside, speaking of mothers and their horror stories... My best friend in grade 4 was black. He lived by me, so we used to walk home together. I knew my parents were racist and that my mother often drove home from work around the same time, so I would often take a "shortcut" through the back alley to avoid her. One day, I got a little cocky and didn't bother with the alley... Sure enough, she pulled up beside me and yelled out the window, "Get away from that ni***r and get your ass in this fu***ng car right now!" I'll never forget the look on his face, or how horrible I felt for him. My parents have since come around 180 degrees on the race thing (at least with blacks, anyway), but it was a different time then. It was their parents raised by their parents who were raised by their parents, etc etc.
Anyway, that doesn't really have much to do with this topic, but it always comes to mind when I hear about mothers and racism.