I swear to you that I have never called one of my Italian friends the G- word or one of my Jewish friends the K-word or my Irish friends the M- word.
Say What? Does anyone know what the hell anyone is talking about anymore?
The quote above came from a blog I read quite often. As soon as I read it, I thought WTF is the Italian G-word? I know of an Italian W-word but no G-word. The K-word I got, but WTF is the Irish M- word? The above quote reminded me of a newscast I heard a few years ago with three talking heads discussing womens issues.
One talking head said something to the other talking head that included 4 or 5 non-word words! I believe there was a C-word, a B-word, an S-word and a T-word. SAY WHAT? I remember thinking what the heck did I just hear? No, make that non-hear!
Which brings me back to the silly ass concept that the best way to obliterate an offensive word is to hyphenate it into obscurity. Yes, that’ll do it alright.
Of course, it does exactly the opposite because of the time and effort it takes to suddenly stop talking like an adult and turn into a ten year old.
Take the N-word that Dr. Laura “went off” on last week. Yes, she said “the word” out loud,”Nigger, nigger, nigger!” For your viewing pleasure:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CPoVfYjckE&feature=related
Now that you’ve heard the entire tape, does anyone think Dr. Laura used the word in question as a pejorative club? No. Her point was that certain segments of our population use this word just to say hi, however if you are melanin challenged you cannot use the word.That’s asinine.
What’s worse,this kind of intolerant behavior sets all of us backwards… it separates us… needlessly angering people on all sides.
To which I say, if that’s how we’re gonna play, then from now on, if you have an excess of melanin you can no longer use the C- word (no that “C” word) … Cracker. From now on, its “I’ll have some cheese and C-words, thank you.” If you’re Anglo-Saxon and you own a parrot you can say, “Polly want a cracker?” Not Anglo-Saxon? That’ll be,”Polly want a C- word” to you, Bub.
I’ve thought on more than one occasion that I’m glad I’m not bringing up children in this poisonous climate having to explain all these hyphenated non-word words. There are so many better ways of teaching tolerance and forgiveness!
I remember one summer evening when I was about 7, I was chanting, “Eeny meeny, miny, moe, catch a nigger by the toe, etc” I had no idea what I was chanting. To this day I don’t even know where I first heard the word. It wasn’t from my family, that I know. It didn’t matter to my mother who only had to hear me say it one time. She was down on me in a flash.
She told me that what I had said was unkind and could hurt people… I was NEVER to use the word again. I never did. The word in question wasn’t hyphenated, it was changed to something non-offensive.
We used to teach the concept that the use of crude words are a reflection of the people uttering them. Crude speech generally denotes someone who is either lacking in class, or lacking self esteem, or both.
Remember the old saying, that it is better to have people wonder why you didn’t speak than why you did? Seems to me that it fits here.
Now can we start talking like adults again and stop using all those non-word words?
