[Vision2020] An Easy Guide to Avoiding Racial Offense

[keely emerinemix]

Damn.You're good, Andreas, and this might be one of your best.Thanks,keely> Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2007 16:43:39 -0700> From: ophite at gmail.com> To: vision2020 at moscow.com> Subject: [Vision2020] An Easy Guide to Avoiding Racial Offense> > (1) If you have to refer to race for some reason, call people what> they ask you to. If they have to correct you, "oh, I'm sorry, I'll try> to do better" will suffice. Don't be stubbornly antiquated. For> instance, don't use the word "negro." You are not a seventy-year-old> man in a seersucker suit that's half-drunk on mint juleps: pleading> ignorance is not an option.> > (2) If you do something racially insensitive by accident, apologize,> but don't freak out. You've just done something rude, but, hell, we've> all used the wrong fork at an expensive dinner.> > (3) If you do something racially insensitive on purpose, don't whine> when there are consequences. If it is, for instance, your job to say> things to people, and you are speaking into a microphone, and> everything you say is recorded, do not pretend that it isn't gross> incompetence to say the wrong thing.> > (4) If you are white, do not pretend that because your grandparents> came over from the Old Country, you, in particular, have experienced> any particular racism. I can't tell that you're> Irish/Italian/Polish/whatever. Neither can anyone else. People have to> know this in order to discriminate against you. Some exceptions may> exist for people who have lived in Hawaii. Every other white person in> America is out of luck.> > (5) We all have freedom of speech. That means the government can't> shut you up. That doesn't mean that I can't object to what you say.> > (6) Don't think you can use racial slurs because people of the same> ethnic group use them on each other. It's baffling in the same way> that telling "yo mamma" jokes to your siblings would be, but not> offensive in the same way that a stranger shouting a "yo mamma" joke> out of their car window would be.> > (7) That Chris Rock impression you're going to do at the NAACP> conference? Yeah. That's probably a bad idea.> > It is not a tremendous imposition on you to do these things. It's rude> not to. Why is that such a big deal?> > -- ACS> > =======================================================>  List services made available by First Step Internet, >  serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.   >                http://www.fsr.net                       >           mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com> =======================================================
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