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