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The truth is that someone will ding you for racism in some way if it's at all public, no matter what you say on the subject. That's where things are in this country. We can debate the causes, but that so often either gets political or falls into the same trap of dividing one race from another and pointing fingers.
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As far as I know - here in my country, USA - "people of color" should be fine. "African American", "Aisian American" (I know, I know) are the safest - and probably "whitest" terms. "Black" is fine atm, unless someone objects to that because they just want to solve problems (but if YOU are black, feel free to refer to your own people as "nig /- gers" or "my nig /- ga", informally, with no problem). Most of the other overtly racist slurs haven't been "taken back" yet and are universally offensive.
"Ethnic minorities" is a good generic one; no one can come down on that. Although, at some point in the not-too-distant future, whites here probably won't be a majority by themselves. Depending on how you define "whiteness," of course.
If you really want to get right down to it - no matter how you dress up the language - talking about non-whites as a group is, in itself, racist; it puts whites in a group against everyone else.
Keeping up with the exhaustive act of eggshell walking you have to do in this country to keep things politically correct is ridiculous. Now there's critical race theory (which originally was harmless, but has been suborned as part of the backlash against all the racism protests, riots, Black Lives Matter and so forth). So "anti-racism" (itself a racist term) is on the table, too.
There's the the sex/gender issues just really starting to gather steam, and the religious issues. Which I selfishly have to spend a second on, since it's always bothered me a little bit. As a military brat, most of the communities I lived in were mostly white and mostly Christian (or, at least, celebrated Christmas). Officially, government institutions (like schools) can't be seen to favor any religion, etc. So while 90% might be celebrating Christmas in X small town, it's referred to as "Winter Break" and the decorations are usually generic snowflakes, etc. There's always that one family that complains about Easter or even Halloween (the Fall Festival). My town finally threw in the towel on its manger scene maybe ten years ago (bars went up around all schools due to supposed generic school shooting fears last year; one entry, one exit. Crime here is really low. Separate thing but **** what is wrong with people).
I've really lost focus here. Sorry, I really just wanted to get some of my frustration with this stuff off my chest. I'll end with an experience: I went to flight school in south Florida. Flight school in the US is sort of an industry; pilots come from everywhere to train here. I was kind of shocked to find myself a minority, working with mostly non-citizens. The amount of "racism" there was was shocking, too. The first day of my first class, a Korean student (later a good friend) was asked to point out one of his home airports... and could not find South Korea on a map. A chat went out to the group: "The yellow man lost the yellow land."
I didn't know how to react to that - I figured there would be some kind of outrage - but there wasn't. And as the "racism" on campus went unabated in the following weeks, I got it. It wasn't a stupid thing to fight over to them. I ended up being friends with the Taiwanese and the Israelis (who were always direct and critical of Americans for politeness/beating around the bush).
Some of my best friends were a money-grubbing ****ing Jew, a Nigerian schemer no one could make out in the dark), and a wet /- back BECAUSE THEY USED IT AS AN ICEBREAKER. And let me know what an ignorant, inbred redneck I was. And it was fine. |
