Completely vile and inappropriate things your parents and grandparents said

My grandmother called these n***** tits.

Our grandpa wants to fuck our mommy.

They called Brazil nuts n***** toes

[quote]Our real dad wants to fuck our mommy

FTFY

r3 My grandma too!

there was a candy called 'n-word babies' when my grandfather was little; he's telling a story and referring to these candies like he'd refer to an apple or a baked potato.

I said to him WHAT????

and he just repeats it as if I were deaf.

I was watching MTV at my grandparents house & the was a Janet Jackson video on, with several black people acting/dancing in it. My grandpa walks in the room & says "Goddamn chocolate drops are taking over!" 😬

I guess I shouldn't be surprised based on some of the posts on here, but is that kind of casual racism a common thing in white homes?

I doubt that really happened, OP.

My grandpa would often say “I want to rip your arm off and beat you with the bloody end” or “I’d rather beat you than look at you” when he was angry. He was delightful, bless him.

As proud as i was of my parents over their views/beliefs about race equality (we are white-ish), i do recall my mom saying she did not think it was okay that Elton John and his partner adopted babies. i was pretty shocked, she always seemed okay with gayness. however, that might have been in the very beginning of her dementia and pulling on her early years growing up and living in a straight-laced family, so i give her a one-time pass. Besides that, i was actually berated by her growing up when i told her a hispanic boy had a crush on me, but i didn't give him him the time of day because he was "mexican." we were living in a backwoods East County po-dunk town of San Diego that was mostly white (trash meth-making people) but had a pretty large population of illegal immigrants that worked on the chicken farms. after that bitch slap from my mom, i changed my tune and realized most of the kids in my school were racist as fuck - i was echoing the things they said.

R8 "Racism" keeps getting redefined, R8. Like other "social justice" beliefs and standards.

Growing up in Kansas in the eighties, holy shit, the racism was unreal. But back then, it was normal as in no one was offended by it. Fags, spics, nuggets, sand jockeys, towel heads, all of it was fair game.

My grandmother thought Anne Frank's diary was a hoax.

My Southern grandma had her racist moments, but she would admit that she was wrong to have them, and she sincerely strove to do better because she believed the Lord demanded it.

That said, she used to have a little notebook where she wrote down important phone numbers, and she had an entry for "Colored Boy Wilson" for the kid who mowed her lawn because she couldn't remember his first name. 😑

r11 here. i grew in SoCal and moved to Western NY in 1987 after meeting my partner in Cali. i realized how VERY racist that area was then ("roll up your window and lock the door, we're in the dark part of town"). i repeatedly asked my in- laws not to use the n word (as well as other racial bigoted terms), and that it was offensive as hell to me. all these years later, several of them still do on occasion. i don't live there any more, but i do plan on moving back now because of family related issues and our remote work situations now (and because it's cheap as hell and i'm tired of the fires and power outages).

R6 was he talking about Sugar Babies candy?

My (English) grandfather used to refer to my (white) siblings and I as "dirty Arabs" when we were literally dirty and in need of a bath. It was like a jokey term of affection for him, I think. "Bathtime for these dirty little Arabs!" etc. He was also fond of saying "the wogs start at Calais." In the Hilaria Baldwin discussion of last night people seemed confused about Spanish people not being thought of as white by some but there are definitely quite a few who think you have to be either British Isles or Scandi to be proper white lol.

R18 what does “the wogs start at Calais” mean?

R2 thanks, now I shall call these by this well-deserved title.

Shocking! Wrong!

My grandpa used to regularly get beaten by the Chinaman while playing solitaire. What the hell is the origin of that? An invisible Chinaman? So weird.

Come fist grandma’s asshole and I’ll bake you some Tollhouse.

My Eighty Eight-year-old grandmother took a squat right near the Lion cage at the Milwaukee County Zoo when I was 11 yrs old! Dementia had settled in by then and she didn't care where she dropped her polyester suit pants. If I wasn't repulsed by the female anatomy before that day that solidified it! "Granny" would also enjoy walking into the playroom while I was playing and mock me! She would stick her thumb in her mouth and call me sissy! She would show me how she could get her legs over her head( pants on! before Alzheimer's) She loved talking about how good German cock was and how my uncle was conceived...on top of an office desk! if she had only waited for a few years she would have seen me developed a love of the german cock!

I was raised in a Catholic, European, conservative household so of course gay slurs, saying all gay me get AIDS and die and such was just par for the course.

They’ve obviously grown a lot since the late eighties but one thing my Dad said that I always found hilarious was; “Whatever you do, don’t you ever ever bring home a black girl”

At the time I was probably 16 and already a well versed dick sucker and remember laughing to myself and thinking “when you see who I do end up bringing home youre gonna wiiiiish I would find a nice hetero African queen, you’re gonna be begging for her” lolol

[quote]R18 what does “the wogs start at Calais” mean?

"Wog" is an offensive British term for someone who isn't white. I guess R18's grandfather thought the French (Calais), the Italians and the Spanish weren't truly white.

What about the Dutch, the Germans, etc.?

My Grandmother referred to Chinese food as "chinks"

My hideously cunty great aunt and her equally loathsome troll of a husband called MLK Day, "Martin Luther Coon Day".

“You see that woman over there? She’s a Eastern Seaboard Whore.”

My mother used to call us dirty little A-rabs. It took me till adulthood to realise that A-rab was actually Arab. The silly thing is I don’t actually think my mother has ever realised what she was saying as she has always drummed equality into us and would have pulled us up if we had said anything even vaguely bigoted in nature. I don’t have the heart to tell her now as she would be utterly mortified. I imagine she possibly picked it up from my Great Grandfather who was a career soldier and would have spent time in India and the Middle East.

I dated a white woman who had a biracial toddler years ago. She told me that her father, the child's grandfather, loved the baby immensely but she was still troubled that he referred to her as "Pappy's pretty lil n*****"

Ain't that some shit?!!

My father’s best friend was a fellow veteran named “John”. Dad also had a cousin named John and another friend named John. So he’d refer to “Cousin John”, “Black John” (the veteran) and “Barber John” (the other guy was a barber).

Also, Black John was “one of the good ones”.

[quote]I guess I shouldn't be surprised based on some of the posts on here, but is that kind of casual racism a common thing in white homes?

Yes, casual racism was/is common in white homes (at least it was in mine), as well as homophobia and sexism. Racism and prejudice are so insidious because they are taught to someone without them realizing it. Realizing where your prejudices come from is the first step in overcoming them.

I was 12 and we went over my cousins’ to swim in the pool at their clubhouse. My cousin Denise was 11 and chubby.

We were done swimming and were watching TV in the living room and she was sitting next to our grandma and still in our swimsuits. Out of nowhere grandma turns to Denise, points at her 11 year old crotch and says “You just tempt the boys all day with that, don’t you????”

Racism was pretty bad when I was growing up in the 70s and 80s in Missouri and Kansas, but the worst racists turned out to be the rich relatives in Virginia. Some aunts and uncles lived in Bluemont, Virginia and were just hideously racist, except one aunt who was embarrassed by the others. She lived very close to Oliver North (maybe still does, if he's still in Bluemont) and was nice as could be, but classist as hell. She wouldn't let us drive to her home because our car was too old, we had to go to another relative's house and they had to drive us to her home in their BMW. Which was older than our car, but a BMW.

My other grandma,, on my mom’s side was much nicer. The meanest thing I ever heard her say was when I was 11 or so and we were watching the female news anchor and she goes: “Eeee. Her hair doesn’t even shine.”

[quote] I guess I shouldn't be surprised based on some of the posts on here, but is that kind of casual racism a common thing in white homes?

The thread is about grandparents, as in people from the previous century. The point is that people commonly used to talk like this, but it’s uncommon now.

My grandmother said phrases like ______ in the woodpile and sweating like a ______ on election day. A woman of her time, she was racist.

Another time my cousins and were at the “tempt the boys” grandma’s house. We decided to walk down to the Rexall’s to buy candy and records. As we left the house she yells out: “Try not to steal anything!”

Another time we took her with us on a cross country road trip. When we pulled up to the Motel 6 that first night, she, who was sitting shotgun turns around and tells us kids “Try and act like humans!” My dad got pissed and yells at her “my kids know how to behave!”

A few years ago I was grocery shopping and noticed an old lady with a grandkid that looked about six and for all intents and purposes it could have been me with my grandma. I noticed them because this bitch turns to the kid and says something like “Don’t touch anything, you’ll break it. That’s all you do.” I wanted to stop the two of them and tell the kid to realize he was better than bitch granny was telling him he is and to ignore her.

For some reason I was thinking about this earlier today... my (Jewish) grandmother and my mother thought they were better than everybody else and loved to sneer and judge people as they went out their day, in restaurants, places like that. One day they were sitting on a cafe in Cannes, France - hissing and sneering at some woman who they felt was wearing too much jewellery for their liking. On & on they went...until the woman reached down to get something from her bag and revealed a concentration camp number on her arm. That shut them the fuck up.

0/10

R41, do you even understand what the x/10 scoring is about? Wait a minute, forget that: it’s glaringly obvious you do not.

Yes R42. I do. Most of these comments are bullshit written by failed writers aiming to shock and as a way to write "nigger" over and over again. We see you.

R41/r43 is in a muddle - how can a whole thread be 0/10?

[quote]We see you.

He's also a "we" troll.

People who use the N word on DL, like r43, should be banned.

I was raised in Indiana, a deep Klan state, so racism was everyday stuff, so much so that a child would not even notice it happening. The best way to implant those thoughts is to do it casually.

When I was about five, we went to visit my grandmother. I got bored and started to play with my Old Maid cards that I had brought with me in my pocket. My grandmother waited until my mother left the room, then she came to me and grabbed my Old Maid cards. She smacked my hands and said, "Cards are the tool of the Devil. Don't you grow up to be a card playin' man!"

Even at five, I was speechless. Not a cry. Not a whimper. I was scared to death. A bit later in the afternoon, I was getting bored and my mother said, "Where are your Old Maid cards?" And I turned red and started squirming. My mother, bless her, said, "Oh, no. Did she take those cards? Does she have them? You wait right here." She came back with them a few minutes later.

I can't imagine why hell my mother and her siblings endured when they were children. Every one of them had stories about now they were mistreated by her. Every one of them vowed never to treat their own children the way they had been treated. In that regard, my Old Maid cards don't count for much. But that experience always made me believe the things I heard from my mother and aunt and uncle about their mother.

She wasn't warm.

Retard R41/R43 also thinks that trash Michael Alig is a gay icon.

We see you.

OP, Grandma had a good point. The girl sounds like a WHORE.

My 80 year old Italian aunt saw a black man kissing a white woman on TV (in the '90's) and loudly said, "Disgusting!". Wasn't quite keeping up with the times.

My mom is one of those women who sees all other women as competition, so as soon as my sister hit puberty, she made constant sexualized remarks directed at her. The weird thing is, my sister has always been extremely studious (she eventually earned a PhD in Literature) and shy, but my mom talked like she was the Whore of Babylon.

A neighborhood that had a large black population was always "Ni***rtown."

R16 you were given good advice to roll up and look windows. FACT

This is just funny to me because every other word out of white people's mouths is that they're not racist, yet well over half the things mentioned in this thread are about racist family members. I guess it's something that you acknowledge that these are completely vile and inappropriate.

Serious discussion about how certain neighborhoods used to be "so lovely, and well-kept" until "the n*****s moved in and turned it all to shit."

I had no idea "gook food" was racist until I got to college. It was just what my ignorant Boston Irish Catholic family called Chinese food. And I don't remember the n word being used much except when I hear that "eenie, meenie, miney moe, catch a n*gger by the toe" I remember hearing that a lot.

When our awful stepmother caught us four kids reading books at ANY TIME of day (even after we had done homework, chores, etc), she would tsk-tsk, shake her head and say some variant of, "Why don't you kids get up off your big fat duffs and go DO something." She's dead and no one misses her.

^ and guess who numbers reading among one of his very favorite things to do in life right now?! Ha ha. Suck it, you wrinkled old dead cunt!

My mother’s side were part of the “White Flight” crowd from the city and they resented having to move forever. Mom once called a fancy restaurant to make sure no Black people were working three, lest they trigger grandpa on his birthday. I’m not proud of this.

I lived in Oxfordshire, England, in the mid-80s and everyone referred to a Chinese restaurant, mostly little take-out places, as the chinky. I'd heard the slur before, but the first time I heard that, I had no idea what the person was talking about.

My Midwestern grandfather (born 1899) referred to Jews as "Kikes." Completely reflexively.

Out with old and in with the new! Keep educating the young and kill off those racist old bitties!

It’s “biddies”, R61.

Seems like many eldergays' grandparents played this game as children while at the carnival.

After a trip down south my otherwise loving and angelic Grandma asked us if we'd seen any "cute n-word babies". She then went on to say they were the most beautiful babies in the world. It was all some out of love, but I knew the n word aspect of it was fucked up and my mom told her so. The only actual racist was my by marriage Uncle Bill. He just died at 94 and my 81 year old dad made contributions in his name to the NAACP and SPLC. We all had a good laugh over that.

My mom did the same to her daughters, R50. Even threw away some of their clothes and makeup when they were at school because she thought it made them look too good.

When I was four years old in 1965 I taught myself how to read. I was in Kindergarten and I remember at Christmas time the teacher asked me if I would read the Night Before Christmas to the class. I remember we were all sitting cross legged on the floor and I was facing them.

The book I was holding had a picture of Santa on the cover and his coat was flocked so I let the kids sitting in the front row touch the cover. After I was done reading it, the teacher took me aside and told me it was a bad thing that I had let the black kids touch the book.

"He's a gone coon."

I’m guessing that the wogs start at Calais becaus Calais was where the Channel ferry landed, first stop on the continent.

R13, you must have grown up in a trashy household. That type of thing would never have been tolerated in my parents house.

And, they weren't liberals either. Just regular midwesterners who believed that racism (real racism, not the modern version) was wrong.

[quote]I’m guessing that the wogs start at Calais becaus Calais was where the Channel ferry landed, first stop on the continent.

You guess right, gurl.

I got nothing.

My grandparents weren't racist.

My grandma was a whore though. She did it with a guy in a ditch after my grandpa died. She told us all about it. She also got arrested.

But none of them were racist so win for me.

During WWII, my fresh-off-the-farm mom went to the Big City and got a job as a telephone operator. One of the other girls was black. My mom innocently and ignorantly referred to her as the n-word girl, and her white supervisor and coworkers IMMEDIATELY took her aside and sternly told her, "We don't EVER call people by that word." My mom was horrified and ashamed, and apologized to her black coworker.

She told us the story years later, when we were kids. She explained she grew up isolated on the farm, and that's just how the rural folks referred to black people, so she had no idea it was a slur. But she made damn sure we kids understood it was wrong to ever use it.

Now, take note: this was during WWII when she was rebuked by her white coworkers for the use of that word. Meaning, there were a hell of a lot of white folks even as long ago as that who were perfectly aware that that was a horrible and inappropriate word.

My great grandfather owned coal, oil, and gas companies in Canada, and had lots of Chinese immigrants working for him. One day he got so mad at one of them that he cut off the guy’s pigtail, which was apparently about the worst thing you could do at the time, causing the guy to lose face with his peers, lose his wife and family, and be totally ostracized. It was a big deal, and he was fined an enormous amount of money at the time.

The parish priest in my mother's hometown taught children that evolution is real, but only black people descended from apes. When Mom took biology courses in high school and nursing school, she was appalled to find some classmates still believed that nonsense. Start a conversation about evolution with conservative white Christians. Keep them talking long enough, and someone will say that evolution only occurred in animals - subtext to include certain types of people deemed less than human.

My 81 year old father still describes non-Whites by their ethnicity.

"I saw a Chink mother nursing her kid at the library."

"We have a new Negro mailman."

"That dent? Some goddamn wet back backed into me at Walmart."

Even 1960s Canada had issues with racism in their country. In this clip, around 1:54, the interviewer asks the black guy if he's ever tried a white barber, or if he's happy with his "nigger barber." The black guy corrects him, and the interviewer apologizes in a very tongue-tied way.

The sad thing about racism in North America was that so many white people were conditioned to think that way without debate. I wouldn't be surprised if the interviewer considered himself non-racist, despite easily slipping with an offensive term.

R73, yeah, I never heard anyone use the N-word, growing up. Really. (I’m from CT.) And my mother had never seen a black person in real life until she’d moved to CT from rural northern New England when WWII ended. I think the attitude from my mother’s side of the family is that there are respectable families and trashy families of all colors.

There were some subtle biases, like the observation that Puerto Ricans love bright colors and the Italians sure like their wrought iron railings and stucco, and we don’t pierce babies’ ears...

When I was little and trying on lipstick, my mother called me a dirty whore and made me gave the lipstick, which I bought with my lunch money saved up, to my retarded cousin. who of course had no idea how to work it like I did and made her look like a whore.

These observations are true. If your parents and grandparents said racist things, it's not because you grew up in a racist area. It's because you come from a racist and/or trashy family.

Painting all the people of a particular geographic area with the racism brush is, frankly, bigotry.

Ok, I'll admit it, I once heard my grandmother use the phrase "They Jew you down in that store."

Years ago, my grandmother walked into the tv room where we were watching the Carol Burnett show. The Pointer Sisters were on and she said nastily, "Oh, they're getting into everything now"

R83, maybe she saw Vickie Lawrence and was talking about gingers.

My maternal grandfather was born in 1901 . My maternal grandmother in 1912. Of course they were raised differently . It was a different world then . Its 1000 times better now than it was then concerning that sort of thing,regardless of how black folks piss and moan . Ask a 100 year old black person if they think racism is bad now.

[Quote]Years ago, my grandmother walked into the tv room where we were watching the Carol Burnett show. The Pointer Sisters were on and she said nastily, "Oh, they're getting into everything now"

The Pointer Sisters were excellent stepsisters in a Cinderella sketch, with Vicki Lawrence playing their mom. Too bad your grandmother couldn't simply enjoy it for the comedy it was (along with their phenomenal singing).

I was going on 30, visiting my grandparents in the small Georgia town where they retired, driving through their neighborhood with my Pop. He pointed out various houses, saying, "colored people live there," (yard & house kept tidy) and "n-----s live there," (run down house and/or yard). I remember being shocked, because I hadn't heard him use that word before & tried to talk to him about it but do not think I made much of an impression.

My parents had never seen a non-white person until they came to America. My dad was 32. They absorbed every stereotype Americans had about race - primarily about status and socioeconomic indicators. Fortunately growing up in the 80s in a good school system, I learned better. Though there was still plenty of racism, it was more the modern subtle kind rather than the overt examples above. Ultimately, it was only by living and working in a truly diverse city that allowed all the subtle preconceived stereotypes to fade - and being gay which was more open to difference than the straight world.

I once went out with a group of friends, and my Mom asked "Who's paying?" I said "Everybody is paying for their own meal." and she replied, "Oh, Dutch treat!" So I shot her.

[quote]Its 1000 times better now than it was then concerning that sort of thing,regardless of how black folks piss and moan . Ask a 100 year old black person if they think racism is bad now.

But that racism is how we got to this point. Connect the dots. Maybe racism now isn't as bad as it was 50/100 years ago, but it is why we're in this mess today. And that negative shit seeps into your brain and affects how you view people and the world. You may not say the N word and you may not get upset when you see the Pointer Sisters on Carol Burnett, but you had better believe that type of negativity had some kind of influence, even if it's subconscious, on how you view others.

It is definitely quite clear to me that a lot of people on here internalized a lot of negative anti gay shit. I know it's all fun and games, but often when you guys want to trash someone the first thing you go to is some kind of negative gay stereotype.

"Precious, come in here and finish Mama off."

The only reason I drink is because you're a faggot.

(To a sixteen year old me.)

A couple years before she passed my grandma had a black cat . My brother shares she called it niggle cat but I know she definitely said a different word.

[quote]you may not get upset when you see the Pointer Sisters on Carol Burnett,

Could only be gayer if he'd included "performing Steam Heat" on...

[quote] I doubt that really happened, OP.

It certainly did. I was there when she said it.

[quote] but is that kind of casual racism a common thing in white homes?

Not now, at least in most parts of the country. But in the South at least, among people born before WWII, yes it was very common. My Depression-era grandparents used the “n-word” quite casually. My parents, born in late ‘40s/early ‘50s, never used it.

My parents would Jew you on the price but don't fucking try to pay them on the Chink.

[Quote]The only reason I drink is because you're a faggot.

Well, DRINK UP. My faggotry is gonna last forevermore.

[quote] Start a conversation about evolution with conservative white Christians. Keep them talking long enough, and someone will say that evolution only occurred in animals - subtext to include certain types of people deemed less than human.

That might have been true in your mother's time, but I think you are reading too much subtext into it today. Nowadays when one, especially under 50 says it only occurred in animals, they are excluding all human beings. I grew up in a conservative Southern church, and we were taught that ALL people were created by God, with no exception by race.

My father called me on Xmas. I've had to have conversations with him before about how it's not appropriate to talk to you daughters or son's about your sex life or lack thereof. Numerous conversations over the years. Numerous. He once asked me if my girlfriend at the time would like to have a threesome with him and his wife. I hung up on him. So we've had conversations about his bullshit. Christmas he calls to tell me he and my step mom had a fight and she told him he had the tiniest dick of any man she's been with.

Like I didn't already know, based on how much of a fucking, whiny pussy he is, that he had a tiny dick.

My neighbor is old enough to be my grandma, maybe even my great-grandma. She is hilariously vile. Last year she was having a yard sale. I stopped by to see how she was doing.

"It's going pretty well. Except for those fucking spics, always trying to jew me down. I just tell them to fuck off."

I got my first law firm job in 1985 at one of the biggest firms in my large city. One day one of our file clerks, who was African American was walking past a group of secretaries in their cubbies as he headed back to his department. One of the secretaries called to him and he didn't hear her, she called out again but but didn't know his name so she calls out "Excuse me? Boy! Come here." He glared at her and kept walking to his department. I don't recall that she got in trouble over it.

R100 apple/tree?

"On the news, they said Rihanna is going to be releasing a book of naked pictures. Well, that's not too shocking, Caribbean girls are sluts."

"About 50% of Brazil is gay"

"I'll put chilli powder in your mouth if you don't shut up!"

"Stop shaking like a cow"

"Is that what you call a crack whore house?"

My grandpa from Joeja let loose with this gem one sweltering August afternoon:

"I'm sweating like a nig**r on election day"

[quote] She cast a disapproving look and said “When some old man snatches her off that bicycle and rapes the hell out of her, she’ll learn not to do that.”

Well, did she after that happened?

Mama said she was sad for Moscone that Harvey Milk's death got so much attention. She said people like that had to expect this sort of thing if they told everyone about themselves.

r67 i believe that phrase could also mean he got quite viscous/crazy like (the animal) raccoon. being that i've never heard it brought up in conversation, i'd probably have to hear the context.

My maternal grandmother referred to black people as "coloreds".

One maternal uncle would tell children that they were running around like little "A-rabs".

Funny how everyones grandma wanted to let their grandkids know what they used to call brazil nuts.

I being a non-believer, find this hilarious, but others not so much. My mother likes to tell of her two old uncles arguing over something in the the bible, when one of them yells- I'll just get the god damned book and show you!

[quote]My maternal grandmother referred to black people as "coloreds".

People used to think that was the more polite term, for years.

i've got a bunch of (British) pop music newspapers from the '60s, in which they discuss and review pop songs and say things like "It has a very coloured feel to it". LOL.

The other night, GIRL, INTERRUPTED came on TV, and I decided to sit down in the living room and rewatch it for nostalgic reasons. My grandmother happened to be writing some iPad emails on the sofa at the time, and as she didn’t react or look at the screen or say anything when I had the movie playing, I thought she wasn’t watching it. About two thirds of the way through, during the scene where Noni finds the body, I hear my perfectly-sane 83-year old grandmother remark, “why are they in an asylum? Are they stupid? Or retarded?” I was stunned. I couldn’t even look over at her. I just wordlessly kept watching the screen, unable to think of anything with which to respond.

My grandmother knows there is a serious strain of mental illness in our family, and that I have a late sister who had brain damage and myself have struggled with depression all my life. I couldn’t believe she’s come out with a comment like that. After a short silent mental debate with myself, I just switched the TV off before the end of the film, and said a curt goodnight before heading to my bedroom.

My rather snobby and close-mindes grandmother has always lacked tact and been somewhat thoughtless in what she says and how she judges people, but this is a new low.

A few years ago I went to buy a used car. My father said "Don't get gypped."

I haven't spoken to him since.

Last month, my beloved grandma asked me to buy her old car. She needed the money for food. However, I got transferred by my job so I had to tell her that I can't buy the car from you.

She said "I understand honey. I don't think you are welshing on the deal." So, I kicked her in the cuntbone.

I am loving all these stories. Come on DL, don't be niggardly in your responses. Let's hear them!

My mom has a book she has kept since she was a child in the 30s called Petunia Be Keerful.

In the 70s my Grandmother was in the mall with my sister and noticing a bunch of adorable Black children said, "Look at all the picanninnies!"

Growing up, in my group of friends was one person we called "The Jew" or just "Jew."

But the worst was a guest at a football-themed party of my parents in the 70s came in blackface wearing a jersey that said Super Coon.

I was raised a Jehovah’s Witness and my uncle was an elder in the congregation so he was always on the platform giving lectures and he had NO filter.

Once when he was on stage he decided to talk about “a measure of a man” and he was meaning to say something about how it applied to a man’s character and demeanor. Then he forgot himself and his filter switched off and he decided to tell us all it had nothing to do with what was in a man’s pants and the longer he spoke the worse it got.

I was one foot out the door as it was and that pretty much sealed my decision. I left a few weeks later.

1977. Mother: "You're queer?! You had to choose the most vile, disgusting thing to hurt me, didn't you?!! GET OUT!!"

Walked away and never looked back.

I grew up in New Zealand and my grandfather used to refer to the indigenous people of New Zealand (Maori) as "boongas".

He was an alcoholic and used to go on horrible rages and drinking binges. He died of cirrhosis of the liver. I was terrified of him.

A cousin on my mom’s side of the family molested me when I was about 5 and he was 16 (gay man here). I never told my parents until after he died. I was at my mom’s house and we were talking about his mom or something and his death came up so I told her. She glared at me like I’d hit her and then she slapped me and screamed that I was lying. I left and didn’t talk to her for a very long time.

I remember we went on a trip and stayed in a cheap motel that was owned by a Middle Eastern family. It was summer and the motel didn't have much air conditioning so we all sweated all night and got no sleep. My mother was pissed. I remember her getting on the phone and screaming at the manager demanding a refund. She said "you're all crooks." The manager repeated "crooks?" She replied "Yeah. Crooks. Do you know what that means?" I remember him coming to the car in the parking lot and putting the dollar bills in her hand and saying "We are not the crooks." My mother still laughs and quotes that line ("We are not the crooks") to this day in a stereotypical accent.

I also remember a few years after 9/11 we were alone in an elevator with a Middle Eastern man just minding his own business. And not long after we step out my mother asks "Does anybody else feel uncomfortable trapped in an elevator with them or is it just me?"

We were wandering through Walmart one day and took a shortcut through the toy aisle. A little girl who couldn't have been older than 7 walked in front of us and my father snaps "Move, you little bitch!" I couldn't believe that he'd talk that way to a child.

Some of you come from straight up trash.

My grandmother used to admire 'the adorable pickaninnies' even though I would repeatedly remind her she couldn't say things like that. My mom is very woke for an 80 year old, but still says orientals, instead of Asians. She also calls flight attendants 'stewies'.

"PLEASE don't ever bring home one of them...Ay-rabs. I'd have to disown you if you did."

My grandma called Japanese people "Happy Jappies."

I love threads like these. It really points out how far we have really, NOT come!

You can pretty much click on most random threads and if you read through enough posts you start seeing vile and inappropriate things being written. For example, women often being referred to as bitch, cunt, whore (for no apparent reasons), some ethnicities being questioned on their hygiene habits and size of their penises. Like R90 points out, we disparage each other with the most vile gay stereotypes as well.

So either EVERYONE on this thread has NEVER written anything vile or inappropriate elsewhere or there is a fair amount of duplicity going on.

I'm dying to see what the first response will be denigrating my post!

R126 I refer to my Egyptian BIL as 'Persian' and he doesn't seem to mind.

R128, not denigrating your post, but the assignment was to discuss things your PARENTS and GRANDPARENTS said. You only need to look at normal responses on DL to know we're pretty much all, at some time or other, guilty of the same sorts of things.

Responses, for the most part, seem relevant to the assignment

R30, what you say is true.

I guess it’s the “horror” that some of the posters are feigning that spurred r128.

^^^ sorry, I meant r130.

[quote] My mom is very woke for an 80 year old, but still says orientals, instead of Asians.

I still don't understand why Asian is more acceptable than Oriental.

R133 "Oriental" is a carpet; "Occidental" is a college. (David Henry Hwang, M. Butterfly)

[quote]Seems like many eldergays' grandparents played this game as children while at the carnival.

In their defense R63, it wasn't a real baby. Most of the time.

[quote]Well, DRINK UP. My faggotry is gonna last forevermore.—Is how I would've responded

So glad to know you were Oscar Wilde and David Addison DeWitt the same age you could get a license.

"If I wanted to see two Jews fight, I'd throw a dollar bill on the floor."

" This bolt is tight as a nun's twitchit"

I had an uncle whose favorite insult was “you know, you could be replaced by a shvartza.” Mom always said uncle was “one sandwich short of a picnic.”

We love Russell Peters AND Lisa Lampanelli

R13: I also grew up in KS, my mother used to call Native Americans “Din-Dins”.

"It's a black wedding"

Referring to a broken down car on the freeway shoulder with several black people standing outside it.

r113 you are WAY too sensitive.

My grandmother had a black cat she named Pickaninny.

In 1970s Staten Island, I remember us kids saying to each other:

(Kid 1) "Say cheese"

(Kid 2) "Cheese"

(Kid 1) "YOU DIRTY JAPANESE"

This must've come from some adults who'd learned it as children during WWII, and then jokingly passed it down to their kids. Now, it don't remember my parents saying that, but I do remember them referring to the Japanese as "Japs" in a very natural way. They also referred to Chinese individuals as a "Chinaman" or "Chinawoman."

R143 how so? I genuinely want to know why I shouldn’t have been a little hurt by that comment. How would you have reacted, and what would you have said or done when in my position?

My recently-deceased sister had profound CP, and I have family who in the last decade have been sectioned and almost killed themselvs, but my grandmother is knowingly out here calling people in asylums retards. Sorry for expecting a little more compassion from someone who’s been alive and out in the world for over seventy years, my bad.

Granted, maybe I got her wrong, and she meant the movie was stupid or the actresses seemed dumb, but if that was the case then why didn’t she just say that using less offensive terms?

My parents would also refer the the Verrazano Bridge (which connects Staten Island and Brooklyn) as the "Guinea Gangplank."

I believe it's because so many Italian-Americans from Brooklyn moved there after the bridge was built, and also because it was named after the Italian explorer.

My 92-year-old grandmother, who NEVER said anything bad about anyone since I can remember as a child, blurted out, "I hate white people." We [the family] were shocked at first, but realized what she had seen growing up in the South in the ealry 1900s .. she probably had to get it out before she passed. She remembered not being able to go to the bathroom on a Greyhound bus with her mother and they had to use a paper bag.

Sorry, she said it on her deathbed. And apologies for typos, I was emotional typing.

r146 your grandmother was just trying to get a rise out of you because you're a whiny little annoying overly offended bitch. She has your number.

[quote]My parents would also refer the the Verrazano Bridge (which connects Staten Island and Brooklyn) as the "Guinea Gangplank."

Italians themselves call it that.

I've called older people (quasi in-laws) out on their comments and every time they couldn't take it and tried to make me pay every time I saw them.

I don't care. I'm not enabling their racism.

Your grandmother was completely justified, R148.

I'm white and I'm starting to feel the same--I'll probably blurt out something like that, lol!

My my grandmother (grew up in small-town Illinois, got married, never moved away) used to say, "Yup, them are colored" as I read names to her out of the Kankakee phone book. "Strange" names, to me, and I don't think she meant "colored" in a mean way...she just had very little exposure to Black people during her life. (BTW, this was 50 years ago or so, just for context).

I'm sorry, R121. It is textbook reaction to the ugly truth. So we all know why it continues to happen--the family chooses the abuser over the victim.

I can't really think of an exception I know about.

The majority-black neighborhood in the closest city was referred to as "N----rtown." It was understood that nobody ever went there for any reason. Blacks were seen as lawless, uncivilized and violent.

In 1977 my parents had my sister-in-laws’s parents over for cocktails, they were visiting from Florida. Her dad was a huge racist and was complaining about lazy, southern blacks who he called “those damn niggras”. I remember it like it was yesterday.

My parents are both from Arkansas, so...yeah. I heard all manner of racist 'niceties' on visits back to the homeland.

My parents, to their credit, saw there was no good future to be had there and relocated to Texas before starting a family. (I know. I know. It was a big leap for them, tho).

But, while you can take the parents out of Arkansas...I had to ask my dad what he meant by "jigaboo" music. And I got to see my mother out on the lawn in her housedress screaming at our neighbor that he was nothing but white trash. He was skeevy, but it wasn't a good look for her either.

The most disturbing and bizarre incident I can recall, though, is the time my parents had my brother and I deliver a copy of The Holocaust to another set of neighbors, a newly-transplanted German couple whose son bullied my brother. The boy was being a dick, yes, but I'm not sure how or why my parents thought this prank was an appropriate response.

My grandfather and uncle always referred to people as "coons", "jigaboos" and "porch monkeys", but not really in a a negative way, just as a matter of fact. I never realized what they were talking about and that it was a derogative until I went to school in a different state..

Stealth Bigotry Celebration Thread brought to you by Boris.

No r160 these are real Americans.

[Quote]Italians themselves call it that

R151 Yeah, but would you call them that, especially in their company?

You can see Boris @ r12, chiming in with his right-wing judgment labels as he masturbates to the glory of bigoted statements.

Must suck to be such a wimpy, non-entity that he cannot ID himself or be openly bigoted in daily affairs — anonymous internet trolling is all he has.

If there were no social justice, r12 would have been robbed and murdered ages ago.

[quote] The most disturbing and bizarre incident I can recall, though, is the time my parents had my brother and I deliver a copy of The Holocaust to another set of neighbors, a newly-transplanted German couple whose son bullied my brother. The boy was being a dick, yes, but I'm not sure how or why my parents thought this prank was an appropriate response.

Sorry but that was a great message to deliver to a bully's family.

My weird uncle used to called black children "Niglets". This was the 70's and 80's. He's dead now.

R164, can you explain the difference between "social justice" and justice?

I grew up in the 60s in Westchester county, NY, so not a backwards southern small town.

Both parent (both dead) were huge racists and all around horrible people. The N word was always used and I heard “Hilter didn’t kill enough Jews”, Irish were always called “Irish-shit, Germans called krauts, it goes on and on.

My mother also thought her daughters became competition once they hit puberty.

R168 how did you turn out so well?

Kisses r169

One of my grandmother's brothers was in a WWII POW camp in Japan. That led to my grandmother being anti-Japanese and she used the word "Jap" and other racial slurs for Asians quite a bit.

R171 is Jap a racial slur? I thought it was just an abbreviation, like Brit or Cali?

My grandmother, who I believe is a saint up there — would say to me “The TV is full of darkies! They’ve taken the whole thing.”

Remember, she was from the era and also attended TV show tapings like “Queen for a Day” with my aunt in the fifties. She is a saint up there, just old fashioned and loved everyone equally.

No she didn't R173. She was a fucking racist. Call it what it is.

I grew up close to steel mills and refineries with tons of different ethnicities. You’d expect open-mindedness, but instead we created a catalogue system of willful ignorance.

I do want you to imagine yourself in my place for a moment. I was ten when I noticed that my dad viewed Archie Bunker as the protagonist on “All In The Family”.

[quote] is Jap a racial slur?

It’s definitely a slur.

My ex-boyfriend once saw a boyscout troup and said

I feel like chiken tonight.

Please report every thought crime to the police.

The police of datalounge write everything down.

R8 No it is not normal. It’s not normal at all.

Really, until this thread I didn’t realize that Datalounge had such a large number of white trash commenters.

R179, they are facists. White people invented facism.

What are we supposed to call them? Those Yellow devils?

He brags about things he doesn't understand.

I have copper colored skin and growing up I would have many people comment and remark how nice it was, which as a teen was strange, but whatever. An aunt of mine used to call me chocolate boy growing up and many years later in her 80's she blurted out she called me that that "out of love." It was weird.

Let's not get all self-righteous and pretend that the parents and grandparents in black, Asian or Latino families are always open-minded and have never said anything vile, bigoted, hateful or stereotypical about people from other cultures, countries, religions or races.

My grandmother would call black people "darkies."

R184 I think it has more to do with actions than mere words. Blacks, Asians, Latinos never really lynched, segregated, oppressed, enslaved, committed near-genocide on Native Americans, and all-round spewed hatred for centuries. I guess it means a little more when you add that.

Latinos? No violence against the indigenous peoples of Latin America? Ok, sure.

Asians? No conquest and genocide against other Asians? Ok, sure.

The US has a unique problem with race. The Civil War ended in 1865, but the South spent well over a century bitterly fighting to deny human rights to former slaves and their descendants. Yes, other countries have issues with racial prejudice, but it's not the same at all.

Did they have segregation laws? Is it still currently happening? And do they having done these things make it ok for racism/oppression here? Don’t think you really know the history but are more likely trying to make a blanket statement that they did it too. Sounds like the same arguments Trumpers make, “but, but what about Obumer...”

[quote]Did they have segregation laws? Is it still currently happening?

We still have segregation laws?

R184 Of course non-whites also say vile and inappropriate things. But it's mostly white people commenting in this thread, and those are the memories they're recalling.

Why is this thread about racism? Was it mentioned in the original post? Is that the only "vile" thing people ever talk about?

I heard way more vile things from people I knew in high school or worked with back then that I ever heard from my parents or grandparents. I never heard anything very sexist, intolerant, disgusting or racist from any of them. My grandmothers were dead before I was born but my grandfathers never said anything worse than "These kids are wearing their hair so long you can't tell the boys from the girls"

r192 that's not the subject of this thread. But thanks for letting us know how perfect you and your family are.

R190 I never said we currently have, but we ‘had’ them.

Mom upon seeing Britney Spears's Pepsi Commercial: "God, is she gonna take her pants off too?! Slut."

R171, “Jap” was a WWII slur used in all kinds of circumstances, including official government propaganda. A lot of people from that era used it because it was used everywhere during the war, and not considered offensive in the same way most racial slurs are. It was considered a slur against an enemy country and its people, like Germans were called “Jerry.”

My grandfather was a Japanese POW at Wake Island. They were starved, tortured and beaten, some were murdered, and although he was generally a civil person, he didn’t care for the Japanese government for the rest of his life. And I’m not sure that included actual Japanese individual people, because he had a business and was nice to everybody. But he thought the government was awful and the culture taught the soldiers to be indifferent to the suffering of others, and he wasn’t wrong. Read about the Rape of Nanking sometime. They were racial supremacists, which led them to believe treating other people like animals was fine, because they were animals, in their minds. Anybody who was a POW of the Japanese around the world came away hating them because they were very cruel to their prisoners, including civilians. I’m sure your family member had PTSD, my grandfather was still having nightmares in his nineties. He came back weighing less than 100 pounds and severely traumatized.

Personally, I think if you see your friends beaten, starved and murdered, you get a free pass on hating the people that did it on behalf of their official government. Plus the Japanese attacked the U.S. That’s not the same as not liking somebody because of their skin color, it’s action based. Some people at the time thought the Japanese were even more brutal to civilians than the Germans, and that’s saying something. They were less disciplined, and they performed a lot of mass rapes and murders of women and sexually mutilated their dead bodies. A lot of it was politically and racially motivated, it wasn’t individuals doing it in their own behalf. And the Japanese government has never apologized to the government sanctioned sex slaves who were raped dozens of times a day, including teenagers. There’s a whole generation of Americans who read the newspapers as this all unfolded. To that generation, the Japanese were just bad news. A lot of them never moved past it.

That’s not really “racial bias” as most people understand it. I bet the German women who got raped en masse by Russians didn’t like Russians for the rest of their lives either.

The Japanese did themselves a lot of damage, because after the war, when people were able to get away and tell their stories, a lot of bad things came to light. Their actions are a big part of why the American government made them restructure after the war.

The Japanese acted like animals during World War 2. The US showed restraint by only nuking them twice.

If you’re not familiar with what happened there, go on YouTube and search “comfort women.” They were Filipina, Chinese and other local women kept as sex slaves. Some women before the “comfort women” were just gang raped by hundreds of soldiers and then their breasts and genitals were cut off and sometimes body parts were kept as trophies. The Japanese government to this day refuses to take responsibility and their schools cover up a lot of these actions and don’t teach about them.

Imagine you heard about some nationality doing things like that today. You wouldn’t like them either.

In a family reunion, one of my uncles, who is a Catholic, was a little shocked I was talking AGAINST a pedophile, I asked why, he thought gays would defend OTHER pervs. I pointed out having consensual homosexual sex between adults is different than an adult forcing a kid into something they don't want. His answer was, " the bible is very clear and mention on several parts sodomy is wrong, but having sex with young girls was common back then, for me, they are degenerates and they are all going to hell".

Americans are obsessed with race and racism r192, this happened on every single thread, "what color is Ryan Raynolds skin?, are italians white-white?" Like is some kind of relevant information in real life.

R193 I guess we all can't grow up in families full of racist, sexist, homophobic, smelly, fat, illiterate Republican trash. It's a shame but what can you do?

R200 Completely obsessed. Its practically the only injustice anyone cares about. Hunger, lack of medical care, cost of higher education, no problem, but call someone a racist slur, it's a tragedy.

r201 is projecting.

[quote]but call someone a racist slur, it's a tragedy.

Name-calling is not nice, but most people live by the whole sticks and stones thing. However, Americans don't leave it at simple name-calling. It's what lies underneath all that racial name-calling that colors everything else and how that translates to other areas of life.

R202 100%. It's simple, if we get to gasp, clutch our pearls and shake our fists in solidarity every time something that is construed as racist, misogynistic, homophobic etc. is said, we don't have to actually spend time fixing actual problems (like you mentioned in your post).

I will say I heard the term "ni@@er" growing up but there was always a caveat. Regular black people were black people, trashy black people were ni@@ers. And I was told it is the same with white people, there are regular white people and then there are white trash.

And, you can be trash regardless of money.

[quote] not considered offensive in the same way most racial slurs are. It was considered a slur against an enemy country and its people, like Germans were called “Jerry.”

My daddy was from Nebraska and viciously bigoted. He called blacks niggers all the time. Being in debt but showy was 'nigger rich'. A candy bar (can't remember the brand) was a 'niggerhead'. He did employ farmhands from Mexico, though, and treated them well enough. Better than he treated me.

"Hitler didn't go far enough"

"Niggers should be shipped back to Africa".

When I was in 1st grade, we moved to a new city at the end of the year and I started a new school right after Christmas break. I was shown into the classroom while all the kids were at recess so it was just me and my new teacher. I was a fat kid and very shy. The teacher took one look at me and said (something to the effect of) "We have another heavyset student in the class, so you should make friends with her."

Even at six years old I knew this was just a really mean thing to say and I was taken aback. She showed me to where I would be sitting and I took my seat. A couple minutes later, all the kids came in and, as they passed me, they all seemed to be addressing me as Karen. "Hi, Karen," etc... I was trying so hard not to burst into tears because I thought they all thought I was this overweight GIRL. After about the 10th kid who called me Karen walked by, I went over to the teacher and said, very confidentially- "What did you say the name of that fat girl was?" And she responded- Ruth. So I asked her why everyone was calling me Karen and she said, "They're calling you Kieran. He just moved away. You're sitting in his old seat." I almost had a fucking panic attack because of this cunt. I had a complex for the rest of the school year, though not one kid in my class ever called me a name. And I refused to say one word to Ruth and would avoid her whenever possible.

The wogs start in Calais was, as another poster already said, a reference to the fact that pre-Chunnel, Calais was the French port where ferries from Dover would disembark after crossing the English channel. And now that I'm thinking about it I think my grandfather may have used the term "wop" instead of "wog" and tbh although I know both are slurs I'm not sure on the precise meanings. For some reason to me it was seemed to be a reference more to foreign-ness (as well as non-whiteness) if that makes sense? It was almost a reminder of sorts, a warning: don't get it into your head that the French or the Germans are OK because their skin is light, they're just as foreign (i.e. not English, i.e. automatically suspicious) as the Italians, Spaniards etc. It was an interesting WWII-era (he was born in the 30s) kind of bigotry, more targeted at Europeans rather than Africans or middle easterners etc.

And yes, I heard that term "chinky" from an uncle (the only iffy term I ever heard from the next generation of my family) who used to use it exclusively to refer to Chinese takeout food. Not Chinese people, only food. It was a noun. "I could go for a chinky right now" "anyone else fancy a chinky?" etc.

To me England seems more hung up on non-Englishness when compared to America, which seems more hung up on physiological/visible non-whiteness. It's not entirely the same thing.

[quote] I heard that term "chinky" from an uncle (the only iffy term I ever heard from the next generation of my family) who used to use it exclusively to refer to Chinese takeout food. Not Chinese people, only food. It was a noun. "I could go for a chinky right now" "anyone else fancy a chinky?" etc.

My father still uses the same term in the same way, as a benign adjective or synechdoche. He also uses ‘gippo’ to refer to things that he observes and thinks belong to gypsies (I.e., passing by certain houses or pieces of land) rather than the people themselves. It’s an interesting phenomenon.

[quote] To me England seems more hung up on non-Englishness when compared to America, which seems more hung up on physiological/visible non-whiteness. It's not entirely the same thing.

Yes, exactly. I came in to point out this distinction. Xenophobia is different to racism, and xenophobia is a more typical characteristic or small isolated nations & islands. Japan has a similar attitude.

In Britain, Welsh & Irishman garner as much suspicion and ire from the English as other ‘foreigners’, but the mistrust goes both ways so it’s fairly healthy. I am English, and having moved to Wales recently I notice that the native-speaking hillfolk from ‘deepest Wales’ are not terribly friendly toward the English (understandably so). By comparison, those from the Capital, those on the coast, those living on the border, and the non-Welsh-speakers are lovely to us. It’s a bit discombobulating.

When asked by family how she's doing since her husband's death last year, Mom instead talks about how much he could ejaculate!

Every Sunday we went to a Chinese Restaurant on Flatbush near Avenue O. My mother would say "We goin' to the Chinks."

R188, China has, literally, 2 million Uyghurs, who are an ethnic and religious minority, locked up in concentration camps right now.

But, you have drunk the progressive Kool-Aid, so you believe that doesn't matter because men of European descent didn't do it.

That's classic deflection, r216. Nice knee-jerk you have there.

My parents had Halloween parties in the 80s where people wore black face. My memory is hazy but I remember it being pretty offensive with the physical stereotypes, not a simple skin darkening for authenticity. No one thought it odd or offensive, it was just another funny costume.

I never heard my parents never said anything racist.

I never heard my grandparents say anything racist, either. However, there is some video footage of my dad's fourth birthday (in the mid 1950s), where several children are wearing face masks that appear to be minstrel representations of black people. Even though they were in the deep south, I can't imagine considering something like that to be cute or funny.

In the late 1950s, my great-grandmother had a black lab dog, and she named it the N-word. She made a spectacle of herself every time she opened the front door of her house and called the dog for dinner. I guess she thought she was being funny. Her husband used to say that he thought abortion should only be legal only if a white woman was raped by a black man; I guess he thought that getting raped by a white dude was OK. These two would also watch "All in the Family" and clap and cheer for Archie Bunker because "someone is finally telling the truth on TV". All the time, they considered themselves to be deeply Christian and godly people.

R217 I wouldn't call it deflection, I would say it is caring more about an injustice that is actually happening at this moment, rather than to focus on the injustices of the past that we can do nothing about.

Why can't we do both, R220? Why are you so quick to shoot down one of those and change the topic? You ARE deflecting, whatever your (twisted, insincere) motives.

R219 I've been told of a relative that also had a black dog that they named ni&&er. It actually turned out to be a good thing. One day she was in her yard when the dog ran into the road and she saw an 18 wheeler flying down the road so she yelled "Get out the road ni&&er!" What she hadn't seen was there was an old black man also in the road and when she yelled that he jumped out of the road just seconds before the truck would have struck him. So her casual racism actually ended up saving a black man's life.

R221 I'm R220 but not R216. I just think our time would be much better served fighting the wrongs of the current times. Things we can actually do something about, rather than wallowing in the injustices of the past that we can never fix. There is no group of people that hasn't been oppressed or wronged at some point in the past. With slavery, for instance, how far back to we go with the blame and shame? Why do we stop at the white Europeans, and not blame the black Africans that captured and sold them to the white man? Eventually we would have to acknowledge that practically every ethnic and racial group have both been victims of slavery and perpetrators of slavery. All we can do is try to improve the present and work on tomorrow.

My grandma had a black dog named Sambo. This was in the late 60-s, to mid-70’s In Texas.

When I was about 6 or so, my father told me the reason black athletes were superior to white athletes was because they had an extra muscle in their legs. I think he was joking, but who knows.

I was also told the reason blacks have pale palms and soles was because God had them lined up, hands against the wall, and spray painted. I don’t know if anyone else mentioned this, I didn’t read the thread thoroughly. (I grew up in Texas, no surprise, huh). It’s upsetting as I think back on it.

R218 How wonderful that your parents knew the Trudeaus! Are you still in touch with Justin?

I had a relative who thought and said Jewish men were obsessed with sex. I just think she saw too many Woody Allen movies.

On hot summer evenings my parents would take us for ice cream sometimes and then we would cruise around the rough part of town gawking at drunks and hookers. Enjoying our ice cream. My friends' parents also did this so it wasn't just us. So weird to think abt that now.

When my parents had Chinese food they would say "We're going to the Chinks"

I grew up in a small town in the deep South. None of my parents or grandparents ever used the n-word. They always said colored or negro. Only trashy white people used the other word. But, the staff always used it in describing anyone black of a bad sort.

Most of my summer entertainment was created by these amazing personalities who worked for our families. When I was three, I would ride on the shoulders of the gardener while he raked the driveways. They taught me how to fish, whittle, ride a horse, ride a bike and drive a car. I also learned how to cook great soul food from Ginger our cook. On Sunday morning, I would often go to the jail with my grandfather to get everyone out after being arrested the night before for being drunk and disorderly.

I did once hear my uncle refer to himself as being 'more busy than a set of jumper cables at a colored funeral'. At the time I laughed as it was rather observant. Now, of course, it's so unfair and inappropriate.

My late mother (as much as I loved her) said her share of fucked up shit when I was coming up. What sticks out the most was when she spit her venom in my direction. Those barbs may be more suitable for a "Mean & Homophobic Shit Your Parents Said To You" Thread but they were definitely "vile & inappropriate".

I shared a room with my older brother until I became a pre-teen. One day when I was about 11 or 12, we started fighting over what to watch on MY little 14" b&w TV. Things got so bad that my mother stepped in to break it up. My brother stormed out the room & down the stairs. My mother followed him. As I stood at the top of the stairs I heard her consoling him with *paraphrasing* "Why are you wasting your time fighting with him? Look at him! He doesn't know which way to go!"

Fast forward 20 years......it was the little faggot that "didn't know which way to go" who became her caregiver while she fought Cancer for 6 years & stopped working for a time to do so. Never missed a chemo session or doctor's appt. I also made her funeral arrangements, cleaned out her home all by myself (no easy feat) and everything else you can imagine. The hetero brother I mentioned never lifted a finger to help and couldn't have given less of a shit.

My stepfather yells at Indian call center workers “I can’t talk to you. Put on someone who speaks the King’s English!” As if Lawrence Olivier’s great grandchildren work at call centers, somewhere in the back.

My mother used to tell us that mentally retarded people packaged combs and things in plastic so we had to wash them before using. Even at 4 yrs old I was like there is nothing right about that statement.

I don't consider any of these examples particularly bad. They were of their time, that is all.

When my mom was a little girl, in the early 1940s, she saw a penny on the sidewalk and bent over to pick it up.

“Don’t touch that!” said my grandmother. “A n***** might have spat there!”

This in a town in Maine whose black population at the time was *maybe* three.

"We voted for Reagan. Twice!"

There was a lot of vile shit done and said in my family but literally zero racism, homophobia, sexism etc. My Nana is the only grandparent I knew.

She was creative in her insults and didn't care who you were or where you were. If she needed to call you a pig faced dog fucker in German and then helpfully translate it to English, that's exactly what she would do.

I'm old enough to have heard a lot of these things growing up in the South. I have been open to change myself and try not repeat it.. But at the end of the day, I'm going to say whatever I want and I accept the consequences for it. Everyone gets a fair shot with me, but if you fuck with me, it's game on. Worked out ok so far.

R230, King’s English aside, I know someone who lost a substantial amount of her hearing quite suddenly due to a illness. She said afterwards, she couldn’t understand people with significant accents. Before, she worked in an international firm with lots of accents and had no problem. It was her hearing impairment that caused the problem.

A lot of older people have hearing loss, so this could be what was really going on there. She said it was extremely frustrating because sometimes she could only understand a word or two here and there, or none of it. It has to do with the brain trying to fill in missing sounds, and it’s exhausting and very difficult. She couldn’t understand the context of what was being said at all, so the entire conversation was useless.

What is this reverse-talismanic power you all give to the 'n-word'? It's just a word. It won't kill anyone. It is considered rude - I get that. Don't say it. But to still be shuddering all these years later that someone in your family said it many decades ago, when the times were different? Bitch, please. It's just a word.

R238 I am as puzzled as you about the power of that, and many other words that some consider offensive.

We seem to live in an age where words are considered to be physical violence, but physical violence, if committed by the "right" people, is excused.

I read an article recently about how some law students filed a complaint against their professor for using the n-word in class. The topic of the class was hate speech. How can you study and understand a thing if you can't talk about it?

My father’s mother had a black postal carrier and she would wipe down the mail he delivered. My cousin had a child out of wedlock with a Mexican and my mother’s mother stood over the baby’s crib with me and said, “She’s darker than anything!”!

I never heard the n word in my house when I was a kid. I knew what the word meant but never heard it at home. Then my mother died at 63 and, a few years later, my father started dating a woman who once used the word in conversation. I told her politely that we didn’t use that word. She left in tears and my father told me that I was impolite! Later, as my father developed symptoms from Alzheimer’s the n word just flew out of his mouth!

Raised in the midst of an Italian American family in the sixties in NJ. Very common to hear my uncles say, you're dark like a n***** in the summer when tanned. My mother would announce "let's have chinks" when she wanted to go to a chinese restaurant. She referred to Puerto Ricans as PRs. My Dad was Jewish, he never said things like that. My mother would say there were only two poor Jews, Christ and my father, and she married one of them. This would make my father laugh heartily.

This thread recounts many instances of the casual racism of whites. We were raised as catholics, but we were the only kids at school with a Jewish father. The first day of school, the teacher would call your name, and you had to verify the names of your father and mother. Try Israel Morris Miller out loud in a class full of Italian and Irish kids, you'll hear kids echo parents. Since my last name was Miller, which could indicate a number of nationalities, I have been treated many times to the casual anti semitism of most people. Many times accompanied by "but I don't mean YOU" or "you're really not Jewish".

I am grateful for my parents mixed marriage. It gave me a window very early into how most whites thought about "others". I was aware of it and troubled by it.

I'm white and i think that using the n word is not okay because it demotes a race of people, much like chink or wop or wetback. it demotes them as a place under themselves...and nobody is greater than the other person.

however i have a bit of a tick when those that associate themselves as that "race" refer to themselves in the very word they decry anyone else they perceive as outside of their culture. but i am not losing sleep over it, i'm just trying to respect people and their cultures. it doesn't have to be a huge fight. if a particular ancestry prefers not to be called a certain word, let's respect it. we are, after all, humans...all of us, no matter where we come from. we're all blood, flesh and bone. we're all human.

"You children are behaving like wild Indians!"

In 1982, I was on a plane and the young kiwi guy next to me said, "I'd ask them if the drinks are free, but they'd think I was a real Jew for asking."

When talking about gay people, kiwis say, "He doesn't know if he's Arthur or Martha." They call Polynesians, of which there are many there, "coconuts".