This may seem kind of stupid but I am kind of stupid, is there a list somewhere of phrases that are stupid or insensitive racially or gender biased?
This may seem kind of stupid but I am kind of stupid, is there a list somewhere of phrases that are stupid or insensitive racially or gender biased?
I just got up from conversation with a couple of older black men, that I said "well I got to go back to work and start cracking the whip." And it occurred to me then that it was probably a really insensitive stupid thing to say.
Sadly, it hadn't occurred to me until it's already said.
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This is a misled approach. Rather than trying to list out the myriad phrases in our language based on historical prejudice, it's better to just understand that prejudice yourself so you can determine what you want to perpetuate and what you don't. That being said this won't prevent something like this from ever happening again, and sometimes things you would never guess are rooted in white supremacy or other ism. No one knows the full extent of it themselves and no one is expected to know everything. If it happens on occasion and you realize it like this and avoid it in the future it's fine for most people. If you keep saying something you don't realize is messed up and stop when you learn it's messed up, that's also fine. It's only when it's obvious that you know it's wrong but you insist on doing it or get defensive about how it shouldn't be a big deal when it becomes a real issue.
100%. We’re all human and so many phrases are just in the vernacular.
I grew up hearing the word “gypped”. I didn’t know that’s how it was spelled (thought it was jipped.) It wasn’t until I was in college that I realized gypped -> Gypsy and extremely offensive. I’m still embarrassed that it took me that long to figure out.