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?

cracking the whip

I think this is a fantastic example of what you’re talking about.

On its face, “cracking the whip” doesn’t need to be seen as offensive. Humans have collectively spent far more time using whip cracks to motivate animals than fellow humans, I suspect.

However, the determination of offensive speech is not in the hands of the speaker, but rather in the reception by the listener. That is to say, you can have the purest of intentions but if someone is offended by what you say, no amount of explaining takes away the initial offense. And generally you don’t GET to do that explaining. Damage is done, and that person may then avoid you or already have a shifted opinion of you.

I’ve had to learn this lesson the hard way. And fortunately have had friends who were willing to tell me that I had offended them when I thought what I said was completely benign.

You do realize you're asking for a racist-o-pedia, right?

Unfortunately there isn't really a full list because that shit changes so often. Previously accepted phrases become slurs and yesterday's slurs get reclaimed.

My grandfather, who passed away in the 90s, used to say "cotton pickers" for people that he meant as "jerks". It took me until the 2010s that he was taking about black people. 🤦‍♂️

When I was younger, I thought the term "cracker" referred to white people being pale like a cracker that you'd eat. I did not realize until later that it was referring to whipping.

Speaking of stupid and insensitive, I was in my 20s before someone explained to me that to reference "jewing someone down" on price was not a great thing to say. It seems absurd. I'd just never seen it in writing or thought about it--it was an idiom, that's it. You want to get a better price, so you jew them down. I guess I thought it was a homonym, if anything, but I didn't really think about it, at all. Big-time facepalm moment when it clicked for me. Likewise for, "I got gypped."

the folks in the linux subs talking about 'ricing' their desktops need to see it when you find it!

I remember in my 20s the phrase "indian giver" coming out of my mouth. I hadn't used that phrase since I was a kid of 10 years old or so.

I immediately realized that I should never say that shit again. Adult me realized it is a horrible thing to say but as a kid I just thought it meant you gave and asked for it back. I had much more context as an adult.

Most of the time I think before I speak, but not always.

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The two that really make me wince are "Indian giver" and the related "Indian summer" and of course calling hooch "firewater" isn't great either.

Oof. At work we currently have a project for words deemed insensitive. For the most part I think it's worthy, but some things are overboard. The project group cast a very wide net, ignoring context and etymology. My biggest disagreement is over "black" and "white".

Take "black box" and "white box" for types of testing. These are based merely on the properties of light. I have serious doubts about anyone ever having felt excluded by their use. And yet, we're wasting time coming up with non-standard nomenclature to satisfy this supposed slight. There's a whole laundry list of words like this.

phrases that are stupid

We haven’t invented a storage big enough for that yet

About the others, there are some obvious ones but other than that it mostly depends on context and culture. Some pointed the ricing thing for Linux, but I don’t think anyone in the community, myself included, thought about Asian ppl when calling themselves a ricer; nor I think it’s racist, so again: aside for obvious insults or widely known slurs, it basically falls back to context

It's not quite what you're looking for, but there's this list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_slurs

Odds are that such a list won't ever exist. Insensitivity and bias depend on meaning, and meaning depends on context. As such, we [people in general] need to pay attention to what we're saying, and to whom, in to avoid both things. No easy way.

My mother-in-law used to call everyone "zipper-heads" until someone pointed out that it's a slur against Koreans (and a particularly graphic one at that).

"Seek offence and you shall find it" - The secret mantra of Tumblr users

It's a tricky one because if someone wants to be offended, they definitely will be. I once knew a guy who, for some reason, found the use of the word "slug" (in any context) intensely offensive. To this day, no-one ever learned why.

You can't be stupid, otherwise you'd be on Reddit 😊

I actually looked into this two days ago. I came across a PDF that was maybe six years old but already outdated. It's a problem when it's this difficult to keep up. I know it's a problem to not try to keep up too though. The human condition sucks.

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https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category:English_derogatory_terms

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category:English_offensive_terms

these aren't phrases but they're words

This is a great list for ableist terms . https://www.autistichoya.com/p/ableist-words-and-terms-to-avoid.html I'm disabled in multiple ways and there were a few on here that caused me to re-evaluate my lexicon.

A list has limited use because language evolves, and so do people, and on top of that, context is everything — but it can be a good place to start

where does everyone stand on cretin? IMHO it's medical use is obsolete afaik, so really it's just an insult right?

Indian^* here, and I don't know anyone offended by Indian summer.

^*It says Indian on my ID.

You're overthinking it. You didn't say anything insensitive or stupid. It will offend some people, but they are usually looking at how to be a victim and that gives them an opportunity. It's just words, don't worry about it so much.

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.

Unfortunately, this keeps changing. Old slurs get recycled or forgotten, and new words become offensive. Corporate guidelines are often hugely overbroad to avoid offending anyone. The best way to avoid things like what just happened, by checking slang in a dictionary before using it.

For years I used the term "shylock" as a pejorative for greedy people while being ignorant of the connotations of using the characters name that way. I didn't even know it was from a Shakespeare play.

I tried to look but the most official one (from University of Washington) is kind of ridiculous. Following for better ideas.

Saying "I am hungry" or similar phrasing usage in Hungary can get you arrested.

If someone gets offended by something as banal as "crack the whip" they arent worth bothering yourself over, save your calories for someone else

Cunt