25-07-2020 11:07 PM - edited 25-07-2020 11:08 PM
Offensive place names. I this day and age I can't believe they are still named as such!
I saw the post below from the discussion that has now been locked. Wow! I didn't even know about this place. We're in the 21st century and there are still places named like this. What's wrong with Australia?????
Re: Coon cheese's name to be changed over racism concerns [ Edited ]
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@rogespeed wrote:
in reply to zanadoo_5647 minutes ago - last edited 43 minutes ago
I suppose they will want to change Mount Niggerhead's name next.
So I did a search on the Internet and this came up.
An Aboriginal group plans to sue the Victorian Government for ignoring its heritage in the renaming of Mt Niggerhead, a mountain in the Alpine National Park.
November 17, 2008 — 11.02amFor decades, the 1846-metre Mount Niggerhead in the state's north-east has been at the centre of a heated debate about its name.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/aboriginal-group-outraged-over-naming-of-mountain-20081117-68gq.html
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Why Niggerhead Rock and Suicide Bay need Tasmanian Aboriginal names
Posted SatSaturday 6 MayMay 2017 at 11:58am, updated SatSaturday 6 MayMay 2017 at 2:57pm
Niggerhead Rock 'pretty damn offensive'
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**bleep** Head Facts for Kids - Kiddle encyclopedia
kids.kiddle.co › Nigger_HeadMay 22, 2020 - **bleep** Head is a small island in the northern part of Shelburne Bay in far north Queensland, Australia about 30 km north of Cape Grenville, ...
So there are three places in Australia with this name. Again, this is 2020, something very wrong with our history and society. Very wrong. If they can bring Uluru back, then why not get rid of these disgusting names? They were named in a time when the people who had the power to name them as such because certain races were deemed to be inferior.
I haven't had a look at all of them to see if any of the names have been changed. I hope one has.
BTW: Kudos to Mr. Hagan for getting the offensive name of that sports oval changed.
on 26-07-2020 10:36 PM
@k1ooo-slr-sales wrote:
the high school I did teach at for thirty years had students who would call aboriginal students the ‘N’ word often.
The students calling aboriginals the ‘N’ word were themselves aboriginal. It was common among the aboriginal kids to use this name when referring to their aboriginal friends, despite teachers asking them to stop doing it. Even the adult aboriginals in the school couldn’t get them to stop.
Yes I've heard that and seen that. Some young Indigenous Australians call each other that, so do some Pacific Islanders and now some Caucasians are calling each other that too. This is a stupid emulation of American culture and also influence from what kids have seen in movies. They think it's cool. I think it's tragic. Imagine Jews calling each other the K*** word or Asians calling each other the G**k or N*p word,?? You wouldn't see it. This is because they haven't seen Jews or Asians calling each other those derogatory terms in films. So it makes you wonder why African Americans have been portrayed this way in films by directors who are not African Americans. what's up there?
on 27-07-2020 09:53 AM
@the_great_she_elephant wrote:Springyzone wrote: It's a funny world, where the 4 letter words F & C are often freely used in movies, but the word black can send people into a spin
The difference, I think, is that the F and C words are ubiquitous insults that do not differentiate between colour, race, religion or politics unless accompanied by a defining adjective.
Black, on the other hand is not only descriptive of skin colour but is also used to evoke a sense of the sinister or unpleasant, e.g. Black Mark, Black Sheep, Black Friday, Black Market, Black Magic.
I don't agree. The C word may not differentiate against race but it is certainly related to women, and what i would call a derogatory term.
In the other sayings you mentioned, I see the black as unrelated to race. In literature, analogies are often made between light and dark, storm and sunshine, night and day. They are not racist, I think they are, rather, part of the human experience.
Rather than change every term that has black in it, maybe it would be easier to just call black people brown or some other term. Or else call them by a more exact term. I know the term negro is considered offensive these days. From memory, it never used to be so. I looked it up and it means what i thought it meant "a member of a dark-skinned group of peoples originally native to Africa".
I think that was probably a fairly accurate term for black Americans.
The term can be construed as offensive, inoffensive, or completely neutral, largely depending on the region or country where it is used. It has various equivalents in other languages of Europe.
I can see how the term **bleep** is offensive though. I think any word can be offensive, depending on how it is used.
Since negro is widely taken as offensive now, maybe a word from one of the European languages could be adopted.
on 27-07-2020 10:24 AM
I work with a black African woman. I got completely lambasted years ago because I said the word "black" in front of her. I got called racist, pig, lots of other words that I can't put here because they'll be bleeped. I was discussing a black dress. Apparently that's racist. Yet, if she mentioned she'd just bought a white car, no-one would bat an eyelid. Was she offended by my mention of a black dress? Not one single bit. She couldn't see what the fuss was about.
Another time I mentioned I have a genuine question to ask. I asked how she knew if she was sunburnt. Again, the chronically outraged went spastic. I thought I was going to be hung, drawn and quartered. Again, she couldn't see why the lynch mob were going ballistic. She replied to me "my skin hurts when I'm sunburnt". Hmmm, yeah, that makes sense!
As a black woman, what SHE finds offensive are terms like "woman of colour", "dark skinned", "non white". As she has said a thousand times "I am a black woman and I am proud to be black".
As for offensive place names:
Coonamble
Coonabarrabran
Coonawarra
Blacktown
Blackheath
Just to name a few.
Now lets sit back and what the chronically outraged carry on about how many times I used the word black in my post.
on 27-07-2020 11:07 AM
LOL Tippy.
Something really should be done - over there - ' White House ' - talk about offensive.
It woud match his makeup.
on 27-07-2020 12:39 PM
And I'm quite happy to have - ' Man Eating Tiger ' - left as is - as opposed to ' person eating '.
on 27-07-2020 01:05 PM
@*tippy*toes* wrote:I work with a black African woman. I got completely lambasted years ago because I said the word "black" in front of her. I got called racist, pig, lots of other words that I can't put here because they'll be bleeped. I was discussing a black dress. Apparently that's racist. Yet, if she mentioned she'd just bought a white car, no-one would bat an eyelid. Was she offended by my mention of a black dress? Not one single bit. She couldn't see what the fuss was about.
Another time I mentioned I have a genuine question to ask. I asked how she knew if she was sunburnt. Again, the chronically outraged went spastic. I thought I was going to be hung, drawn and quartered. Again, she couldn't see why the lynch mob were going ballistic. She replied to me "my skin hurts when I'm sunburnt". Hmmm, yeah, that makes sense!
As a black woman, what SHE finds offensive are terms like "woman of colour", "dark skinned", "non white". As she has said a thousand times "I am a black woman and I am proud to be black".
As for offensive place names:
Coonamble
Coonabarrabran
Coonawarra
Blacktown
Blackheath
Just to name a few.
Now lets sit back and what the chronically outraged carry on about how many times I used the word black in my post.
My Italian-born Daugher-in-law in England thought she'd invite her new (black) neighbours in for coffee. They had a little boy that would have made a good playmate for her little boy (my youngest grandson).
This is her story.
They were quite well off black Africans, running a business in the UK., They finally deigned to come over after several invitations.
DIL offered coffee.
"do you like your coffee black or white"?
There was stunned silence. The couple looked at each other. Shortly aftewards, they excused themselves and left.
There was no further communication. If they met each other shopping or in the street, they would ignore DIL.
She was very hurt about it.
There was no question of the little boys becoming playmates.
27-07-2020 01:34 PM - edited 27-07-2020 01:35 PM
@springyzone wrote:Since negro is widely taken as offensive now, maybe a word from one of the European languages could be adopted.
Negro means black in Spanish. It's the name of the colour. If you buy set of colour pencils, the black ones will have NEGRO written on them. The word, used to describe colour in any language should not be considered offensive. No country should be expected to change perfectly inoffensive word. The problem is when the word is used as an insult, which it was in the past, but from going to various American forums, the American Africans describe themselves as black. I personally think describing them as "American Africans" should be offensive; most lived in the USA for longer than many migrants from Europe, yet nobody says "European Americans", and there are some who think that black people should be sent back to Africa.
27-07-2020 01:42 PM - edited 27-07-2020 01:42 PM
The good book says "The meek shall inherit the earth". The way things are changing I suspect it will be 'the small minded, self entitled, and oh so righteous'.
on 27-07-2020 01:42 PM
It does get rather confusing.
The word 'Black' can be traced back to its proto Indo-European origins through the word 'blac' which meant pale, wan, colourless, or albino. ... In Old English “blac” person meant fair; someone devoid of colour, similar to the word “blanc” which still means white or fair person.
27-07-2020 02:13 PM - edited 27-07-2020 02:14 PM
@icyfroth wrote:My Italian-born Daugher-in-law in England thought she'd invite her new (black) neighbours in for coffee. They had a little boy that would have made a good playmate for her little boy (my youngest grandson).
This is her story.
They were quite well off black Africans, running a business in the UK., They finally deigned to come over after several invitations.
DIL offered coffee.
"do you like your coffee black or white"?
There was stunned silence. The couple looked at each other. Shortly aftewards, they excused themselves and left.
There was no further communication. If they met each other shopping or in the street, they would ignore DIL.
She was very hurt about it.
There was no question of the little boys becoming playmates.
It's England - divided into haves and have-nots - class system
The guests were 'well-to-do'
Polite society would have put a jug of milk on the table, and avoided the whole scenario
Just sayin'
Before Corona, I always put a jug on the table - who knows how much milk people want? If any.