Quote:
Originally posted by ThurgreedMarshall
then take your fat ass to Saks so you'll have a story to tell to no one tomorrow.
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This is a nice segue into something I'd been thinking about asking here as part of the ongoing discussion on racial name calling.
Earlier this fall, someone calling into an AM radio show hosted by a black woman made a comment that the local gossip columnist (also black) found outrageous and racist and I thought was more stupid than racist. It got me wondering where the line between stupidity and racism might be or if at a certain point stupidity is racist. Yes, deep thoughts from Fugee on a cold night.
So, the topic of the show one evening was Minnesotans whining about cold weather. One guy, a recent transplant (and presumably white), was saying he didn't know what to expect. His comment that got him cut off the air was "I'm scared, you know, I don't know how your black ass survives through it..."
Flippant and/or snarky comments involving "your [adjective] ass" seem to be not uncommon. So on the one hand, it could just be a guy trying to be funny on the air by making one of those comments. Both the radio host and the columnist took the comment as being racist. I'm not sure whether it was that or just monumentally clueless.
The columnist's bottom line was this to someone who wrote in questioning whether they were overrreacting:
Let me help: Say all you want about Steele's behind, but you CANNOT give it a color. When you do that, it suggests that you are racist.
Stupid? Racist? Or stupid and racially offensive?**
**For the record, I can't imagine a circumstance in which I would say "your black ass." I'm just more curious where the line gets drawn.
