Is term 'Canadian' used as racist word?

Jeez, and I thought I had heard of everything.

[url=http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/falkenberg/5480917.html... Chronicle: When is a Canadian not a Canadian?[/url]

From this article it is patently clear that, despite protesting too much, the remark "Canadian" was some previously agreed upon code meaning Blacks.

I say let's legalize marijuana in Canada! That'll give Charlton Heston and the rifle association something to get excited about!

I dont know about that,
Remember taht episode of Southpark when Afghanis held up the kids and they claimed to be Canadian(to avoid trouble)
Cartman being an asshole as usual, blows their cover.
He replies to Kyle: just dont F^&*ing call me a Canadian, dude"
[img]tongue.gif" border="0[/img]

quote:

---

Originally posted by BetterRed:
[b]I dont know about that,
Remember that episode of Southpark when Afghanis held up the kids and they claimed to be Canadian(to avoid trouble)
Cartman being an asshole as usual, blows their cover.
He replies to Kyle: just dont F^&*ing call me a Canadian, dude"
[img]tongue.gif" border="0[/img] [/b]

---

(edited) I meant use of the word as perjorative overall, not the racist "code"
To prevent the PC's from eating me alive

Overall, a bizarre thread... just like US itself.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Skinny Dipper:
[b]It reminds me many years ago when I heard that some teenaged girls were called Japs. Heck, they didn't look Japanese.[/b]

---

Yo! Skinny Dipper! I hate to ask this, but provide more information to what this post is supposed to mean, and how this post is reflecting an anti-racist position. As it reads right now, with no explanation, will lead me to encourage you to refrain from posting here in the AR forum.

Also, it's thread drift.

I had never heard of 'Canadian' being used as a pejorative word until now.
I'm a Canadian and have been one all my life. Is the rest of the world laughing at me behind my back?

I've never heard it used as a code for white.

However, it's often a code for "socialist". As in "You must be Canadian" or "Figures, you're Canadian" after you make some pitch for a social safety net of some sort.

I've also had people tell me that it's used somewhat negatively in parts of Florida with large snowbird populations. That I can't confirm.

quote:

---

Originally posted by abnormal:
[b]I've never heard it used as a code for white.
[/b]

---

In Canada, it's sometimes used as a code for white. People will say things like, "My class has three Asians, two Black people, one Indian dude, and two Canadians," where "Canadian" means "white person of northwest European descent." It's pretty offensive, and I'm hard to offend.

Ha! Remember when the terms fransophone & anglophone (& allophone) were introduced, to avoid the potential bigotry of French & English? I do. And I recall it was just a few years before the Montreal Gazette published a photo with the caption describing the people in the photo as "two anglophones, a francophone, a black, and two Jews"...! Seriously. No irony. I cite this to students who think ethnic-category renaming is about changing the attitudes of the bigotted.

As for the "JAP" thing -- I remember in the 80s my younger brother's equal confusion. That was the term used at his school, and he got the meaning, but he honestly thought the referent was the Japanese. (He couldn't explain that.) That it might be an acronym didn't occur to him (or me; I discovered it in subsequent conversation with others). But notice he was able to sue it in a way that anyone might think evinced prejudice, even while he had no idea what prejudice it signalled.

(The corresponding surprise here in the South Pacific is local people calling you "masta" if you're male and obviously ex-patriate -- whether you're "white" or "black" or "Chinese". And, for Americans or people who've read a lot of American literature, the ways kids are called "pikinini"...)

Wasn't Michaelle Jean born in Haiti?

I was born in Montreal, and calling myself an anglophone is one of the weirdest, but true, things that I can do. [img]smile.gif" border="0[/img]

Article about the issue in the OP on Racialicious called "Is the US ready for a Canadian President?" [url=http://www.racialicious.com/2008/01/30/is-the-us-ready-for-a-canadian-pr... here.[/url]

The article links to a [url=http://www.rsdb.org/]Racial Slur Database[/url]. So far it's up to over 2,600 words. Don't read this without some back-up support in place. I scrolled down to the Cs and found "Canadian" there. Please also read the comments on the Racialicious blog, by genuine USian anti-racists, who confirm that "Canadian" is used for "Black" regularly.

So if "woman is the nigger of the world" and Blacks are the Canadians of the U.S., where does that leave Quebeckers?

Of course there were six people in the picture...! That was the point. Labels don't matter -- or rather, the literal meaning of labels doesn't matter. Heck, when I was young the people I knew used the simple term "French" to mean clumsy or stupid...

The attitudes will persist. We call Obama black not white, although he's actually half-and-half, right? Likewise the sainted Bob Marley; you don't see him in lists of great Welsh singers.

The literal sense of labels doesn't matter; actual genetic background doesn't really matter either. (The Irish and Italians in America weren't always "white".) Racism is beyond, or bigger than, that.

(What does matter about labels? What the people labelled think, I reckon. "Queer" is good if the people referred to as queer see it as a self-validated term. It's bad if they don't. The literal meaning of queer is irrelevant, and so is what it makes straight people think of. Their attitudes won't change with a change of labels, any more than the Gazette's did with the "-phone" terms.)

martin, thank you for this:

quote:

---

martin: I see nothing wrong with the media pointing out people's belonging to X or Y linguistic, ethnic or sexual orientation group, unless it affects their rights, unless it feeds a stereotype, unless the people of the dominant group m,anage to avoid similar identification (as when police point out that an appreheded suspect was Black or when being White is held to go without saying).

---

It hasn't happened for a while, but sometimes I will get harangued just for mentioning the significance of race, in a situation that's going on. Sometimes such mentioning of race is even referred to as racism, which boggles my mind.

We all experience race as racialized bodies.

quote:

---

Originally posted by martin dufresne:
[b]So if "woman is the n*********** of the world" [/b]

---

Um .. Martin Dude .. Please please .. This is racist offensive stuff.

Please don't repeat this.

That phrase to discribes womens plight, was never acceptable.

I'm sure you meant no disrespect, but please brotehr please, understnad that its not accetpable to insulte me and others like me, inorder to draw attention to the plight of women.

It would have been sufficient to say "women are not appreciated or undervalued"

I realise you are quoting stuff, but lets not quote racist stuff, atleast not without respectfully deconstructing the racist statement.

From your brother from another mother,

Ifo