Remembering hearing wildly racist stuff from regular folks

[TwiceHorn 31438]

One thing I am curious about is the etymology of the n-word.  Negro was, for a time, the legitimate word for African-American or black folks.  A lot of Southerners, meaning nothing in particular derogatory about it, pronounced it "nigra," which can sound an awful lot like it.  And, of course, it at some point became a harsh ephithet, spoken as one.

 

And there's something harsher about the -ger sound/suffix than the -gro or -gra, so it seems like maybe it transitioned right into the epithet rather than being a mispronunciation that went dark, so to speak.

[Burt 4080]

Two summers ago, I was taking my now 99 year old grandmother back home from a fish fry at my parents' place.  Most of her side of the family has lived in the middle of nowhere Cass county since she was a kid, and that's where I spent many a day growing up myself.  But it had been a couple of years since I'd been there, so on the way she was giving me the run down on who lived in each house on the way up Highway 77 - "the Blacks live there now;  that's a family of Vietnamese who bought the convenience store; the Blacks live there....and they live there, too".  It took me a minute to figure out she wasn't talking about a large family with the last name of Black.  She was talking about "the blacks".   I guess that's progress for her, though....so she's come a long way since my younger days when she use to complain about the n_____ boy speeding down her road.

So I, too, grew up around n____ rigging, n____ toes, n____ knocking, etc.   My uncle down the road from my grandmother still has a dog named N____ Chaser, though.

[phdhorn 6224]

You want racial old stories?  Shit, I got 'em.

I was bused in a county that was one of a handful of federally-mandated busing counties.  And I had to leave my school for another one.

Most of the busing books deal with Boston, as it made the most violent headlines.   I've been approached by a few literary people to try and write my account of it, in the "mid-Atlantic", which is known for a less volatile but still pretty chaotic, and certainly less well-known version., and I might, when I get some got damn time.  

But it affected everyone, and mostly for the worse.  Some not so bad, others really bad.  VERY few said it was better.  And I'm talkin' both sides of the color chart.  It had its okay kinda good parts (like maybe .2%) but for the most part it was shitty.  For $9.95 I'll publish it.

Edited September 10, 2018 by phdhorn

[Incredulity 11654]

In the amusing racial anecdote department, about a decade ago at a friends home poker game I told a guy he couldn't renege on a bet.  Everyone looked at me like I had just set the room on fire.  I wasn't trying to push a boundry or stir shit up.  Everyone else just wasn't familiar with the term and as it sounds close to the N-word they all got freaked out.

[Helobious 9450]

I can confirm that the n-word is still used freely by many white college frat bro types. I also still hear “negrito” thrown around a lot by Hispanics in the valley. Also worth mentioning that I’ve heard “wetback” said by Hispanics way more than I’ve heard it from whites. Not a whole lot of solidarity among my ethnic group. 

[TwiceHorn 31438]

9 minutes ago, Helobious said:

I can confirm that the n-word is still used freely by many white college frat bro types. I also still hear “negrito” thrown around a lot by Hispanics in the valley. Also worth mentioning that I’ve heard “wetback” said by Hispanics way more than I’ve heard it from whites. Not a whole lot of solidarity among my ethnic group. 

Yeah, I have heard wetback used among hispanic cattle workers/cowboys in West Texas to refer to illegals.

[RollLeft 5040]

Mid 80's i was walking home from school when i heard one kid call another the N word.  I remember it bothering me and felt it was wrong.  That was the only time i've ever heard it said, maliciously, out loud. 

Then the 90's rap era lead to that word and all its deviations being tossed around between non blacks all the time, so there was that.  In High School it was no thing to use the terms like kike, spic, wetback, honky, polack, whigger etc.  It was all overt and and non malicious, almost mocking, use of the terms by a large number of guys i knew.  They were equal opportunity offenders.    

At UT welcome weekend, or whatever it was called, some girl opened up in some group activity that she was from Westlake and had experienced racism adding specifically from white people.  I remember thinking the whole thing was weird.  Anyway she said some mom asked if she could take her home soon because her husband didn't approve of her kind.  Later heard the term sand _igger for the first time.

Lastly at the first big accounting firm i worked at I had a guy say I was the coolest and smartest hispanic guy he'd ever met.  I laughed with him, put my hand on his shoulder and said well that's what you get for going to Tech and not Texas.  

 

[NorthLoop 14181]

In HS in the late 90s I was getting my hair cut at a good ole boy barber shop when a black kid came in. He worked at the grocery store across the street and came to work with some word or design shaved into his head. They told him it was against the dress code and to go across the street and have it fixed. The barbers refused. Told the kid they didn't have the right clippers for that. After he left the main guy said something like, "You know our customer base. I can't be seen cutting a nigger's hair." To which all the old men in there agreed.  It was eye opening.

[High Plains Drifter 11031]

3 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

Lebanese-Mexicans are where it's at....

 

Which is which? /no racist.

 

I heard "nigger in the white house" only 5 or 10 years ago.

I heard much much worse from my cousins, uncles, aunts, grandparents when I was a kid. Never heard it from either parent, to their credit.

[Cheeseweasel 26438]

1 hour ago, UTCzech III said:

Oh, and there was a certain variation to the "Daniel Boone was a man" song" that may have been a tad racist...

Damn. I'd forgot that one. I remember hearing it (70's?), but can't remember the context. 

[UTCzech III 2907]

No context, just a little kiddie singalong.  I'll just say, the bear was bigger, and ol' Daniel ended up in a tree.

[TwiceHorn 31438]

8 minutes ago, UTCzech III said:

No context, just a little kiddie singalong.  I'll just say, the bear was bigger, and ol' Daniel ended up in a tree.

Ran like a chigger up a tree.

Do chiggers run?

 

 

Edited September 10, 2018 by TwiceHorn

[Brisketexan 105069]

1 hour ago, Incredulity said:

In the amusing racial anecdote department, about a decade ago at a friends home poker game I told a guy he couldn't renege on a bet.  Everyone looked at me like I had just set the room on fire.  I wasn't trying to push a boundry or stir shit up.  Everyone else just wasn't familiar with the term and as it sounds close to the N-word they all got freaked out.

Sounds like your friends' teachers were niggardly with their vocabulary instruction over the years.

55 minutes ago, Helobious said:

I can confirm that the n-word is still used freely by many white college frat bro types. I also still hear “negrito” thrown around a lot by Hispanics in the valley. Also worth mentioning that I’ve heard “wetback” said by Hispanics way more than I’ve heard it from whites. Not a whole lot of solidarity among my ethnic group. 

 

45 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Yeah, I have heard wetback used among hispanic cattle workers/cowboys in West Texas to refer to illegals.

My cousin from Eagle Pass -- brown skin, accented English -- was a Border Patrol agent for a while.  He was the biggest "wetback hunter" I've ever seen.  Honestly, I think he just loved the thrill of the hunt/chase, it wasn't anything particularly personal (we used to hunt (deer, ducks, dove, quail, rabbits) a lot together growing up).  He'd come home to Eagle Pass on days off, and he'd get bored.  He'd go up to the local station, and tell the guys "wanna come with me?  I got an idea where some wetbacks might be hiding."  He knew all the nooks and crannies of the local rail yard, could find 8-10 every time.  And yeah, he used the term wetback.

Hispanics are a lot more fractured lot than folks might think -- they're separated by different nationalities (mexicans vs. various central americans, for example), different status (recent immigrant, long-time resident, legal vs. illegal).

[Art Vandelay 1712]

Growing up in a small town in North Texas in the 1970s & 80s, I heard all the ones mentioned in this thread pretty regularly, including the eeny meeny, miney, moe rhyme.

Everyone used the term "wetback", including (and maybe especially) the hispanic kids. One kid in middle school, who was well-liked and popular, was half-white/half-black. Everyone called him Higger or Wigger, to his face, but not maliciously (as weird as that sounds). If it bothered him, he didn't show it, he just laughed along.

When I was a kid, the n-word was forbidden in our house, and I never heard my parents use it. Unfortunately, in my Dad's grumpy old age, he has let one fly now and again.

My grandpa, an Irish-Catholic who lived in Kansas City, used to refer to one of his neighbors as a "good nigger." He genuinely like the guy, but it was as if he felt it necessary to qualify it -- i.e., "a good guy (for a black person)."

Not long after Obama was elected, my other grandpa remarked to me that "all black and brown people are the same, and now we've got one in the White House."

My grandma, German through and through, once said to me "Can you believe Joe Lieberman could be vice president?" I replied with something like "well, what's so bad about him, grandma?" She stared at me for a few seconds, wide-eyed, then leaned in close and whispered: "He's a Jew!!"

 

[Burt 4080]

1 hour ago, Incredulity said:

In the amusing racial anecdote department, about a decade ago at a friends home poker game I told a guy he couldn't renege on a bet.  Everyone looked at me like I had just set the room on fire.  I wasn't trying to push a boundry or stir shit up.  Everyone else just wasn't familiar with the term and as it sounds close to the N-word they all got freaked out.

Is that kind of like an Indian giver?

[Incredulity 11654]

First place I really ran into what I would describe a pure racial hatred was in about 2000 in Atlanta.  Was in a casual conversation with a guy on a project and he went off on "the N-words" inside the loop.  Pretty eye opening, just cold pure hatred.

Previous to that most of my experiences had been off color jokes, between friends slurs or really heated arguments. 

[Monty86 60]

2 hours ago, Cousin Strawberry said:

Was the second portion of the chant ever used?  "If the white don't win, we all jump in!"

In my part of Houston the 2nd line was "Come on (name), beat that white!"  Of course the person who was named in that line wasn't liked as much as "that white."

[llanoflash 151]

 

[Brisketexan 105069]

3 minutes ago, Monty86 said:

In my part of Houston the 2nd line was "Come on (name), beat that white!"  Of course the person who was named in that line wasn't liked as much as "that white."

That's the version I heard.  I also heard the "if the white don't win, we all jump in" version, but only once or twice.

1 minute ago, llanoflash said:

 

Ahh, Rick Perry's hunting lease.

[Art Vandelay 1712]

Just remembered another instance that was maybe the first time I perceived racist behavior and it had a profound effect on me.

My Dad was a pilot for Delta Airlines so my family was always flying through Atlanta. We flew standby on employee passes so that meant we sometimes didn't get on if flights were full (although it was much easier to do then than now). Anyway, we were trying to get to Kansas City to visit my mom's family and we were stranded in the Atlanta airport late one night. I would guess I was maybe 7 or 8 years old. The airport was mostly empty and I was sitting at the gate with my family while my parents figured out our next move.

This old black man, who looked to be in his 70s or 80s, was sweeping the floor near us, and he was moving very slowly. A Delta employee, probably in his 30s or 40s, struts over and says, in a very southern accent "[whatever the man's name was], you better get to moving that broom before it rots in your hand!" Then he laughed and made a few other snide remarks and walked off. He didn't use any racial slurs but it was clear by the way he spoke to the old man that he had zero respect for him. I can't imagine he would've spoken to a white man twice his age like that.

I will never forget the look on that old man's face. It was a combination of sheer hatred and sorrow. He glanced at me and I saw real sadness in his eyes and I remember just feeling sick about it, even at 7 years old or whatever I was. This was in the late 1970s, so that old man no doubt had spent his entire life dealing with assholes like that, and much, much worse, I'm sure. Especially if he was from that area. I never forgot about that.

[Apep 645]

Back in the late '80s, I first heard the n-word from my then-stepmother and her dad, including the Daniel Boone song. They were rednecks from Burleson.  Can't say I've heard the n-word from too many others since then. The most shocking time I heard it was about 12 years back. My ex-wife's grandmother was talking about doing some landscaping work at her house and how she "hired a n-r" to do the work and he was the nicest person.

My maternal grandparents are Hispanic, but both grew up in black neighborhoods. I've never heard them say the N-word, but I've heard my grandfather talk about wetbacks and my grandmother talk about how blacks and non-blacks should stick to their own race when it comes to marriage. Given that two of her sisters, one brother, and both of her children married whites, I've always been a bit confused about where she draws the lines for race, but not really.

[Catdaddyhorn 3444]

Reading through this thread and many like it on message boards over the years it's clear that for many white people, racism is mostly seen as individual people being mean or evil to other individuals. Or they see it as the biggest issue. It's not, nor is the existence or disappearance of these individual acts a worthwhile indicator of overall racism in society.

 

 

[Incredulity 11654]

2 minutes ago, Catdaddyhorn said:

Reading through this thread and many like it on message boards over the years it's clear that for many white people, racism is mostly seen as individual people being mean or evil to other individuals. Or they see it as the biggest issue. It's not, nor is the existence or disappearance of these individual acts a worthwhile indicator of overall racism in society.

 

 

I don't think this thread was about diagnosing racism in all its form, but in regards to some of its casual existence.  Most specifically in the not to recent history.

[Brisketexan 105069]

2 minutes ago, Incredulity said:

I don't think this thread was about diagnosing racism in all its form, but in regards to some of its casual existence.  Most specifically in the not to recent history.

Yep, that was my limited point.  That is, some perspective based on what we actually observed in the real world, and not that long ago.  AND, turning that perspective around, and thinking about it from the perspective of the denigrated minority in the conversation.

[Brisketexan 105069]

....too late to edit above....

That's not to take away from other conversations as to what the casual presence of such racism indicates in a broader social context -- e.g., if the good folks who run our institutions talk and think that way so casually, do we REALLY think they give minorities a fair shake in their business affairs?  But that's not the conversation I was looking to have on this point.  This one is more on the observational, our perceptions of it, and what we did with them.

For example, I would like to say that I was some sort of racial justice hero -- that I spoke up and spoke out against what was wrong.  But, mostly, I didn't.  As a kid, I didn't really realize the scope/impact of what was being said.  And as I got older, I was either so caught off-guard that I didn't know how to react, or I purposefully chose not the rock the boat (I didn't make a scene with my FIL the weekend of my BIL's wedding).  Just some perspective, and things for me (and us) to chew on.

[ImissWallyPryor 9046]

3 hours ago, South Austin said:

A lot of ice cream?

I recall onion rings as being his weakness. 

[Lhorn 4911]

4 hours ago, 'stache said:

I knew it as "n-word" rigging before Jerry rigging.  It then turned to "redneck engineering."

I was talking about this with some friends once and one said his grandma used to call Brazillian Nuts "n-word toes."  I had never heard that one.  Said she wasn't hateful, it's just what they were called to her.

My dad use the term "african american engineering" a few times when I was a kid.  So politically correct.

Beyond that, I've heard very little blatantly racist stuff in decades.  Graduated HS in League City Texas in 1990 and its wasn't a common thing (at least the blatant stuff) at all.

The most blatantly racist stuff I heard was from my uncle in Milwaukee.  

[Sandman 3403]

The first time I heard someone use the N word was 1986. We had just came back to the states after 6 years in Germany, I was about to turn 13. We were at my mom's parent's house, just outside of Denver. I was catching up on the shows I used to watch before we went overseas, like Good Times and What's Happening. It was great! Then my grandfather (whom I didn't know well, only met him 5 or 6 times total in my life) said "Ok, that's enough of those N___ shows." He didn't say it in a mean way, pretty matter-of-factly, really. My mom looked like she'd seen a ghost and admonished him for it. He quickly apologized.

My dad is from southern Indiana, which can be pretty racist. Mom was from Iowa, Her folks moved to Colorado in the 60s. Neither of my parents used that word around me when I was growing up. Dad would let it slip out sometimes when I was an adult and we were back in Indiana and around his brothers, who let it fly whenever. I grew up on military bases in the 70s and 80s with blacks, Asians, (not too many Hispanics) and we never had race problems. I never heard any of the old sayings like N___ knocking until we moved to Oklahoma in the late 80s.  Talk about culture shock.

[Catdaddyhorn 3444]

I don't think this thread was about diagnosing racism in all its form, but in regards to some of its casual existence.  Most specifically in the not to recent history.

No doubt, and I don't want to derail the thread because it does help with the overarching view that Brisket noted up top, but my experience is that this is the terrain where white people feel most comfortable dealing with the the subject (ie on an individual/individual actions basis). How many times have we heard sentiments such as "all we need to do is wait for the old, racist, mean people to die and everything will be better"? All the while the beliefs, structures, and systems they built are left behind and the years that pass since they were first erected further obscure the impact they continue to have.

[Catdaddyhorn 3444]

My dad use the term "african american engineering" a few times when I was a kid.  So politically correct.
Beyond that, I've heard very little blatantly racist stuff in decades.  Graduated HS in League City Texas in 1990 and its wasn't a common thing (at least the blatant stuff) at all.
The most blatantly racist stuff I heard was from my uncle in Milwaukee.  

Could sworn you were black. At the very least someone with a username similar to yours was black on the old forum.

[Lhorn 4911]

Just now, Catdaddyhorn said:

10 minutes ago, Lhorn said:

My dad use the term "african american engineering" a few times when I was a kid.  So politically correct.
Beyond that, I've heard very little blatantly racist stuff in decades.  Graduated HS in League City Texas in 1990 and its wasn't a common thing (at least the blatant stuff) at all.
The most blatantly racist stuff I heard was from my uncle in Milwaukee.  

Could sworn you were black. At the very least someone with a username similar to yours was black on the old forum.

Not black.  

[Art Vandelay 1712]

12 minutes ago, Lhorn said:

The most blatantly racist stuff I heard was from my uncle in Milwaukee.  

[Brisketexan 105069]

2 minutes ago, Catdaddyhorn said:

36 minutes ago, Incredulity said:

I don't think this thread was about diagnosing racism in all its form, but in regards to some of its casual existence.  Most specifically in the not to recent history.

No doubt, and I don't want to derail the thread because it does help with the overarching view that Brisket noted up top, but my experience is that this is the terrain where white people feel most comfortable dealing with the the subject (ie on an individual/individual actions basis). How many times have we heard sentiments such as "all we need to do is wait for the old, racist, mean people to die and everything will be better"? All the while the beliefs, structures, and systems they built are left behind and the years that pass since they were first erected further obscure the impact they continue to have.

Well, that's part of my takeaway - that while it's gotten better (look, the verbiage I heard in the 70s-80s surely was a LOT worse in the 50s-60s), it's not a "oh, that's all in the distant past" sort of thing.  Sure, we try to say "well, to the extent any racism still exists, it's among ignorant backwoods morons," but that's plainly not true.  Folks like us -- college-educated, successful types -- experienced it directly, and not that long ago.  And that is particularly true for those of us who are minorities -- minorities experienced it as the TARGETS.  That's something they carry with them TODAY, right now.  And on a personal level, I think we'd be real assholes not to acknowledge that, and realize that it's significantly impacted folks who are busy being participants in society right now.

There's a tendency to look back 50 years, or 100 years, and see HORRIFIC racism (white hoods, lynching, beating people up and killing them in Mississippi, etc.), and conclude "well, THAT stuff doesn't happen anymore, so we fixed it!"  Meanwhile, the n-bomb was casually dropped by what we'd think of as GOOD PEOPLE rather recently.  Maybe the black guy doesn't have to be so afraid of being lynched anymore.  That's good.  But he still has to be MORE afraid than the rest of us about being pulled over, maybe being shot by a cop (the more encounters you have with a cop, the higher your chances of an encounter going wrong), discriminated against in a hiring decision made by one of those guys who dropped the n-bomb with us on the playground, but doesn't feel that guilty about it, etc. etc.  We can't understand it on the broad social level until we realize what it is and look at it on the granular level, and realize how pervasive it really was/is.

[Guest]

6 hours ago, BurdineBandit said:

I grew up there in the 90s/2000s and I definitely heard it a few times. Guess we cancel each other out.

Very rarely did I hear it growing up in Westlake. More frequent in college, but those who used it did so in a joke-telling fashion, then hung out with black athletes. Totally hypocritical. I would imagine they’d be embarrassed if secret audio were to emerge, and do not shrug their shoulders. 

[Guest]

2 hours ago, NorthLoop said:

In HS in the late 90s I was getting my hair cut at a good ole boy barber shop when a black kid came in. He worked at the grocery store across the street and came to work with some word or design shaved into his head. They told him it was against the dress code and to go across the street and have it fixed. The barbers refused. Told the kid they didn't have the right clippers for that. After he left the main guy said something like, "You know our customer base. I can't be seen cutting a nigger's hair." To which all the old men in there agreed.  It was eye opening.

Houston or Austin?  This wouldn’t be Sportsman’s Barbershop on 38th and Jefferson, would it?

[ImissWallyPryor 9046]

3 hours ago, Incredulity said:

In the amusing racial anecdote department, about a decade ago at a friends home poker game I told a guy he couldn't renege on a bet.  Everyone looked at me like I had just set the room on fire.  I wasn't trying to push a boundry or stir shit up.  Everyone else just wasn't familiar with the term and as it sounds close to the N-word they all got freaked out.

At least you didn’t say he was behaving niggardly for being afraid of losing a few bucks. 

[ImissWallyPryor 9046]

2 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

Ran like a chigger up a tree.

Do chiggers run?

 

 

Big +rep for a Fess Parker (Texas Ex) reference. 

[NorthLoop 14181]

9 minutes ago, Rex Kramer said:

Houston or Austin?  This wouldn’t be Sportsman’s Barbershop on 38th and Jefferson, would it?

No this was in Paris, TX. However the barbershop was a carbon copy of Sportsman's. I imagine there's a version of that barbershop in every small town in Texas. 

[Bevo 13567]

17 minutes ago, ImissWallyPryor said:

At least you didn’t say he was behaving niggardly for being afraid of losing a few bucks. 

Well, Brisket said denigrate earlier. You would think he would know better.

Google shows Latin de - away, niger - black, so denigrat - blacken or make dark.

[Brisketexan 105069]

Just now, Bevo said:

Well, Brisket said denigrate earlier. You would think he would know better.

Google shows Latin de - away, niger - black, so denigrat - blacken or make dark.

[Lhorn 4911]

I remember in grade school in the 80s having to read passages from a history book outloud in front of the rest of the class and some kids expressed reservation at using the word "negro." Although it was an acceptable word, it still seemed odd.

[Guest]

7 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

I was in elementary and middle school in the 70s and 80s.  Catholic school in Houston, among mostly white, relatively well-off (generally upper middle class) folks.  Good people.  Fine upstanding members of the community.  Regular churchgoers.  Mr. and Mrs. America, as it were.

But this weekend, seeing a scene of a fight on teh news brought back a memory.  When two kids got in a fight in the school yard, what did the crowd chant?  Yep.  "Fight, fight!  A n_____r and a white!"  Or maybe you knocked on someone's door and ran away before they answered?  That was "n_____r knocking."  And those fireworks, the ones that shot off sideways, screaming?  Those were "n_____r chasers."

This was not back in the white hood and lynchin' old days.  This was 1970s and 80s, decent and honorable neighborhoods of Houston.

Now, I WILL say that we had obviously progressed beyond SOME of the racist verbiage -- for example, I never knew the rhyme as anything BUT "eenie meenie miney moe, catch a TIGER by his toe" (yeah, I didn't know of the previous version with "n_____r" instead of "tiger" until a few years ago -- still learnin' stuff).

So, my black peers -- great guys, all-american types, etc.  Hell, Snacks on this board -- remember that they grew up where these terms were casually bandied about as if they were no big deal. Because, to the group using them, they WEREN'T a big deal.  I think it's important to try to step outside our own perspective, and do our best to imagine what our neighbor's perspective is like.  And for your black neighbor, his perspective includes growing up in an America where, while MAYBE folks were circumspect enough not to call him n_____r to his face, they used the term around him quite casually.  The signs of relegating black folks to clear second-class citizenship, and you'd better not forget it, boy, were all over.  That seems like something to take into account when we say "hey, folks make too big a deal out of racism.  Sure, there's a few racists still out there, but they don't count for much."  That's just not true.  The folks who were chanting those things in the school yard are now business owners, lawyers, politicians, doctors, CEOs, etc.  And yes, some of them are mortified by the memory of the things they may have said as kids.  But plenty of them shrug their shoulders and say "well, that's just how it was."

Anyway, it just struck me this weekend.  We tend to think of open racism as something belonging in the 50s and 60s, and lunch counters in the deep south and Arkansas schools being integrated.  But it was alive and well in hardworking Houston in the 70s and 80s, too.  I hadn't really thought of that in a long time.  But I'm thinking about it now.

Heard all that shit and more.  N-jokes were very commonplace.  Brazil nuts were N-toes.  I was at a banquet for work in the early 90's and they had Yankee candles for the wives.  One husband smell their glass of wax and proclaimed, "That smells like N-hair."  Go on the other side of the tracks, and you're in "N-town."

I have some relatives who still talk like this, albeit not in the open like back then. It isn't limited to disparaging African Americans.

I guess that's why i get pissy when someone accuses me of that horseshit.  That ain't me.  Not even remotely close.  Never have been...

 

But I AM privileged... alegedly.

 

[ImissWallyPryor 9046]

The creek in the top left of this photo is called Squaw Humper Creek, one of several geographic features in The Badlands of South Dakota named after a white man who had a Lakota woman for his wife.

I wonder if he felt insulted by this. My guess is a friend pulled one over on him or an enemy got even. 

[Deej 76755]

My grandfather was born in Germany in 1895. Came to Houston when he was 5. I remember visiting him when he was in his 80's and he'd be watching Family Feud and get so upset when Richard Dawson would kiss black contestants.

Settle down, gramps.

[Spur08 382]

Whenever my dad tells a story about someone, he feels it necessary to state the person's ethnicity. Never really understood the relevance...

[Armybrat 40822]

Racist talk was not allowed in my family while growing up in the 1940s & '50s. Mom would not tolerate it, nor any other kind of rude behavior. Did hear my  paternal grandparents use the N-word once in a while, but it wasn't done out of hatred,  just country ignorance - there wasn't a black person within 20 miles of their hick hometown.

Didn't hear much, if any, of that in high school (went to an integrated Catholic school on the St. Edwards U. campus in South Austin).

Got to UT, and during Roundup in my freshman year saw the Cowboys (or Silver Spurs - don't recall which) put on a black-face skit at a variety show in Gregory Gym. Thought it wasn't funny, but then again I didn't think much of frats & the like. Did take note of the growing Civil Rights Movement of the mid-'60s and sympathized, but I was mostly preoccupied with getting laid, not being a SJW.

During that time I went to a private party at a friend of a friend's apartment in Houston. Heard an Ol' Miss student bragging about how he and his dorm buddies harassed James Meredith every night with all kinds of noise, banging on his door, & assorted assholiness. Thought the white trash dude was just that, and a goddamned creep.

Never understood the prejudice against Hispanics, as we had been stationed for years in Puerto Rico & San Antonio, and later lived in Mexico. Plus many of my high school classmates & friends at St. Eds were from East Austin & Central America.

But yeah, I laughed at a few racist/ethnic /religious jokes now & then -  "my crowd" wasn't into that at all.

Edited September 11, 2018 by Armybrat
typos, old shit, etc.

[FartingMonk 3606]

Shit, I was at the bar and a nike commercial came on.  This older gentlemen says, I'm not wearing Nikes anymore.  Fuck that N-word Kapernick for disrespecting the military.  I laughed at him and said you know you'd have a point if you didn't call him a n-word.  Now you're just a fucking racist.

[Knoxtnhorn 5971]

Heard it only occasionally when, by chance, I was at my paternal grandfather's house during a football game or boxing match.  

I called a kid "fag" once in middle school and my mom beat the shit out of me.  Didn't realize her brother had just come out of the closet.

Never even knew that anti-Semitism was a thing until watching 90210 in college and hearing a couple of guys yell, "Jew" whenever Andrea popped up on the screen.  

Guess I was pretty sheltered.

[Bevo 13567]

1 hour ago, Armybrat said:

Got to UT, and during Roundup in my freshman year saw the Cowboys (or Silver Spurs - don't recall which) put on a black-face skit at a variety show in Gregory Gym. Thought it wasn't funny, but then again I didn't think much of frats & the like. Did take note of the growing Civil Rights Movement of the mid-'60s and sympathized, but I was mostly preoccupied with getting laid, not being a SJW.

Only one of those organizations is frat-based.

[Armybrat 40822]

1 minute ago, Bevo said:

Only one of those organizations is frat-based.

They all looked alike to me through my GDI eyes, but I did drink the free beer at some of their parties.