Racial Slurs, or not?

Growing up in a mixed-race school in central Indiana taught me heaps about what to say and what not to say and how much depends on who's saying what to whom. Got that?

Then, living in Zimbabwe where I was the obvious minority, taught me how to work the system with my friend Elizabeth. She would often ask me to wait in the truck if she thought she'd get better treatment from a shopkeeper. Or she'd send me in when we thought that my skin or foreignness might be to our advantage. We discussed our use of racism and whether it was ethical. Some days we just reckoned it was the best way to get things done and still get home before dark.

Since living in New Zealand, I've learned a plethora of new terms. I've also been told by my Maori friends that I should choose carefully when and where I use the terms and that our joking together might get me in trouble when I was in an unfamiliar crowd.

In other words, a coconut can call a coconut a coconut, but a strange Pakeha probably ought not. That's just like in Anderson when I was a kid. I could describe my friend Damita, using her skin tones for better identification, but tone and timing was important.

racial descriptions are not always racial slurs

I even got in the middle of a misunderstanding when I was editor of my high school newspaper. We'd printed a term that was derogatory toward black people. Next thing I knew, the sales table was surrounded by some angry students from the west side of town. I jumped up on the table, scooted the scared white girl down the hall and faced the crowd. Fortunately the front row was mostly students I'd gone to primary school with. The conflict turned into a conversation between friends and we realised the error of our ways. They knew I wouldn't print that phrase if I'd known what it meant. The culprit was the anonymous student who'd submitted the snippet and we never found out who it was.

In Zimbabwe I was a murungu(white) until I could speak the language. Then I became a munhu, a person. Far enough. You can't talk to a tree or truck or mountain and expect relationship. If you can't communicate with another human are they a person? Well, not in the understanding of some of the villagers I met.

One day Elizabeth, Judith and I were on our way to town when we came to a river crossing where we saw little boys swimming. The mother & nurse came out in my friends and they shouted at the boys to get out of the water or the diseases lurking there would get them. The boys, unfazed by the women's warnings, just looked at us and said, "Vanhu vaviri ne murungu!" Translated: Two people and a white.

Judith & Elizabeth cracked up while I sputtered and fumed! I shouted back in chiShona and the boys changed their tune, hiding under the cement slab of a bridge until we drove away. My friends got a lot of mileage out of that event, retelling the story several times.

My point is, racial descriptions are not always racial slurs. A recent article in the New Zealand Herald had the following quote in an article on building better understanding between Chinese and Kiwis living in New Zealand.

"But those who are born in New Zealand have got a totally different attitude - our loyalty is to New Zealand, we are primarily Western people, which is also why we call ourselves 'bananas'." Kai Luey, chairman of the New Zealand Chinese Association Auckland

The term 'banana' is used to describe someone who is yellow (Chinese) on the outside, but are predominantly Westerners, or white, inside.

A database of racial slurs includes many nicknames that could be inflammatory, depending on the context in which they are used. Others are harmless. The database does not give the context and so could be a bit dangerous as it stands alone.

If you listen at all to Newstalk ZB you'll know that many people in NZ don't like to be called Kiwis. Crikey!

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