Saturday, January 26, 2008

"Canadian " is the new N-word

The persistence and adaptability of racism in American life has been much in evidence recently. Some of it is familiar. Minister and Republican contender Mike Huckabee makes a totally crass appeal for white racist votes in South Carolina by defending the Confederate flag and, in the process, the anti-gay preacher expressed his desire to stick his pole up the a** of flag critics. Ron Paul, popular among some self-styled leftists, as well as freaked out libertarians.

Some of it is totally new.

According to an article in the National Post, a leading Canadian newspaper , it turns out that racists in the South and elsewhere have taken to using "Canadian" as code-word for African Americans.

a blogger in Cincinnati going by the name CincyBlurg reported that a black friend from the southeastern U.S. had recently discovered that she was being called a Canadian. "She told me a story of when she was working in a shop in the South and she overheard some of her customers complaining that they were always waited on by a Canadian at that place. She didn't understand what they were talking about and assumed they must be talking about someone else," the blogger wrote.

"After this happened several times with different patrons, she mentioned it to one of her co-workers. He told her that ‘Canadian' was the new derogatory term that racist Southerners were using to describe persons they would have previously referred to [with the N-word.]"

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