worryingly jolly batman (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
labellementeuse) wrote2009-04-23 11:50 am
labellementeuse) wrote2009-04-23 11:50 am
About that eskimo pie thing.
So, in New Zealand we have a couple of long-standing sweets called Eskimos - a kind of lolly, and an icecream (they're not related to each other at all.) An Inuit woman visited NZ recently and pointed out that this was, you know, kind of OFFENSIVE. Naturally, everyone has responded to this with the usual PC GONE MAD!1! nonsense.
This is a pathetic response. For a start, if we had any other culture represented in a comestible, ffs - well, we wouldn't. Little chocolates called Maoris? Or - well, insert any ethnic group here. No. Not possible. Think about how ridiculous and offensive that sounds to you and then think about why your response is so different.
AND THEN, on top of that ridiculousness. Eskimo is a kind of complicated word. It refers to a range of indigenous peoples of the top of North America. Some of them don't have a problem with it (Alaskans, apparently.) Some of them feel that Eskimo is a pejorative (Canada, Greenland.) Some of them aren't sure. My point is that the associations with this word are kind of a linguistic nightmare. It's not like having a lolly called Maori. It's a bit more like having a lolly called Horis (an offensive word in New Zealand for Maori, somewhat akin to nigger, perhaps a little milder.)
My point? COME THE FUCK ON, CADBURY. Don't you already make the same stuff as Penguins, anyway? Ugh.
This is a pathetic response. For a start, if we had any other culture represented in a comestible, ffs - well, we wouldn't. Little chocolates called Maoris? Or - well, insert any ethnic group here. No. Not possible. Think about how ridiculous and offensive that sounds to you and then think about why your response is so different.
AND THEN, on top of that ridiculousness. Eskimo is a kind of complicated word. It refers to a range of indigenous peoples of the top of North America. Some of them don't have a problem with it (Alaskans, apparently.) Some of them feel that Eskimo is a pejorative (Canada, Greenland.) Some of them aren't sure. My point is that the associations with this word are kind of a linguistic nightmare. It's not like having a lolly called Maori. It's a bit more like having a lolly called Horis (an offensive word in New Zealand for Maori, somewhat akin to nigger, perhaps a little milder.)
My point? COME THE FUCK ON, CADBURY. Don't you already make the same stuff as Penguins, anyway? Ugh.
no subject
Proper Afghan biscuits should not be lost to the world. Those horrible ones you get from shops that are just like hardish round things covered in melted chocolate do not deserve the name.
FWIW, child in question gets hassle for "difference" all the time and unfortunately I don't think it is *ever* going away. Even well-meaning stuff hurts - "where are you from", "how come you can speak English without an accent", "why don't you wear a scarf", etc etc. The eating of biscuits is nothing to when a friend of her mother's opined that "we should bomb the lot of them" after 9/11. She was eight then.
I tell you, having a different ethnicity quasi-niece has opened my eyes a LOT.