Reply #4: I heard last week that a term I've always called myself and used about others is offensive/racist. [View All]

[jobycom]

Nick Saban told a joke using a phrase for someone from Louisiana. It's a term I've always used about myself. My parents told it to me, and use it, too. When I meet someone from Louisiana, we often use the term to express a common link.

But on a sports show involving some northerner, I heard it was a horrible, degrading, racist term, and that Saban was a bad, bad man for using it. Literally, that was the first time I'd ever heard anyone claim it was a bad word. Most who did claim so were from outside Louisiana, and most (not all) callers from Louisiana said "That's silly, we use the term all the time, it's not even racial, much less racist."

Saban apparently used it in a joke, the way people in Texas tell Aggie or redneck jokes.

As for Biden, it's not that I think he's racist, it's that I think he shows bad judgement and a lack of awareness of the issue with his racial gaffs--not just the "clean, articulate" comment, but also the one about needing an accent to shop in some store (I forget the details). He's not attuned to the issue, which implies he's out of touch, or that he's never bothered to adjust his attitudes as he's encountered race issues in the past. And, to me, it does imply that he has a view that assumes white is the norm, and everything else is a variation. Obama, to him, stands out because he's more "clean and articulate" than black candidates like Sharpton, Jackson, Mosley-Braun, etc. Accents and ethnic backgrounds stand out as notable features of a person's identity. I don't think he's bad--not like Reagan, for instance--but I don't think he's suitable for the job.